What is digital identity? 

Digital identity is the entirety of an individual’s electronic traceable activities, interactions, and transactions across digital platforms and devices. It showcases your presence on social media and the internet’s role of encapsulating your digital footprint. Essentially, digital identity incorporates your full presence across media platforms and is your footprint on the internet. It shapes an online representation of you through usernames, social media profiles and any content you create or interact with online. Our digital identity is crafted through the data we choose to leave behind in our digital footprint. This digital presence can significantly influence personal relationships and career opportunities, shaping how individuals are perceived, both in personal and professional contexts. This is why it is so important to put care and consideration into how we manage and shape our online footprint as it builds our reputation on how we think, feel, act and react and is shaping how others perceive and interact with us online.

I watched the Ted Talk by Roxana Nasoi where she discusses the extent to which social media platforms gather all of our personal information and have become so intelligent to understand our every moves and thoughts. She talks further on how our data is being taken from these media’s which can effect us more than we could possibly expect. She discusses ways we can change social media’s role in taking our identities and help restore our digital identities back.

How do you present yourself on social media platforms for personal use? What kind of content do you share, and how do you manage your privacy? 

Personally, I do my best to represent myself in all online interactions as someone who is kind, inclusive of others and their opinions and someone who is not judgemental of others. My online presence involves my love and interest in travel, as someone who enjoys spending time with family and friends, and my strong interest in participating in outdoor activities like hiking, skiing and skating. When posting content, I ensure it is physically appealing to the eye and that it is engaging to my followers. I am thoughtful in how I edit and place my posts. I spend time editing my posts, ensure I am creating a cohesive feed and posting stories with music and possibly a headline or location. My content definitely goes through phases however, I am more inclined to post Instagram stories as I find I have the ability to be more creative and show family and friends little snippets of what I’ve been up to. Another forum of content I’ve been sharing recently is photos of myself and my friends on the social media platform VSCO. This media platform is my favourite as its very simple platform and it is more about the edited photo and post than the volume of likes or shares you receive. I also like that people cannot comment or like the post but rather they have the ability to ‘repost or favourite’ an image. By having this type of social platform, I find it aligns more with my intent on socials as it is about my creativity and what I choose to share, not focused on what others will like or dislike towards my media.

I have not paid as much attention to managing my privacy online when it comes to creating account passwords. Although my passwords have improved from when I was younger by adding in numbers and words that don’t include my name or birth year, I could still improve my security online. To add a added sense of privacy and security, I keep my social media accounts private so that when someone does try and request to follow me, I have the option of accepting or declining. Allowing myself to have a following that I’ve curated and feel comfortable sharing my life with gives the added comfort of knowing that people are not following me unless I have approved them.

What steps do you take to maintain a professional image online?

I have been online for many years and with this experience, I’ve learnt through watching many celebrities, influencers and content creators how easy it is to get caught in a negative digital footprint when posting personal information, beliefs and values on political or international issues, or using explicit language or posting inappropriate photos. This influenced how I show my presence on social media and helped to ensure that I am socially aware of what I post and creating a sense of privacy within who I allow to see my social media. To insure I maintain a professional image online, I’ve decided to stay away from voicing any strong opinions whether that be about worldwide issues or political agendas. Additionally, I make sure that my social media profiles have a suitable photo and biography. For example on Instagram, in my biography I have that I attend the University of Victoria and my name but nothing else. Personally, I believe less is more when it comes to creating a professional image on social media. I prefer to focus my social media postings on things that I love such as hiking, traveling and hanging with my family and friends. Those moments of your life will not affect your professional image but rather allow for your viewers to get a sense of what your interests are and see a highlight reel of your lifestyle. Most importantly, the biggest step to containing a profesional image is to not express too many strong opinions, and create privacy within your accounts, while making profiles short and simple.

How do personal versus professional approaches to digital identity affect social media use? 

Personal and professional digital identities diverge in their focus and presentation. Personal identity revolves around sharing interests, activities, travels, and life moments with friends and family. Professional identity serves as a platform for networking and advancing career goals, emphasizing skills and branding. These identities differ as personal identity tends to be informal, whereas professional identity maintains a formal and intellectually-driven perspective. Both digital identities hold significant importance, but it’s crucial to manage them separately to avoid negative impacts on one’s digital presence.

Reflect on the challenges and benefits of maintaining personal and professional digital identities. How do you ensure they complement rather than conflict with one another? Provide examples from your own experiences. 

Challenges:
  • Managing two seperate accounts can definely be challenging when one is professional and the other is personal. Need to ensure you stay consistent and not mixed up posts with the oppossing media account.
  • Confirming that when posting on your professional media that it is in a more formal context compared to your personal media.
Benefits:
  • By maintaining a professional digital identity you can open up employment opportunities, therefore creating access for online connections within businesses and individuals to grow through the use of LinkedIn or other media platforms.
  • Media can help you personally and professionally at once by given the opportunity to post specific posts that are specialized in an area of interest or field. Facebook and LinkedIn are great media sources as they have groups to join and provide access to connect to leaders or businesses to pursue or join for a future career. I’ve experienced success with these media platforms as I connected with a few of UVIC’s faculty and my parents friends which helped me when looking for summer employment geared toward my degree.

To ensure that both my professional and personal digital identities don’t conflict with one another, I keep certain media apps professional and others personal. This helps to insure there is no crossover or mistakes when it comes to sharing and posting on separeate medias. When posting to help progress my professional digital identity, I tend to use my LinkedIn and Facebook accounts as they are a great way to connect to influencial business people in my field of career especially when being public as its easier for people to connect with me. While Instagram and VSCO are used for my personal digital identity where I can freely share my interests, travels and posts with friends and family in an area of privacy.

Photo by Malterio on WordPress

Looking ahead, how do you plan to manage your digital identity as social media continues to evolve?

To manage my digital identity both professional and personal, I plan on regularly checking accounts privacy and security while attaining to uphold my core values amongst my professional and personal forms of media. I plan to ensure I still can post my activities, interests and traveling to keep my family and friends updated with my life.

Photo by Aidan McCarty on DarkReading

However as I get older, I will be more inclined to start focusing on creating a larger professional digital footprint in media to help aid into my career. As I plan to become a future graphic designer that will be marketing for companies and ensuring their products and businesses, therefore by creating a strong professional digital identity itwill help enhance and career.

What steps will you take to adapt to new platforms and trends while maintaining a consistent and positive digital presence?

I plan to adapt to the new platforms and trends, as I plan to work on being in the industry of marketing and will use my skills in graphic design to help market companies and products. By hopefully being in this industry in the future I will be consistent in staying up to date with all new forms of media and trends to ensure my marketing engages with the right audiences. While using top quality technology to make my graphics clean, precise, and uphold my creativity this will help maintain and grow my digital presence in a postive way in the marketing and graphic design industry.