Taking care of your digital footprint
As an entrepreneur, you’ll be interacting a lot with other people: clients, suppliers, investors, etc. Most times, your reputation is your best asset in securing business deals, which is why it makes good sense to protect it. There are many ways to do this, but one thing that most people overlook is keeping a clean “digital footprint” - that is, traces of your online activities.
Googling someone and looking up their Facebook or MySpace account are becoming increasing popular in business environments. What your client sees may influence his or her thinking about you professionally (whether that’s fair or not is a whole other issue). The most infamous cases have been employees fired by their companies, but it can just as easily be a startup’s founder being rejected by a VC.
That’s why everyone should take the time to clean out their social networking accounts and using stricter privacy settings. Keep the not-so-wholesome party pictures to you and your friends. Watch what you say so you don’t get into trouble. It’s OK to be human and have fun with your profile, but try to exercise some caution.
On the other side of the coin, if you can take care of your Facebook account properly - appear professional and well-rounded - it can be the extra push your client needs to choose you as a business partner. I guess the rule of thumb is: before you put something on the Internet, if your name or face is on it, make sure it’s something you can be proud of.
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