Water is probably the only place you cannot make a footprint; not even this 1800 pound (800 kg) polar bear can. You may not ever think about your footprints, but have you ever thought about your digital footprint? All the places in cyberspace where you have left a comment, downloaded a photo or music, made a purchase?
It is often advised that you “google” yourself to see what information is out there. Have you ever searched your name in 123people.com? Many are very surprised to see all their information displayed so publicly. Among the “50 Things that are being killed by the internet," Matthew Moore of the Telegraph.co.uk lists privacy and says, “We may attack governments for the spread of surveillance culture, but users of social media websites make more information about themselves available than Big Brother could ever hoped to obtain by covert means.”
However, society is quickly adapting to digital media. Recently, at the ePharma Summit, Steve Case, chairman and CEO of Revolution Health and co-founder of AOL, reminisced about Amazon.com, “If I’d stood up back then and suggested that consumers would enter their credit card number onto [Amazon.com], that the number would be stored for future purchases, and the site would recommend what they should buy next time, I’d have been run out of the room."
Now, Zappos has created the first social shopping site , and the latest viral video on the social media revolution says that you will no longer find products, they will find you.
Smart marketers are using many social media monitoring tools and services to keep track of you online, e.g., Radian6 , Scout Labs , Jodange , Spiderfly , Social Media Metrics , to name a few. Through “sentiment analysis," they sort through online text for positive vs. negative commentary as well as subjective vs. objective text. I believe this trend is the magma of marketing today. It is also the way most of these social media platforms will make money, including Twitter. The data being collected is what is valuable.
Although some pundits like to dismiss Twitter as babble, smart companies are taking advantage of its SEO generating and data mining properties. Do you know your Twitter bio acts as a meta description on google? In fact, do you know all of your tweets are indexed? Have you ever thought about it?
Recently, I came across this tool developed by Aaron Zinman , a third year PhD student at MIT, and was amazed at what was instantaneously searched and analyzed, from a comment I made on Jeremiah Owyang’s blog to a compliment I gave to my dog’s groomer. Zinman’s tool analyzes your digital footprint to create a “persona," the way the Internet sees you, “It is a critique of data mining...It is meant for the viewer to reflect on our current and future world...”
Social media is not going away, and comments will be made about you or your brand regardless of whether you choose to participate or not. Obviously, the more positively you project yourself, the better. This post is not meant to make you paranoid, just aware.
What are your thoughts about your digital footprint? Don't be afraid to comment!
Honored and happy to have this as a part of my digital footprint, from "The Web Strategist " blog, "Blogbrevity, thanks, you clearly grasp the trends of the web ," Jeremiah Owyang , Web Strategist, former Forrester Analyst and now Partner with the Altimeter Group. Thank you, Jeremiah!
Photo of polar bear in the water is by ucamari and licensed through Creative Commons.
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