This week’s CPD 23 theme is about developing an online presence and controlling your personal brand.

This is an activity that many of us do thoughtlessly. In our enthusiasm to be heard, we blog, we tweet, we shout out to anyone and everyone without considering the consequences about what we are really putting out there.

What is your message? Is it positive or negative? What matters more to you — quantity or quality? Are you taking the time to put your best self forward?

One of the suggested activities for CPD23 was doing a name search for yourself in Google. I have a common name, so I combined my name with “library” to get one of my pages to come up — my LinkedIn page. I was okay with that, but, I hadn’t updated my LinkedIn profile in ages! Ooops!

While creating an online presence is important for developing a personal brand, maintaining it and keeping it current is equally important! That means considering how much of your time you can spending juggling all the different gizmos and gadgets associated with social media. It takes time to keep track of everything and get up to speed with the latest and greatest new online tools.

So before jumping on the next trendy tool, think about the sites and tools you already have, and ask yourself, “Am I using this tool to its maximum potential?” Do I really need to juggle another “thing”? Which “things” really work best for me, right now?

Maybe it’s time to do a bit of spring cleaning and polish up your online brand!