Regardless of how you manage your reputation in real life, your personal brand is made up in large part by your digital presence and online reputation
Your posts, tweets, updates and comments mean you and your brand are always on and ready to start a conversation–with or without you. Online, your prospects and customers can see who you hang out with, the groups in which you participate, the companies you’ve worked for and the reviews you give. When combined, your online activity tells a personal brand story…and that means that everything you do online should be:
- Professional
- Consistent with your value proposition
- Relevant to your audience
- Interesting, but not too risky
AllTwitter says, “having a good online presence can win you business, promotions and respect.” But a bad online presence can influence people and change their opinions about you for the worse–that includes having a negative or no online presence. Along with KBSD Digital Marketing research, AllTwitter reports:
- 48% of recruiters and HR professionals refer to personal websites when deciding whether to hire YOU
- 63% of recruiters check social media sites to find out more about potential employees
- 8% of companies have fired someone for abusing social media
Here are a few of AllTwitter and KBSD Digital Marketing’s recommendations for taking control of your online presence:
- Set your own reputation — create your own digital strategy.
- Stay on top of things — Google yourself; check social networks to see who mentions you and what they say.
- Ensure there is more good than bad — post your own information on a regular basis; use SEO strategies to ensure your preferred information stays on top of search results.
- Secure everything — prevent against hackers; don’t reveal birthdates, addresses or other personal information.
- Educate your family and friends — monitor postings and tags of your image on social media; ask others to remove photos of you or unflattering mentions of you from social sites.
The days of “vanity” searches are over — monitoring your online presence is an important piece of your overall personal branding strategy.
