In today’s digital age, having a physical identity is not enough. It is equally important to have a digital identity. In fact, having a digital persona is not only important, but inevitable. It represents a business’s behavior, goals, values, and characteristics that are displayed online. If you don’t construct it according to a strategy, it will establish itself, potentially revealing flaws and controversies that you would like to keep hidden.
Digital Persona and Digital Identity
The digital persona is shaped by online activities, social media presence, and digital fingerprint. The specific “digital” aspect of the persona is called Digital identity. Although the terms are similar, it is important to distinguish between them from the beginning.
Definition: Digital persona is the digital representation of someone’s personal information that is intentionally created by the user or collected without the user’s knowledge.
Digital identity is something that is in the virtual dimension and does not directly interact with people, but interacts only with machines. Digital persona, on the other hand, is what people use to make sense of interactions in virtual space. In other words, digital identity is the technical aspect of a person’s online presence, while digital persona is the behavioral and social aspect of their online presence.
- People interact with digital persona
- Computers interact with digital identity.
- One digital persona can have multiple digital identities.
- One digital identity can be operated by multiple people.
Although it may sound like a topic more suited for philosophy, such constructs can easily be applied in business settings. This is because most computer security systems operate under the principle:
One digital persona should be associated with a single digital identity.
Here is an example: An online merchant is working with two landing pages and promoting them with Facebook Ads. One of the pages violated one of the Meta Platform rules, while the other was clean. However, the entire Meta Platform account was suspended. The merchant’s next step was to create a new account to continue working with the clean page. Unfortunately, the security system recognized that the same digital identity was being used: the merchant was accessing the account from the same computer and IP address. Therefore, the system did not allow the merchant to proceed because the digital persona was connected with the compromised digital identity.
Building a Positive Digital Representation
As you see, digital persona and digital identity are closely connected. Computer systems make decisions on behalf of real people or businesses represented online based on their digital characteristics. Online security systems or recommendation algorithms can set limitations on one’s actions based on their digital fingerprint, and that’s why it is important to know what your online representation consists of.
In today’s world, many activities are carried out online, such as online shopping, banking, and socializing. A digital persona helps individuals and organizations to establish their online presence and credibility. It is essential for businesses to have an online presence and a positive digital persona to attract customers and investors.
Building a positive digital persona requires individuals and organizations to be mindful of their online activities. It is important to create a consistent and positive image across all platforms. Individuals should be cautious of what they post online, as it can have a significant impact on their digital persona. It is also important to engage in positive online activities and maintain a positive relationship with online communities.
Digital Persona level
To build a positive digital persona, businesses should prioritize their online presence and engage with their online audience.
- Professional website. It should showcase the products or services, and provide useful information to potential customers. The website should be visually appealing and easy to navigate. Creating high-quality, relevant, and engaging content is also very important to attracting and retaining visitors to your website.
- Active presence on social media platforms. Businesses can establish themselves as credible and trustworthy by regularly posting updates, sharing relevant content, and responding to customer inquiries. This can help build a loyal following and attract new customers.
- Feedback management. By acknowledging feedback, addressing concerns, and implementing changes based on customer suggestions, businesses can show their customers that they are listening and committed to providing the best possible experience. This can help enhance their reputation and build trust with their customers.
- Public Relations. Being represented in online publications can be an effective tool for businesses to build a positive digital persona. Businesses can establish themselves as credible and trustworthy by managing their reputation and communicating effectively with their audience. Public relations can help businesses promote their products or services positively and informally, build relationships with customers and other stakeholders and establish themselves as thought leaders in their industry.
Overall, businesses should be proactive in their online presence and engage with their online audience to build a positive digital persona. By creating a professional website, maintaining an active presence on social media, and responding to customer feedback, businesses can establish themselves as credible and trustworthy, and attract loyal customers.
Digital identity level
It’s pretty obvious that being generally nice online can help build a positive online image. However, it’s more complicated to understand what lies beneath the surface. On the digital identity level, it’s important to present oneself favorably not only for the people you communicate with, but also for computer systems such as search engines, security systems, and recommendation algorithms. Your digital identity is a reflection of your digital persona, so everything you do to gain the trust of real people should also be done to gain credibility from computer systems.
- SEO Optimization. Search engine optimization can help businesses improve their online visibility and attract more traffic to their website. Before creating content for the website, it’s important to research relevant keywords for your target audience. Once you have identified your target keywords, incorporate them into your website’s meta tags, headlines, and content. Use descriptive, keyword-rich titles and descriptions to help search engines understand your page content. With the increasing number of users accessing the internet on their mobile devices, it’s important to ensure that your website is optimized for mobile devices.
- Optimizing Social Media Recommendations. Being featured on the “For You” page of social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram can be a great way to gain visibility and attract new followers. To achieve this, besides creating high-quality content that resonates with your audience, you can use popular hashtags, respond to comments and messages promptly and authentically, post consistently (at least once a day or a few times a week), collaborate with other creators, and leverage paid advertising.
- Reputation management. It is a “black hat” technique, but it also can be helpful in case you will not abuse it too much. And you can be sure that everybody does it even if it is not ethical. Reviews and ratings are very important for some businesses, so you must get the first ones. Otherwise you will be listed below your competitors and will not get the customers, who can leave a review. So it is kind of a vicious circle for a starter. The solution is to create some new digital identities and use them to kickstart the reviewing process. Of course it is better to engage digital personas in the process, but sometimes you have to be a little bit naughty.
- Link building. Building links from reputable, high-quality websites can help improve your website’s authority and increase its visibility in search results. Consider guest posting on other websites or reaching out to industry influencers for backlink opportunities.
- Geotargeting. Working with new markets in a global world can be challenging. You need to be on the same page as people living in different parts of the world. This can become a real problem when it comes to social media management or advertising. You not only need to translate advertising and make it relatable to the local audience, but also publish it properly so that people will see it. In this case, IP-spoofing services and anti-detection browsers can be useful.
- Marketing Research. When advertising platforms select ads to show to a specific audience, they consider many criteria, including device type, computer operating system, etc. To better understand what ads your potential customers see, viewing them through their eyes can be useful. You can create a unique digital identity for each category of your customers, simulate their online behavior using a cookie robot, and observe the ads they view. A cookie robot is a tool that guides your digital identity through websites, collecting cookies along the way to make advertising platforms believe that your digital persona is interested in specific content.
Websites and online platforms often use various methods such as IP address tracking, device fingerprinting, and user behavior analysis to recognize digital identities. Additionally, they may employ anti-fraud algorithms and machine-learning models to detect unusual patterns and flag suspicious behavior. Here are some tools you can use to check, change and even create a new digital identity:
- VPN and Proxy
A proxy server acts as an intermediary between a user and a website, forwarding requests and responses between them. On the other hand, a VPN encrypts a user’s internet traffic and routes it through a secure remote server. Both methods mask the user’s IP address and provide anonymity and privacy.
In case you need to create a trustworthy digital identity, you need a proper proxy. Residential proxy is the most appropriate. It is a type of proxy server that uses IP addresses provided by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) rather than data centers. This makes them less likely to be detected and blocked by websites that are trying to prevent access from proxy servers. Residential proxies can be used for a variety of purposes, such as web scraping, data mining, and online automation. They are often more expensive than data center proxies.
- Antidetect Browser
Antidetect browser is a web browser designed to protect the user’s online privacy and anonymity. It uses various techniques to prevent websites from tracking the user’s browsing activity, such as changing the browser’s fingerprint, blocking cookies, and using a proxy server to hide the user’s IP address. It is often used by individuals who want to browse the internet without being tracked by advertisers, governments, or other organizations.
If you need to create a new digital identity for online advertising, you will typically need an antidetect browser. The quality of this software is crucial, as an artificial-looking digital fingerprint provided by the browser can result in account banning. Antidetect browsers, such as Octo Browser, use real computer fingerprints and allow for the management of multiple digital identities from a single machine. It is also convenient that you can use all the created identities with the team, giving everyone involved safe access to work with them.
- Digital Fingerprint Checkers
There are plenty of sites that can help you to check what your digital fingerprint looks like: for example, amiunique or browserleaks Here, you can check all the data that your browser shares with the sites you visit. If you need to create a new digital identity, you can use these sites to check if your methods worked well.
Conclusion
A digital persona is a crucial aspect of an organization’s online presence. Building a positive digital persona requires businesses to be mindful of their online activities and take measures to protect their online identity. While challenges come with a digital persona, the benefits outweigh the risks. As technology continues to advance, it is important for organizations to be aware of the potential risks and take measures to protect their digital persona. By doing so, they can establish their online presence, build credibility, and protect their reputation.