(Institution Name)
The modern day professionalism has a lot more to it than what it used to be. The professionals of today have to make sure that they are visible and in the spotlight for the related people to see. It has become mandatory for professionals to use social media for their benefit in order to ensure that they are able to connect with people and make linkages with other professionals for their career growth (Thompson, Dawson, Ferdig, Black, Boyer, Coutts & Black, 2008). It is, however, difficult for professionals to ensure that they fall on the exact thin line of balance between personal and professional profiling. This phenomenon is called social media management or social media strategy. There is always a conflict between the profile building of a person professionally and their personal involvement with the social media. If this conflict is not managed, then it can bring about serious issues for a professional.
One dimension of the conflict between personal and professional online presence is that a professional may not want some aspects of their personal life to be disclosed publically. It is possible that the personal and professional lives of a person can be contradictory to each other. Hence, a person sharing them publicly might damage their own reputation and make their personality a scandalous one. For example, a matchmaker would not want his or her personal life to become public if they have ever been married or have been divorced. This would make their professional capacity questionable; depicting that if they were such experts in marital affairs, why could they not protect their own marriage. Hence, profiling online in such a manner that discloses their marital status would hurt their cause. Similarly, a person who works for an organization that advocates a reduction in pollution and mobilizes people to participate in demonstrations against high emission factory plants would not want to share the personal information about their own car being environmentally unhealthy as it would weaken their case as a professional.
Another dimension of the conflict between personal and professional online presence is the personal thought of a person and the requirements of their profession (Meijer, Korthagen, Vasalos, 2009). For example, a professional who works for a fizzy drink manufacturing company would like to promote the brand online through the website, social media email, etc. But in forums where people share their personal thoughts and ask for answers; it is possible that the same person might share their thought about how dangerous it can be for a person’s health to frequently use these drinks. Though the argument placed against the use of drinks can be considered as a personal opinion, but since the person is associated with a manufacturer, it can be taken as a more certifiable thought that it actually is dangerous. It can also harm the person professionally as the employer can take notice of this defamatory comment.
Given these dimensions, it is very clear that it is not mandatory for a person’s profession to come in line directly with the personal information that the person carries. Hence, keeping certain pieces of personal information from public becomes very important for professional survival. It becomes a compromise that such a professional has to make that they cannot go about sharing all of their personal things publically for the sake of their reputation and professional success.
References
Meijer, P. C., Korthagen, F. A., & Vasalos, A. (2009). Supporting presence in teacher education: The connection between the personal and professional aspects of teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25(2), 297-308.
Thompson, L. A., Dawson, K., Ferdig, R., Black, E. W., Boyer, J., Coutts, J., & Black, N. P. (2008). The intersection of online social networking with medical professionalism. Journal of general internal medicine, 23(7), 954-957.
