Your personal brand: It doesn’t shut off when you clock out of work

We’ve talked around here about the importance of building your brand as a writer.

Writing at PRWeek, “small business evangelist” Peter Shankman reminds all of us in the brand-building business that our brand is not just a work thing. It’s 24-7. Everything we do affects our brand. Having a brand means, to a certain extent, living in public.

“You simply have to realize that everything you post online, whether you believe it to be ‘professional’ or ‘personal’ is personal,” Shankman writes. “It all is. Every last photo, comment, and check-in. It’s all about who you are.”

By way of illustration, Shankman writes about LinkedIn, the “world’s largest professional network”:

Every single day, someone directs me to their LinkedIn profile to learn more about them. You know what I do when they do that? I go right to Facebook and search on their name there. Why? Because I know they’re on their best behavior on LinkedIn, but on Facebook, they’re going to be “real.” Guess what? I’m not the only person who thinks this way.

And if you think you don’t have to worry about that because of your Facebook privacy settings, you really ought to read Shankman’s post. He had an answer for someone who was under that impression. Let’s just say that person changed her mind within seconds.