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If you visit here often or we follow each other on social media, you would have noticed some changes last fall to my photography and branding.

It was just some simple, subtle, yet positive changes that helped to spice things up around here and on my social platforms. Hello, new headshot! 😛

Its like when I re-arrange furniture in my house when the seasons change, it is the simplest thing to do and the BEST feeling when its done. In the social world, you really always have to be changing it up to keep fresh, continue to evolve and be noticed as you and your brand grow and evolve.

The intended change was good because it made me realize how you have to take continued stock or inventory of your digital footprint. Simply put, you have to keep track of all your social profiles. Sounds easy but it isn’t.

Even if you’re not rebranding, having all of your passwords and log-in information in one place is a good place to start. This made things SO much easier for me when I went to do my rebrand and proudly post my new headshot across all my social platforms last fall.

This blog post can serve both individuals or even businesses and social/digital managers that manage their company’s corporate communications and brands. Here are 7 things I learned last fall with my rebrand for how you too, can easily manage your digital footprint at any point in time.

7 Ways to Manage Your Digital Footprint

Create and maintain a locked password document (that requires a password to get into the document). This should contain all of your social media platform passwords. This is an easy way to keep organized, period.
Establish and set your brand guideline. This will ensure you execute your brand with consistent colours, fonts and look/feel across all social platforms you use. It is best to create a mood board and then a brand board to always refer back too. I’ve provided my latest rebrand branding board below for your reference 🙂
Once you’ve set your ‘look and feel’, hire a professional photographer to capture your brand – it’s a wise investment and some of the best money you will spend!
Have a consistent logo/photo/headshot across all of your social platforms.
When/if you decide to change your logo/photo/headshot, take the time to update your bio and descriptions with the same consistent wording and put this across all of your platforms.
Update your website or your blog at the same time to reflect any of these new changes and introduce your new rebrand.
Review your analytics on each of your social platforms and website/blog to determine what platforms are working best for you. When you rebrand, its a perfect time to add new platforms, change the function of existing platforms or decide altogether to stop using certain social platforms if you find you’re not getting the ROI for the value you’re putting in. Your followers on each of your social platforms will tell you a lot about what they consume from your brand.

If you have questions about your own social media profiles, need help in rebranding or want to know more about the analytics behind your social platforms,let’s get in touch!

Through the personal work I do with my platform The Passionate Voice, I’ve always worked to help others, both personal and businesses, to harness their voice through social media work and in-person communications training. Helping them to learn how they can speak up, be heard and make impact in whatever industry they are in.

A perfect example of this is Ag Women’s Network. There are so many fellow women in agriculture/food and fellow bloggers and social media users who are putting themselves out there about the topics and issues that matter most to them. Its also an incredible personal development forum to learn from each other. I recently challenged these same women to blog (or start blogging!) with me in the personal #Blog452 challenge I’ve set for myself this year. One month in to 2017 and I’m happy to say, I’ve blogged every week!

I realize putting yourself out there to the online world takes confidence and guts.. and some would shy away from this. I also realize that there are a lot of ‘fence sitters’ who are watching others around them do what they wished they themselves would or could do. This isn’t a bad place to be in though so all the ‘fence sitters’ reading this, take this as your “call to action” post 🙂

Have you thought of starting a blog but held off, time after time, because you were worried what others would think or weren’t sure how to get easily started?

Have you been in a meeting and wanted to say something but feared what others would think and so you refrained from sharing your thoughts?

Have you wanted to give a talk at the front of a room but feared what the crowd may think of you and/or how you would be able to present in front of an audience?

Putting yourself out there to the rest of the world is not easy. Once you begin speaking your mind and showcasing your passion or what your good at on a platform, it is an outlet to be quickly judged by others. Not everyone can do it nor are you ever really ‘ready’ for what follows once you finally do put yourself out there for the rest of the world to judge.

Putting yourself out there doesn’t necessarily mean big, elaborate gestures. It can be the smallest, most simple step. It can be finally putting up your hand at a meeting and saying something. It could be sending that email to the person you’ve always wanted to contact with. Joining a committee, board or team after thinking about it joining. It could mean FINALLY starting that blog/website to showcase your talents and what your good at in hopes that one day you’ll be recognized for those talents or to positively make a difference.

“Putting yourself out there doesn’t necessarily mean big, elaborate gestures.” #PassionateVoice

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Putting yourself out there is never easy. But it is SO worth it once you do. Trust me, this is something I’ve struggled with in doing my work at The Passionate Voice. These posts don’t just write themselves… and many of my posts have sat in draft form until this year when I committed to 2017’s #Blog452Challenge.

But I promise, just go ahead and test the waters and you’ll see what I mean.

Really, what’s the worse thing that could happen….. besides crappy tweets from people or hearing crickets because you don’t think anyone is reading? In all seriousness, what really is the worse thing that could happen?

If anything, as I’ve personally learned, you’ll be mad at yourself that you didn’t put your sh*t out there SOONER.

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