Cleanse your avatars

It’s almost end of the year when most of us resolve to shake off our old habits that wear us down and get ready to welcome the New Year with a renewed vigor, fresh goals and zest for life. Not to mention along the way, few of us have been guilty of slapping on layers of baggage onto ourselves due to a myriad factors. But what’s more amusing is how it manifests in different forms for different people such as – deepening worry lines, receding hairline, increasing waistline or depleting cash flow.  If you identify yourself as one of them, it’s probably time to detox and revisit your game plan!

You can extend the same philosophy to your social media presence. Having a digital footprint is a good thing these days, but what about the digital dirt we rake in along the process? How do we clean up that? While it might not be possible to erase back all your wrong moves, now might be a good time to reflect back and give your virtual avatars a detox.

Sharing some of my ideas around that -

Reposition your persona – We as people come with myriad emotions and multifarious facets of ourselves that we tend to portray in our everyday lives. Somewhere down the line, it is possible to lose track of who we are or who we ‘want to be’ under all those faces. If you feel that you have derailed from that original path or have lost your initial luster and essence, then it’s probably not a bad idea to pause and reboot your system. Don’t be afraid to start afresh and refocus your energies on where you need to be. Like one block at a time, rebuild or reposition your online persona and reputation one comment, tweet, discussion thread and post at a time. After a point, the current will supersede the old.

Sharpen your message – Are you focusing on the right things that matter the most to you? Do you still stand by what you believed in when you started out? Or do you think you have drifted away from your core beliefs. Do not ever feel pressurized to dilute down on what you originally came forth to say. In the same token don’t get distracted by all the frills and fancy in your simple messaging. It’s never a bad idea to get back to basics and discard any additional unwanted layers. I’m tempted to quote Avinash Kaushik (@avinash) again with “Don’t sexify, simplify!

Be willing to give before you ask – Don’t always hoard onto ideas or resources as your proprietary domain. Enrich it by sharing it with others and gaining back more through crowdsourcing. The more you give to your online community, the more you get back be it in the form of ideas, solutions, fans, followers or friends!

Trust the WYSIWYG effect – What you sow is what you get! (Yeah I tweaked it slightly.) So make sure you are sowing the right seeds in building your reputation. I believe it begins with not just sharing your views but respecting other people’s viewpoints. You need to give respect to earn respect! Don’t be too hung up on your way. There are many different perspectives to looking at the same thing. So allow yourself to be surprised by keeping an open mind. Today’s social media provides that perfect platform in teaching us omnifarious thinking.

I believe Social Media is like good karma, what goes around comes around in leaps and bounds. So make sure you are attracting what you are sending out to your universe whether it’s with your content, comments, friends, family or just pictures.

With that, I’d like to end this year’s last post by sending out my best wishes and warm regards wishing each one of you a very happy and promising New Year in 2011. I thank you all for your comments encouraging me to keep writing and for keeping our dialogues exciting! Until next year…so long!

Photo by Marquette La