Make Your Digital Image Your Stand-In For Most Accurate First Impressions
Digitally, we are in so many places at once. Moulding your brand and messages for every platform can be overwhelming and confusing. Of course, it’s best to create consistency and ensure all of your profile pages and websites speak a similar message if not the same message.
Reinecke and colleagues found that people form judgements about a website in .05 seconds. This means your digital first impression is one of the keys to your personal branding efforts and success.
The work of Dr. Nicholas Rule of the University of Toronto and Dr. Jeremy Biesanz of the University of British Columbia tells us that our digital first impression is sticky!
“First impressions continue to assert themselves long after you know relevant information about a person” ~ Dr. Rule
Even after people learn new information about you, they refer to their first impression of you. First impressions formed from a photo or a video are just as accurate as the impressions formed in person.
Review everything that represents you online and do a baseline analysis to figure out if you’re projecting the messages you intend to project with your image and personal brand.
Ask yourself if it’s time to further develop along the same trajectory or if it’s the time for you to adjust or change your path completely.
Your projected image and reputation work best for you when it’s authentic (in alignment with your true story and personality) and suited to your ambitions as well as your current situation. It’s about positioning and marketing as much as it’s about authentic self-expression.
Approximately five years ago it was found that we were exposed to five times the amount of information daily compared to just five years before that (Dr. Daniel Goleman) so the amount is likely to have grown again.
It’s even more critical that we use our personal image/personal brand as a tool to cut through the noise & communicate our personal and professional value.
Be one of a kind rather than one of the crowd!
