Navigating your digital brand as a renaissance woman
My new marketing performance consultant and I had a conversation last week. We both agreed:
We have more than one professional identity. Yet, we don’t know how to consolidate these online.
We wear different hats. To be precise: I wear three.
My marketing performance consultant observed: “Back in the day, it was ok to be a renaissance man or woman. Pursuing different interests was viewed as an asset, so was possessing more than one professional identity.”
When I help professionals revamp their networking skills, my first piece of advise is: define what you stand for. What values matter to you? What are your topics of interest (Fintech? Urban gardening)? I start off with these questions as it is crucial to have a carefully curated digital brand & online presence. Others want to know what you stand for.
Yet, when I look at my own digital brand, I feel confined by my own advice. I have the impression I cannot display all of my professional identities because this would negatively affect my digital “Caroline brand”.
These are my professional identities:
Management consultant
Entrepreneur
Coach for networking.
What now? I mulled over this question for several days. My solution: creating synergies between my different professional identities. Not only in real life, but also in terms of how I present them online. While so far, I have mainly written about startups and posted about female entrepreneurship and Venture Capital on my favorite platform LinkedIn, I can now expand this by displaying more of my professional interests and expertise.
Cut yourself some slack. It’s ok to wear different hats. Look for the synergies, not the irreconcilable differences to build your digital brand.
Here is what I will start doing:
Post about the need for female entrepreneurs to network more — such a post makes reference to both my jobs as a networking coach and as an entrepreneur
Discuss scenarios when management consulting and coaching overlap — in terms of skill set and psychological aptitude.
Does this challenge sound familiar? How do you blend the different personas, how do you talk about them offline and online? I’d love to find out how others bridge the gap.