How does your digital footprint impact your life and what do you mean by digital footprint ?
when someone asks you, what do you mean by digital footprint and why it is important? what will be your answer?
After doing simple research I have found the answer. Now I am going to share my answer for both of these questions, read further this article for more details.
How does your digital footprint impact your life
Digital footprint is track of data that created while using internet, including websites you visited, emails you sent and information you provided to online services.
How does your digital footprint impact your life and why it is important? It is important Because we can get so many benefits from having a strong digital footprint, such as discoverability, reputation, trustworthiness.
What do you mean by digital footprint?
We all are living in a digital world. As a person in todays world, we are using internet regularly and we are doing so much things using internet, such as online shopping, sending emails, tweeting, commenting, internet browsing and watching videos.
According to the experts in internet society, everything you do when you are online, every social media comment, WhatsApp calls, apps, emails you send, online purchases and websites you visits can be seen by other people.
It does not matter whether you are using laptop, tablet or mobile phone. When you are using these services you leave records every time
What are the two types of digital footprints
There are two major digital footprint classifications: active and passive.
Active footprint is an intentional data trail that an individual leaves behind. Such as,
- Sending an email
- Publishing a blog
- Post on social media ( a tweet, Facebook status, Instagram photo, etc)
- Subscriptions forms (email or text updates)
Passive footprint is an unintentional trace that an individual created on the internet. Such as,
- Using apps and websites that use geolocation to locate the user’s whereabouts.
- Browsing activities and products, which advertisers compile and analyze to profile you and provide targeted advertisements.
Why you should care about digital footprints?
There are so many reasons for us to consider about digital footprints.
The data we publicize on the internet can harm us in so many ways, such as internet fraud, unwanted solicitations from companies and organizations or can damage to our reputation.
For an example, when we are searching for your name or your organization name on the internet, the search results can be thought as a part of your digital footprint.
Most employees (77%) use search engines to search about their candidates. And lots of people lose their opportunity because of the information they found online.
What are they searching on candidate’s online profiles and history? Nowadays if anything happens, everyone in the world can know it in few seconds.
There are so many things on your digital footprint that can reject you as a candidate. Such as
- Documents of Illegal drug consumption
- Documents of alcohol consumption
- References to weapons
- Usage of profanity
- Bad grammar and spelling
- Mugshots
Why digital footprint is very important?
You have to know that strong, positive digital footprint can be the reason for your success. After a simple research I have identified so many benefits from having a strong digital footprint. Among them I identified three main benefits,
- Discoverability
- Reputation
- Trustworthiness
1. Discoverability
Nowadays, all the businesses are online-centric. And it is very important to visible your business in so many places, so your customers can find your company easily.
When we are looking for services to hire, products to buy, the first thing we do is going online and search. If you have a large, strong digital footprint, there is a big chance of being seen you by customers. There are so many ways to create a strong digital footprint.
2. Reputation
With the expansive web presence, you can promote yourself. You have opportunity to control information is out there about your company. You can share your developments and positive feedbacks from customers, you can interact with others.
Nowadays when customer or clients has a question. First thing they do is searching on google, asking from communities on social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc). If you have a strong digital footprint and you are active on social media, you can answer their questions right away. When other people see your interactive and response, that will be helpful to grow your reputation.
3. Trustworthiness
When a customer is looking you up and sees that your website is inactive and you don’t have social media accounts, they feel that your business is trustworthy. Then, They will bounce from your business to another company. This is not good, because this will create a bad footprint.
But if you share your information about your business on multiple platforms like social media, your own website. Then people see you as a legitimate trustworthy company.
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