The majority of the best people I've worked with in industry — in either an individual contributor or management capacity — are not Meaningfully Online. Their Twitter profile (if they have one) is anodyne and focused on their city and personal interests; their LinkedIn is threadbare.

Building an online reputation from yourself is, in general, a good idea — one that requires a distinct skillset and yields a distinct portfolio of rewards. In particular, it's a great idea if you plan on persuing freelance work, educational / thought leadership work, or building your own business.

But if you're not interested in those career paths, becoming truly impactful in your field largely requires doing the kind of work that doesn't make for banal writing or pretty mockups:

• deeply understanding customers' problems and business goals;
• becoming an excellent communicator and mediator;
• having near-cursed levels of domain expertise.

These skills rarely go viral; the practitioners who have them never need to.