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How to Protect Your Web Reputation and Promote Yourself Online

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Guest Post
by Riley Kissel

Job hunters with unchecked Internet existences should worry: an increasing number of employers perform DIY background checks on prospective employees via the World Wide Web. Specifically, they’re running applicant names through search engines. From there, they uncover social networking profiles and anything in which the applicant is attached to that has been published in some way on the Internet. If you haven’t cared about online reputation management yet, you need to.

But hold off on merely deleting your Internet existence all together, because if there’s one thing employers use their investigations to do besides find reasons not to hire people, it’s to hire them. Social network profiles let employers see a glimpse of the “real” you, or at least, see if there are any discrepancies between your resume and what your profiles say about you. Finding information that backs up your claims, or simply confirms that you are indeed a worthwhile individual, are aspects of the hiring process that encourage prospective employers to perfect, not eliminate, their web-based details.

So it’s vital that you go through Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and adjust your privacy settings so that no friends can potentially post damaging information that can be seen on your profile. In addition, sweep through your submitted information to weed out potential red flags – such as any posts that could be construed as offensive. But the essential aspect of making sure you look good on social networks is to constantly monitor your profiles on them, as well as staying up-to-date on privacy changes while job hunting.

It’s also important to become a member of every social network that you can. When mixed with proper monitoring, having multiple accounts may seem like a lot of work, but doing so allows you to immediately take control of the first results people are going to get back when they type your name into a search engine. In addition, if your name’s reflected URL has not already been taken you should buy the rights to it as soon as possible. Having YourName.com is a great way to make your resume readily available plus additional information of your choosing and eliminate confusion stemming from someone else using your name domain for purposes unrelated to you.

Don’t be intimidated by an Internet presence, but don’t disregard its benefits either. It has much to do with the chances of you getting a job as it does with you losing the opportunity to get hired. It’s not outside the realm of possibility for those adamant about finding work to improve their Internet-based reflection. It just takes patience and diligence, two attributes the modern job hunter surely must have.
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Riley Kissel is a freelance writer who covers many industries with style. You can find out more about him at RileyKissel.com

Thanks, Riley, for this few moment of clarity..

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Credibility: How to Connect with New Arrivals to the SocialSphere

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What We Do Well

Susan Reid’s thoughts on women entrepreneurs got me thinking about the SocialSphere and what makes us all successful when we are. It’s no surprise that those entrepreneurial traits that she outlines are found in familiar places online.

Susan points out that successful entrepreneurs have several traits in common. I found those traits alive and well online.

She added business leadership characteristics that seem to be found more often in women — an affinity for balanced, life-style businesses; a bias toward service-focused, customer care; values-led business leadership; faith in intuition, trust, and holistic decision-making; and a success definition that includes relationships. Great social media practitioners — men and women — work toward those same people-centered values. . . . This framework for measuring social media from Peter Kim points to the core of that likemindedness. The very word social in social media and social networking seems to make that people-centeredness an obvious trait.

When I read the last section, Top Five Mistakes Made by Women in Business, I began looking at our online conversation and and how we might handle it best for new people arriving in the SocialSphere. .

How to Connect with New Arrivals to the SocialSphere

Credibility comes from the “context and content.” People meet us and try to place us among what they already know. They use their experience and our first impression — how we look, what we say, what we do — to recognize signs that might validate our consistency, integrity, competence, and trustworthiness.

Every person measures those qualities based on measures of content and context they have used in the past. Note this example and the differences in context.

When did you start using social media tools beyond blogs?

Three years of experience with social media tools can be a lot.

Three years ago, social media wasn’t discussed.
Three years ago Twitter didn’t exist.

Three years experience is still entry level in offline contexts.

It’s a contextual gap.

To establish an authentic relationships, we need to communicate within their context. If, for example, we want to do business, a first impression needs to convey credibly that three years of social media experience is more than entry level. Credible first impressions are crucial to authentic relationships. Authentic relationships are crucial to strong reputations.

Here are six ways to credible first impressions and authentic, lasting relationships.

  • Never let ’em see you sweat.
    When we’re at our best we’re authentic without the gory details. After they’ve been processed, we debrief on learning situations with appropriate distance. When we greet new situations with confidence and direction, it’s natural to invite colleagues into partnerships and collaborations. Our ability to deliver with speed and accuracy increases. That’s visible and professional authenticity. When a job is being well executed, the amount of sweat is irrelevant.
  • Positive beats negative.
    When we’re positive, we naturally gravitate toward supporting common goals and positive outcomes. Positive situations and positive emotions are attractive. Social media tools are made for building connections. Connections happen when we take positive action, offer solutions, and raise others and their work above us.
  • Show up and take ownership — even when it’s not easy.
    When we make every promise, even those to ourselves, unbreakable, we build integrity and credibility. Things as simple as returning phone calls and emails elevates a relationship when everyone else is too busy. Showing people that you value them and their time is respectful — respect is a core component to thriving relationships.
  • BE a product of the level playing field.
    When we’re level — outside of a hierarchy — it’s easier to be calm, assertive, and personally invested without taking things personally. On a level field, every point of view is worthy. It’s a matter of making space to step back to listen actively and responding with integrity.
  • Think and answer for the long-term.
    When we give our best response, not our “first response,” it takes longer, but we show confidence, courage of conviction, and reflective wisdom. Slowing down to allow our best ideas to catch up identifies us as a professional.
  • Make everything about them.
    We do our best when we make a space and make it easy for folks to be themselves, be successful, and connect with other folks. People remember most how we make them feel and how we offer a chance to find purpose or meaning in their lives.

  • Value their experience.
    When we invite people in and find ways to align their goals with our own, we ignite the power of community. Communities accomplish what individuals cannot do alone. The opportunity to share ideas and learn from new arrivals is thrilling. If we listen to learn as well as teach, the potential is only limited by our ability to dream. When we invest in other people, they invest back.

We’ve built a highly collaborative social media culture — one that thrives on learning from each other openly, honestly, and with minimal hierarchy. We know how to meet, interact, and build communities with our customers / readers. That culture is what we value. It’s also what we have to offer.

New folks coming are potential. They will change a culture, just as we did when we got here. If we reach out in the best ways possible, they’ll be our new readers and our new clients. They’ll be the new members of our communities, and we’ll be theirs.

How can we help each other make credible connections with new arrivals? If you’re new to the SocialSphere, what advice do you have?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Social Bookmarking to Manage Your Online Presence

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Are Your Bookmarks Working for You?

The Living Web

Are you reading more and enjoying it less? Are you voting up links that you haven’t read as a favor to a friend? Has the social part of social networking overtaken the information exchange that once was there? Do you race to read headlines and never finish the post that they name?

How many thousands of links do you suppose are recommended on SU, Digg, Reddit, and Delicious? After you put one there how often do you go back?

Chris Miller brought up a great point . . . Social Bookmarking: The Race to Be Famous or a Useful Tool?

Did you / will you go read Chris’ post or just take my word?

We don’t try to see every movie. We don’t try to read every book. We know that life isn’t long enough for that. But for some reason, many of us seem to think that we need 700 feeds and to bookmark them all for thousands of friends.

I’m learning that the best use of bookmarking sites — to manage my reputation and focus my efforts — is to capture information I want to keep.

I’m only capturing to a specific list of criteria.

  • I capture information that I know will be useful for a project or a proposal that I’m working on or about to write.
  • I capture blog posts that I hear myself quote in conversation, because I know I’ll want to find them again.
  • I capture well-written articles that change the way I think about my work or my life.
  • I capture anything that makes me think, “I wish I (wrote / thought of) that.”

You might note, I didn’t say that I capture things because they were written by a friend.

This change in my bookmarking behavior has made a significant difference in two critical aspects of my online presence.

Reputation Online reputation is made of everything we put under our name. Now what I bookmark naturally reflects me. When potential friends and clients visit my page they see something that is consistent with who I am, what I do, and what I’m working on.

But even more . . .

Focus I’m more focused on my business goals. I don’t spend time on information I don’t need. I find that I read more carefully what I choose to read. I also stop to think about why I bookmark what I capture and keep. Sometimes I only clip a quote. Sometimes I keep an entire piece. I even think about where I put things based on the people who use that list.

I’ll still vote up your work, if you call to my attention things that match my goals, values, and who I am.

What do your bookmarks say about you? How might you use them to manage your online presence more successfully?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!