By : Robin Low

your digital FOOTPRINT

are you using social media?

If you are a student and a young adult, the chances are – Yes, you are using Social Media to connect with your friends.

Do you have a blog, Facebook account, Twitter account? Do you leave comments on blogs or forums?

If any of the answer to the above question is yes, you may be leaving behind digital footprints.

digital footprintInternet users are becoming more aware of their digital footprint

Most internet users are not concerned about the amount of information available

Most do not take steps to limit that information

Fully 60% of internet users say they are not worried about how much information is available about them online

Majority of online adults (61%) do not feel compelled to limit the amount of information that can be found about them online.

2008 PEW RESEARCH CENTER

I know you

Anyone can tell a great deal about you from your digital footprints.

- where you've been- where you are- who you know- where you work- what your hobbies are- what you think about certain issues-and much more.

why should you be concerned?HR departments, recruiters, universities are searching the Internet when you Interact with them.

They're looking to:a) validate what your actual resume saidb) learn more about you … in a non office environmentIn effect, every job seeker of the future will be not unlike a political candidate. Hopefully their closets are squeaky clean, and if not, devise strategies to address it.

GOOGLE is a very common tool!In essence, your digital footprint is your resume.

generation Y, the millennials

Gen Y, are major drivers of the next three trends.

They are multimedia whizzes who can produce and upload audio and video as easily as their older counterparts type a letter.

Fifty percent of them communicate via text-messaging, and most prefer that mode and instant-messaging over e-mail.

The ways they communicate and keep in touch with others are inspiring new online ways to connect. Of the Millennials' ubiquitous participation in social-networking sites,

social mediaIt is common for Gen Y to use Social Media.

- Facebook- Twitter- LinkedIn- MySpace- Blogs- Wikipedia- Online Forums- YouTube- Flickr

why should you be concerned?

properties of social media

1. Persistence. What you say sticks around. This is great for asynchronicity, not so great when everything you've ever said has gone down on your permanent record.

2. Replicability. You can copy and paste a conversation from one medium to another, adding to the persistent nature of it. This is great for being able to share information, but it is also at the crux of rumor spreading. Worse: while you can replicate a conversation, it's much easier to alter what's been said than to confirm that it's an accurate portrayal of the original conversation.

• 3. Searchability. It is quite easy to track someone down or to find someone as a result of searching for content. Search changes the landscape, making information available at our fingertips. This is great in some circumstances, but when trying to avoid those who hold power over you, it may be less than ideal.

• 4. Scalability. Social media scales things in new ways. Conversations that were intended for just a friend or two might spiral out of control and scale to the entire school or, if it is especially embarrassing, the whole world. Of course, just because something can scale doesn't mean that it will.

• 5. (de)locatability. With the mobile, you are dislocated from any particular point in space, but at the same time, location-based technologies make location much more relevant. This paradox means that we are simultaneously more and less connected to physical space.

properties of social media (cont)

dynamics of social media

1. Invisible Audiences. We are used to being able to assess the people around us when we're speaking. We adjust what we're saying to account for the audience. Social media introduces all sorts of invisible audiences.

There are lurkers who are present at the moment but whom we cannot see, but there are also visitors who access our content at a later date or in a different environment than where we first produced them.

As a result, we have to present ourselves and communicate without fully understanding the potential or actual audience. The potential invisible audiences can be stifling.

dynamics of social media (cont)

2. Collapsed Contexts. Connected to this is the collapsing of contexts. In choosing what to say when, we account for both the audience and the context more generally. Social media brings all of these contexts crashing into one another and it's often difficult to figure out what's appropriate, let alone what can be understood.

3. Blurring of Public and Private. Finally, there's the blurring of public and private. These distinctions are normally structured around audience and context with certain places or conversations being "public" or "private." These distinctions are much harder to manage when you have to contend with the shifts in how the environment is organized.

google youFor those in the job market, it's critical to learn how to monitor and manage electronic information about yourself. While you can't control all the information out there, there are some steps you can take to ensure that your digital footprint presents an accurate, favorable, and professional image of you.

Google yourself (yes google is now a verb) and find out what information about you — if any — is already online.

You may find very little is linked to your name, or you may discover much more information about you than you anticipated.

YOU

If an online search of yourself reveals items that you wouldn't want hiring managers to see, such as photos or commentary you posted in an open forum, contact the person who posted the information or the website administrator to ask that it be taken down.

It is never too late or too early to start and rebrand yourself.

Twitter: dmediaacademy

Blog: http://digitalmediaacademy.blogspot.com/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/digitalmediaacademy

Do you know your digital footprint?

Are you managing it yet?