The Importance of a Digital Profile For Public Historians
[I’ve written this short primer for students in my Spring 2021 Digital Public History course.]
As public historians in the 21st century, a digital profile is pretty much par-for-the-course. Not only is it essential for navigating the job market, but keeping your digital profile active and updated will allow you to engage with broader publics and become more effective collaborators and communicators.
There are many ways to approach building a digital profile for yourself, and I'm going to outline one of them. No matter how you set up your profile, there are a few key things to keep in mind:
Assume that everything you put online is permanent and (potentially) public. This is the number one rule of online engagement and one that is always worth thinking about before you post anything--whether it's a blog post, an email, or even a private text message.
You need to decide what your public persona will be. Kurt Vonnegut once wrote, "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." It's worth sitting a moment and thinking about what this means and the implications for our lives, but when it comes to our online personas, the message is clear. Many people will know you only by who you pretend to be online. Everything you post online shapes your online persona. Employers, the public, your colleagues, and anybody else who engages with your social media profile will generally assume that who you are online is who you are as a person. So keep this question in mind when you are engaging online: what kind of person do you wish to be and want people to think you are?
Maintain active profiles. An abandoned social media profile is quite possibly less valuable than no social media profile.
Each online tool can present different facets of your persona. You may find that you want to engage in different conversations in different environments. Perhaps Facebook is where you're a bit more casual while your Twitter presence is focused solely on information sharing. On YouTube, you might share short historical documentaries that you've made, while your podcast is a fictional historical serial that you've been developing with friends. It's up to you. Just remember that each tool has its strengths, and you can design your engagement accordingly.
Take stock every so often. If you have been engaged with social media for years, now might be a good time to have a look at your public digital profile. Does it read the way you want it to? Is it professional? Are there images that you might want to take down?
Tone
In general, my online persona is my academic persona. I rarely post much of anything personal, even on Facebook. I generally prefer to keep my private life in the analogue environment. When I do post something personal, more often than not, it reflects my engagement as a citizen (i.e. in the realm of politics, economics, or civic life) concerned with ethics, responsibility, equity, knowledge, and education. While I might write opinion pieces, I generally avoid online debates--unless I am certain that the other person is engaging in a good-faith dialogue. If you're getting started with creating a professional digital profile, this approach is probably a good starting point. Keep your online persona professional and slowly pepper in aspects of you non-professional life (if you wish) as you become more comfortable with establishing your professional digital profile.
Depending on your personality, your online persona might be serious, friendly, conversational, casual, reserved...in the end, it doesn't matter that much. That said, there are a few things to avoid (or think twice about before doing) if you want to establish a professional profile:
There are some things that do not translate well from the analogue to the digital environment. Sarcasm is one of those things. While your friends might understand what you're saying, it's quite probable that somebody who doesn't know you will misread what you've said.
There is a lot of misinformation and disinformation on the web. Nobody is immune to being misled, but there are tools for avoiding being duped. Before posting, you might want to double-check the credibility of the information. And, before re-tweeting it might be worth checking if you are retweeting a bot. spreading false information.
In a professional environment, individuals are more likely to give somebody the benefit-of-the-doubt. In an ideal situation, one colleague would ask a follow-up question that allows their colleague to clarify their statement. In the digital environment, people are less likely to give the benefit-of-the-doubt. So, when you post, try to be as clear as possible about what you are trying to convey. You might also consider follow-up questions as a productive way to engage with others online.
Before posting an excoriating post or reply, think about why you are doing it and who it serves. If you are participating in a conversation as a public historian, you might consider ways to post that educate your readership or followers rather than simply vent your opinions.
In our world of 24-hour news and a constant barrage of information through social media, it can sometimes seem that we need to participate in the process--that we need to add our voices into the mix. Rarely is this the case. Before you post anything, consider waiting a bit--and then waiting some more--and then rereading your post. Edit as necessary.
What Social Media Profiles Do You Need?
The answer to this question is: it depends on what you want to do. In general, I would suggest that you start with one or two and become proficient in them. For Public History, I would suggest Twitter and Facebook, which have active communities of participants. Through these platforms, you can learn about new publications, projects, conferences, and more just by checking in once a day with the #publichistory tag and by following a few key organizations such as NCPH and IPFH.
What Professional Profiles Do You Need?
You should consider setting up a LinkedIn profile. This will function as a digital CV as well as a space to share your work. Like Facebook, it has the capacity to link with other people and follow their feeds.
Similar to LinkedIn, there are several academic platforms that cater to a scholarly audience. These include ResearchGate, ORCID, Academia.edu, and Google Scholar. While each of these systems have some social engagement functions built into the systems, these systems function primarily as virtual CVs. If you publish, you should consider an ORCID and Google Scholar profile. If you are part of an active research community, ResearchGate has some useful functions, but its users primarily come from the STEM fields.
I do not use Academia.edu. Here's why: https://www.chronicle.com/article/metrics-mania/.
Who Should I Follow?
While much academic conversation takes place in standard social media forums, there is a second tier of more specialist social platforms. Here's a quick summary to get you started in the public history context. See who is participating on these platforms and who you might like to follow.
#publichistory
#twitterstorians
H-Net
Newsletters
History@Work (NCPH)