Data privacy is an important issue. There is now a much greater general awareness of the issues surrounding data privacy and why they are so important. Publishing as much data about yourself as possible flies in the face of everything we are told about using online services like social media. However, if you want to get noticed and become an influencer, publishing lots of data now might benefit you in the long run.
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Increase Your Social Media Exposure
The more data you are willing to share about yourself, the more accurately social media platforms will be able to profile you. Remember, these platforms are all about serving up personalized content, an experience that is tailored to you as an individual. Every data point you provide to these companies will allow them to include you in more of their datasets.
For example, if the only thing you reveal to Facebook is that you are female, they can only include you in datasets that contain women. However, if you are also willing to tell Facebook that you play football or ride a bike or play the violin, that means you will appear in a much greater range of datasets.
You Will Be Easily Searchable
The more data you share, the easier it is for other users and businesses to search for you. More importantly, you are much more likely to appear in searches for users with specific characteristics. If you want your social media profile to be noticeable amidst an ocean of competition, then a willingness to hand over more data will make you much more visible in search results.
Marketers Will Love You
The ultimate effect of being more visible and more easily searchable is that you are more likely to come to the attention of marketers. This is where the real money is on social media – if you can strike the right marketing partnership, you will be set for life. Of course, marketers are only going to pay top dollar for a partnership with you if you are worth it. There’s no incentive for them to sign a one-sided deal in your favor.
When marketing head-hunters look for partners, they search for very specific types of people. The more data they can find on you, the more of their boxes you can potentially tick. Making yourself stand out as completely unique is virtually impossible in this space because of the sheer number of competitors. However, if you can provide enough data about yourself to potential head-hunters, it will make you much more appealing.
Live the Influencer Dream
If you want to become a social media influencer – you are not alone. There are a lot of people who desperately want this job, but only a very small fraction of them will ever actually get to do it. Make no mistake: there is always going to be a degree of luck involved in becoming a social media influencer. But you can increase your chances of landing such a gig by putting yourself out there as much as possible.
The more you are willing to share through social media, the more active your profile will be. If you can begin to build a steady, dedicated following then at some point, the algorithms will take over and you will be appearing in the feeds of people who haven’t even heard of you. Many of the most successful influencers would kill to get themselves on more people’s scraping lists; they know just how valuable that is.
The Trade-Offs
Sharing lots of personal data online comes with inevitable trade-offs. There are two that cause particular concern to most people.
Spam
Putting more information about yourself online will inevitably lead to you being targeted by spam. This applies especially to contact information or links back to places that contain such information. There are things that you can do to mitigate this – mostly by adjusting your settings with your email provider. However, it’s not possible to both widely share your personal data and avoid receiving spam entirely.
Identity Theft
Identity theft is a potentially much more serious concern than spam messages. Identity theft can have very real consequences. The more personal data about you that is floating around out there, the easier it is for would-be criminals to steal your identity. If you are earning a decent income from marketing deals, you can buy identity theft protection to shield you against any damages you incur.
Of course, for famous people and public figures, this isn’t so much of a concern. For example, Wikipedia and IMDB both contain lots of personal data about public figures, but they aren’t constantly having their identities stolen.
So, if you are serious about pursuing a career as a social media marketer or influencer, publishing as much data about yourself as possible will increase your chances. You can check out this blog post to learn how to protect your privacy and increase security online.
