Online Personal Branding - Blogger Friends For Hire?
"The image of you on the web is a strange one", Alex Halavais - an Assistant Professor of Communication at the University at Buffalo - writes.
He continues: "Like any sort of gossip, certain traces take on a greater importance than they might in your 'real' world. A forgotten event or conference, or a snapshot taken at a party, might not be that important to your self-image, but to your online image, it becomes pivotal."
My spontaneous reaction is that he is making a good case for blogging, since that if nothing else gives you opportunities to present the image you want. But: "There is only so much I can personally do to make my presence known in cyberspace. I can publish things to the web at every chance, and comment on other sites all over the web. But ultimately, the most important items about me will not be written by me."
And what will happen then?
"What happens when people begin to want to see others writing about them, and presenting it in a certain way. [...] How long will it be before this benefit is explicitly financial, before we see 'people placement' in weblogs as an important part of shaping identity?"
I don't think this is happening already. I don't hope this is happening already. But I could certainly see it happening. It's actually quite obvious. We have all seen bloggers lifted from obscurity just by becoming friends with high profile bloggers.
I'm afraid that it would be close to impossible to spot as a reader. I believe though, that one major restraint could be that of all bad PR methods - the cost of getting caught is so high that it's not worth it no matter how small the risks are.