Don't Shoot Your Transparency All Over Me!

We talk alot about transparency in the blogging and social media world. In terms of being a business owner or a professional it is important to be transparent in everything you do in the online environment. Why? People want to know YOU not necessarily what you do.. that is secondary.

I haven’t really thought much about the concepts of transparency recently until reading a post by Louis Gray entitled Being Transparent is Fine but Please Use Smart Filtering. It talks about where you should/could draw the line when it comes to sharing personal information on the web. Louis talks about how he only shares personal information when it is relevant to the conversation or where it adds overall value to his online brand or persona.

“If you want to be transparent, and build a personal brand you are proud of, you must always be thinking about filtering what gets into your stream, and how it could benefit you and your audience.”

As I told some Purdue students a couple of weeks ago..

Everything is recorded online. Everything is searchable. Be careful what you post because it could come back to hurt your personal brand.

There is a fine line between being transparent and being ANNOYING. There is a reason why you have people following your blog or your profiles on multiple social networks. Don’t dissapoint and be proactive in what you share.

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