It’s disappointing to hear, but it’s the truth. You’re not a celebrity.

When Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon arrived at an Oscars party in a Prius instead of a limousine, people (at least some people) noticed. And people cared. On the contrary, if you purchase a hybrid vehicle and drive around your neighborhood or post status updates and Tweet about saving the environment, no one will snap a photograph (except perhaps your wife).

We’re not celebrities. The problem is social media has given us all a false sense of power, authority, and entitlement. We believe we can actually change the world (or at least our friends’ minds) by posting, sharing, and liking. We think we’re little celebrities, saving the world one Tweet at a time. It’s insane.

This would simply be a societal phenomenon (an amusing one, albeit) if it weren’t for the impact it has on our personal branding and networking efforts, which heavily impacts our careers. If you spew negativity around social media for two years, and all of your 2,391 connections see each of your negative, over-the-top, whiny, offensive, and heavily opinionated posts, you have effectively branded yourself as negative, whiny, offensive, and heavily opinionated.

You may currently feel so strongly about your opinions, beliefs, and values that you don’t think this matters. Or perhaps you have a sinking feeling in your gut while reading this. You know it matters, but you feel so strongly about your opinions, beliefs, and values that you are going to Joan of Arc it to the death in the name of X cause all over social media. However, as a career coach who has managed social media accounts for several organizations and assisted many clients with branding and networking efforts, I implore you to reconsider this frenetic online behavior.

If you have any intention of searching for jobs, networking professionally with people who do not share your beliefs and values (that’s probably half the world’s population), seeking a promotion, or switching career paths at any point, please pause before posting content which is emotionally loaded, politically slanted, or in any way gives off the “us versus them” vibe. Even if people don’t tell you they find your posts offensive, whiny, arrogant, negative, heavily opinionated, or inappropriate, they may.

We are always branding ourselves, whether we intend to or not. By the same token, we’re always either tightening or loosening our connections with our network because people we’re connected to see our actions (including posts, shares, and likes). These create an impression of who we are. If we’re not mindfully working to ensure our connections see the best version of ourselves, they won’t.

This requires that we gain some objectivity and stop reacting to every single political news article which comes across our news feed. We must practice dignity and ask ourselves, ‘How important is it?’ before commenting on others’ posts (which are often immature and asinine). Unless our connections are all purely personal, we’re digging ourselves into a deep branding hole. It’s hard to recreate your brand once you’ve labeled yourself–over a long period of time–as whiny, negative, highly volatile, heavily opinionated, intolerant of others’ opinions, and prone to snap.

If you’re in a branding hole or want to find a way to express yourself honestly while maintaining a positive brand (and great relationships with your contacts), reach out to me for help.