What is an Online Presence?

One of my earliest memories of the internet is creating a profile on Instagram and posting a photo I had clearly edited using filters. I was a bit hesitant to because of everything I had heard about internet safety, but I had fun making that photo, and I wanted share it. I wasn't sure what content I wanted to post or how frequently but I knew I wanted to treat it like my own digital scrapbook. Which brings me to today's main topic; what exactly is an online presence? And and how does it differ depending on the person behind it? I heard a lot of great opinions, for example, one person suggested that an online presence can be split into to categories: business and personal. They then gave examples of how different the two are. Business accounts advertise something like an influencer or a product. While a personal account is simply used to share things like photos among family and friends.

Another person builded upon that, and said that everyone has a brand or a specific way of presenting themself. Social media has just given us the ability to do so on a higher level. In my opinion, social media means a lot of different things to different people. For some it's a force for good. For others the bad outweighs the good but in reality social media is a very complex thing that affects our society in both positive and negative ways. Anonymity can help us feel more comfortable with sharing but there's also zero to little accountability when a person posts a hateful comment. Anything posted on social media is also permanent and you have to be careful with what you post because you never know who it will come in contact with. Social media has also provided artists with tools and a platform to share their work on. So what do you think about social media? Is it worth it or is it too unreliable?