What Do People Really Think About You?

Since Holton & Associates are all about protecting you (Bitdefender) and image (Serif), we thought we’d combine the two to give you information on how to protect your online image.

As harmless as it seems, the things you do online can affect your reputation offline. This is more than privacy issues, so make sure you put your best digital foot forward.

The very nice people at Microsoft care about your online profile and ensuring you remain in good standing, and have compiled a list of guidelines for safeguarding your reputation. They’re very friendly like that.  

A survey conducted by Blueocean Market Intelligence (of 5000 people with a wide variance of online behaviours and attitudes), has revealed some rather alarming results. Respondents from Canada, America, Spain, Ireland and Germany revealed that only 67% feel in control of their online reputations and only 44% have ever given active consideration to the long-term consequences of their online activities.    

Brendon Lynch, Chief Privacy Officer at Microsoft, has commented that “Your online reputation is shaped by your interactions in the online world and spans that disparate and varied data about you, whether created and posted by you or others. This information can have a lasting presence online, and can affect your life in many ways – from maintaining friendships to helping you keep or land a new job”. The man’s job is all things privacy – he knows what he’s talking about. 

So how exactly do you make sure your online persona matches the “real” you? By following these guidelines:

• Be observant and, from time to time, search all variants of your name in popular search engines. Make sure the results are reflective of who you want to share with the world. 
•  Keep your professional and personal profiles separate. 
•  Adjust your privacy settings and make sure only the right people have access to your private information. 
• Think before you share. And make sure your friends and family respect what you do and do not want out there in the ether; 14% of the people surveyed have been negatively impacted by the online activities of OTHER people. 
•  Be a good digital citizen; the internet has a long memory, so be respectful with, and about, everyone with whom you engage.

It seems so simple, but very few people look after and cultivate their online image as much as their “real-world” one. Considering that, these days, most people live online - it’s scary to think about…