How To Control Your Online Narrative
Frankie Lee • August 11, 2020
Control The Narrative
For better or worse, most platforms on the internet allow mostly unbridled creativity and freedom of expression. You can create multiple personas of yourself if you choose. You can portray yourself as a humanitarian, an environmental activist, a creative genius, or a business mogul if these personas help you achieve your personal or organization’s financial or political goals.
The challenge with online personas is that you need to carefully curate the content available on the internet to control your narrative. Pictures of you drinking sugary sodas or smoking are conflicting with being a health and wellness expert. You need to have a record of yourself doing activities with charities and non-profit organizations for the public to consider you as a humanitarian. Your online persona depends on a carefully written, purposefully curated, and continuously edited narrative.
Some people wonder, if social media is supposed to be a place to express your personality, then why do you need to change who you are online? The short answer is that, on the internet, reputation is a free-for-all. You can publish ten positive articles about yourself, but your enemy can release one disparaging one, and your status is in ruins. The speed at which information travels is instant and the breadth is far-reaching. If you want to control how people in real life perceive you online, you might need an online reputation management expert. Here are a few ways they can help you build and control your ideal narrative:
Act as your filter
If you are in a position of influence, whether you are the head of a corporation, a community leader, or a brand ambassador, your words and expressions carry weight. The public will hang on to every word you say and scrutinize it, down to the grammar, the context, or even the timing of when you post something. Social media has made everything in the world a personal issue. Your opinions can no longer be separated from the organizations you represent.
Many senior executives and politicians have had to step down or were removed from their duties because they posted a message with personal views contradicted with their firms’. On the internet, people expect your online persona to be an accurate representation of your real-life one, and in some ways, they expect it to be even better.
You need a public relations expert who will stop you from Tweeting out of rage, posting an unflattering or offensive photo, or associating with groups who conflict with your values. While the internet is supposedly a place to express your thoughts freely, unfortunately, if you are in leadership, you won’t have this luxury.
Curate your feed
Having an excellent online persona is not just about avoiding saying incendiary or offensive things. It is also about sharing content that reinforces positive values or traits that you want people to associate with you as a person. Online reputation experts are public relations strategists that can identify material that coincides with the image you want. They outline a plan to create and release stories, pictures, and posts supporting your public persona and boosting your popularity and growing your audience.
Remove disparaging content
The internet is a complex network of platforms, websites, and information repositories accessible to almost anyone. Your naysayers and competitors can publish negative things about you to disparage you or diminish your credibility. A public relations expert has resources to remove harmful, misleading, or offensive material that can damage your reputation. A content removal service can also eliminate false reports, baseless accusations, and even content that is illegal.
The internet is an incredibly powerful tool to generate awareness, push an agenda, or market a brand. You need tools and expertise to curate a narrative to support your message to deliver it effectively. In this day and age, how people perceive you online is sometimes given more weight than who you are offline.
Do you need content removal services? We offer expert online reputation management that will wipe the slate clean so you can achieve your goals. Contact us to help you today.
