My digital identity is dispersed throughout several media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Pinterest, and Google+. I recently started my own personal lifestyle blog, Balancing on Honey, and have become engrossed with building up my digital identity. I want my online appearance to reflect who I am and what I strive for. As a job seeking individual, I figured I should also build up my online presence to enforce recruitment. I treat my digital self like a business and market what I have to offer through my online profiles. Especially since recruiters are going to look anyway…
Well, that got me thinking, if I am putting so much effort into creating a positive image of who I am online, then businesses and organizations would be out of their minds not to do the same. Most businesses, especially the bigger corporations, see the obvious importance of having an online presence and participating through social media. Businesses and organizations are creating their own influential, digital identity on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. They are using it to reach individuals and build repertoire through participatory conversation, engaging in their community, and maintaining accessibility.
Anyone with a product, service, cause or mission should make it known through their online presence. Information organizations should not count themselves out of this innovative trend. Observing my local public library, I would say they are still somewhat under the radar with their social media presence. They have a website with weekly blog posts and a Facebook fan page. The activity is quiet and demonstrates little participation within the community. The library is posting, but are they listening? Having an active online identity sets up a platform for participation.
A model from Dean Giustini’s Module II, Participate, demonstrates that all social media should start with listening. This means looking for keywords and conversations going on in the community. Then, the next step is participation. This is the step where content and information is posted. Once participating, you next engage in conversation and reach out to individuals.
Dean Giustini’s Social Media Model
- Listen
- Participate
- Engage
A lot of the time listening is forgotten and organizations dive straight into participation by posting their own information. I read an article the other day called The 1 Thing Every Business Executive Should Know About Social Media. In this Article the author describes a time when a hotel was listening on social media and led to at least $10,000 in revenue. All they did was listen and track keywords from their competitors.
“The secret to social media success isn’t in talking – it’s in listening.” – Dave Kerpen