What is meant by “web presence?”
My web presence is how I present myself electronically in the online world. My web presence is my appearance on the web. This includes any occurrence of my name or data about me as well as my own web posts of thoughts, photos, blogs, sites, social network participation. The definition from webopedia is, “The term Web presence refers to an individual or business having an established existence on the World Wide Web, through a Web site, e-mail, Internet advertising, blog, or a collection of Web files. Web presence is also called Internet presence” (Web Presence, 2016).
When researching the definition of “web presence,” the perspective was often from that of a business marketing itself online. An individual’s web presence may be considered in the same manner. Many of the search results for web presence have to do with marketing your business. Similarly, my personal web presence concerns how I market myself, what persona I decide to share and present to the world.
Once we have participated at all online, we have a web presence. An individual can let this just happen as it will, or one can purposefully shape the presence.
If you are consciously creating your web presence, most people try to create their best version of themselves. A feeling of inadequacy or depression may result when you compare your own normal life with the glowing portrait painted by your online contacts or educational cohort.
Blogger Emma Fulu, founder of The Equality Institute, expressed this dichotomy well as she relays a less than optimal experience while on a tropical vacation. She concludes, “So next time you look at someone’s seemingly-perfect life on Facebook or Instagram, remember that it is only part of the story, and everyone is also juggling their own bag of poo. Send them some love and be grateful for your own life, challenges and all” (Fulu, 2016).
The web abounds with advice on optimizing your web presence. What if you want to establish a consistent social media presence? Blogger Jessica Slaughter advises other bloggers to create a consistent photographic image, background, and bio for all social media, thus establishing a personal brand (Slaughter, 2015).
Kristi Higa, former UAF adjunct faculty member, created a Facebook group to help others with social marketing and personal branding. She includes encouragement about maintaining a positive life outlook. In one post she says, “Day 9: Story Time! You create credibility and vulnerability through your story. Let your target audience tap into your pain, trials, triumphs so they know they are in the right place. Help people relate by building connections with your story. [Assignment: write your story]” (Social Marketing, 2016). Higa links the reader to the Quicksprout blog which provides instructions to “Stop thinking like a marketer. Stop trying to sell your product, and instead, focus on developing human interest. Answer the question of why people should care about what your company has to say” (Patel, 2016).
Because storytelling evokes connections between people, businesses are encouraged to develop relationship with consumers in a like manner. Popular tools for would-be entrepreneurs are both written and video blogs. With enough subscribers or viewers, the blogger can gain sponsors and create their own career.
The less intentional component of my web presence is my digital footprint, described as “the amount of content, whether it be words, photographs, audio, or video, that is traceable back to a given individual” (Q&A, 2010). My digital footprint would include not only what I have opted to share with the world as my web presence, but also my tracks through the internet, making purchases, watching videos, visiting websites, signing up for any newsletters or website access. Businesses use data mining to target their ads according to my browsing, shopping, interests listed on social web sites, and groups that I join. Items browsed in Amazon may appear as ads in your Facebook feed. In addition, my footprint includes matters of public record such as real estate transactions and court proceedings.
What if we prefer that our lives not be quite so public? Is it possible to erase your footprints and presence?
You cannot entirely control your web presence, but you can manage it to some degree. Although an article and infographic published online by Time magazine claims that you can “completely scrub your identity from the internet” (Stampler, 2014), it may be nearly impossible to be completely off the grid. Public records will remain. Swearingen shares additional tools in becoming anonymous online but admits, “The reality is that while the idea of anonymity has given rise to much of internet culture, true anonymity is something we all sacrificed long ago, whether for the sake of convenience or access. Much of the web is simply shut off to you if you’re not willing to divulge at least some personal information” (Swearingen, 2016).
Privacy, intellectual property, and copyright play into an individual’s web presence in that we must be aware that someone else may then pirate anything that we share. You can request something be removed, but that may or may not be honored.
One way to give a person some measure of control is to have your own web site. “Your online presence should consist of your own website at yourfullname.com” (Schawbel, 2011). Schawbel says the site should be the core of your presence and contain your social network profiles. The site will protect you from others with your same name as well as give you control over how you are perceived online. In addition, he lists five reasons why your online presence will replace your resume:
- Social networking use is skyrocketing while email is plummeting
- You can’t find jobs traditionally anymore
- People are managing their careers as entrepreneurs
- The traditional resume is now virtual and easy to build
- Job seeker passion has become the deciding factor in employment (Schawbel, 2011)
Educator and author Doug Belshaw is also a strong advocate of owning your domain. The reality is that most of us ‘rent’ space somewhere or are on social media sites by using a service. If we don’t pay our rent, someone else can own that even though it is your own name. Belshaw states, “Over the years, I’ve sometimes idly speculated about—and, on occasions, actively investigated—ways to create an “untakedownable” blog. This would be an outlet that other people, organizations, and ultimately, authorities, would not be able to remove from the web. Long story short: it’s extremely difficult, if not ultimately impossible” (Belshaw, 2016). More control over web identity can be gained through developing one’s digital skills and becoming less dependent upon provided spaces.
To establish a separation between personal and professional identities, one might consider use of a heteronym.
Web presence and digital footprints are a discussion topic in my teaching. The majority of my students are in the age range of 19 to 35 years, millennials. We focus largely on the online trail left which may affect employment prospects and advancement. Employers certainly do check social profiles when considering job applicants (AETV, 2012). The next step will be to create web presence as a resume builder. I still encounter many students that have not even considered the impact of their online activities and participation. I hope to help students gain awareness that web presence exists and should be managed.
References
[ATETV] (2012, January 14). The amazing impact of your online presence. [Video File]. Retrieved October 2, 2016, from https://youtu.be/sjFBpomwBCc
Belshaw, D. (2016, September 15). Digital literacy, identity and a domain of one’s own – DML Central [Blog post]. Retrieved October 02, 2016, from http://dmlcentral.net/digital-literacy-identity-domain-ones/?utm_campaign=Revue newsletter
Lulu, E. (2016, September 27). The other side of the story [Blog post]. Retrieved September 30, 2016, from http://www.iamnotsuperwoman.com.au/blog/the-other-side-of-the-story
Patel, N. (n.d.). The beginners guide to online marketing – Chapter 3. Retrieved October 01, 2016, from https://www.quicksprout.com/the-beginners-guide-to-online-marketing-chapter-3/
Q&A: Have you checked your child’s digital footprint? (2010, February 11). Retrieved October 01, 2016, from http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Q_Have_You_Checked/
Schawbel, D. (2011, February 21). 5 reasons why your online presence will replace your resume in 10 years. Retrieved October 02, 2016, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2011/02/21/5-reasons-why-your-online-presence-will-replace-your-resume-in-10-years/#4569e3442c65
Slaughter, J. (2015, May 27). How to establish a consistent media presence [Blog post]. Retrieved October 1, 2016, from http://jessicaslaughter.co/blog/establishing-a-consistent-social-media-presence/
Social marketing [Kristi Higa]. (September 27, 2016). Day 9: Story Time! You create credibility and vulnerability through your story. Let your target audience tap into your pain, trials, triumphs so they know they are in the right place. Help people relate by building connections with your story. [Assignment: write your story]. [Facebook group status update]. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/groups/987643261353846/
Stampler, L. (2014, March 05). This infographic shows how to completely erase your identity from the internet. Retrieved September 29, 2016, from http://time.com/13002/this-infographic-show-how-to-completely-erase-your-identity-from-the-internet/
Swearingen, J. (2016, October 07). Can you be online without leaving any digital fingerprints? Retrieved October 07, 2016, from http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/10/how-to-be-anonymous-on-the-internet.html
Web presence. (2016, Oct 2) In Webopedia. Retrieved from http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/presence.html
Great post Jean! I particularly liked this quote: “If you are consciously creating your web presence, most people try to create their best version of themselves. A feeling of inadequacy or depression may result when you compare your own normal life with the glowing portrait painted by your online contacts or educational cohort.” I think this is something that no one in the rest of the class really mentioned, but it’s a very interesting component of web presence. It always makes me think of that quote, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” Observing the glowing portraits of others in your web circle encourages comparison, which can indeed steal your contentment with your own lot in life! Especially in your interactions with millennials, it’s important to point out this potential side effect of active online engagement, so they can be aware of / manage it better.
I am intrigued by your mention of a heteronym. Perhaps for your final draft, you could expand on this idea a little more. Lastly, I think that in APA style, you don’t capitalize anything but the first word of article titles. So like your first entry would be, “The amazing impact of your online presence”.
Great post! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks so much, Valerie! I used a citation generator and it did not serve me well on the capitalization. I’ll fix that and then see what I can do to expand on heteronyms too. Belshaw mentioned it just in passing in his piece. Now back to work!
Great post! Like Valerie, I was immediately drawn to your observations about the feeling of inadequacy that may result when one compares one’s own web presence with someone else’s. I don’t generally consider that when thinking about the larger web presence picture, but it’s worthy of some attention, particularly as it applies to adolescents. Self-deprecation and all of its attendant complications looms large in many young folks online lives and can be a major factor in cyberbullying. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
I like the term “internet presence” for several reasons, not the least of which is that it implies a much wider footprint simply what appears on the web. In this sense, I don’t think of it as synonymous with web presence, though. It really feels more like the digital footprint concept that we have discussed several times. It’s hair-splitting, I admit, but that’s why we’re talking about this concept in the first place. Anything that we can do to clarify our thinking along these lines is a good thing.
Swearingen’s comments also resonated strongly with me and prompted me to go back to reread Bob’s examples of sharing and identity online. We tend to struggle with the ideas of anonymity and control, but the reality, as you point out, is that we can never be truly anonymous or have no web presence (or digital footprint) at all if we venture online. Sometimes I wonder if true anonymity is synonymous with complete sharing. If there is nothing hidden to “find out” about an individual’s life–online or otherwise–wouldn’t that be the same as having complete anonymity?
Minutiae:
This sentence has a few punctuation issues, one of which is a very minor APA issue.
The definition from webopedia is, “ The term Web presence refers to an individual or business having an established existence on the World Wide Web, through a Web site, e-mail, Internet advertising, blog, or a collection of Web files. Web presence is also called Internet presence” . (Web Presence, 2016).
First, the space after the initial quotation mark should be deleted so that the sentence formats correctly. On my display, the quotation mark ended up on one line and the rest of the sentence broke to the next line. Then there’s the sticky (overly sticky, if you ask me) issue of what to do with a period at the end of quoted material. There shouldn’t be a period after presence” in your text–the period belongs at the end of the parenthesis. Both easy fixes.
How picky is APA style? How about this:
If you refer to the title of a source within your paper, capitalize all words that are four letters long or greater within the title of a source: Permanence and Change. Exceptions apply to short words that are verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs: Writing New Media, There Is Nothing Left to Lose.
(Note: in your References list, only the first word of a title will be capitalized: Writing new media.)
Seems inconsistent to me…
And then there are the people like myself, who no longer bother trying to paint a rosy picture…
So, I agree with folks that you have written a cogent and well-structured essay. I won’t belabor their points, simply I agree with Skip and Valarie. Additionally, I find the contrast between “a bag of poo” and Schawbel’s structured and controlled approach wonderful.
I am useless for proofreading, hence, why I pay folks to do it for me. Therefore, I offer none.
I love that you use the term “persona” and I love that you make as much of it as you do and only wish you made more of it. I am completely enamored with your discovery of “heteronym.” I think these are valuable breadcrumbs as we invent ourselves online. I think there is an entire essay exploring these two notions.
Good save on preventing the faux pas of calling our list of resources “works cited” rather than “references.”
Thank you for your post Jean! I agree that in our personal web presence we need to paint the best portrait of ourselves. We also need to keep in mind, though, that a lot of other people are doing the exact same thing! It’s hard not to be intimidated by the “picture-perfect” lives people choose to share!
I also really liked that you wrote about the web presence of businesses and trying to sell their production through social media. Consumers need to connect to a story and develop human interest in a company.