Managing Your Online Personal Brand

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Many companies are becoming skilled at marketing their corporate brand on the Internet, but are they monitoring the online personal brands of key people within their organization.

With social networking sites becoming more popular, even in business circles, individuals must be aware of the potential consequences that could arise from unfavourable information being posted online.

This brings us to the very relevant matter of managing your personal online brand.

A seemingly common practice before the first meeting with a potential client is to "google" the company ... this is now being taken one step further, where people are starting to "google" the person they are meeting with. If you placed your name, city and province into a search engine what would you find? Give it a try ... because I am sure someone else already has!

There are a few things that you can do to put a positive spin on your personal online brand.

Create a bio on your website - it might not be much, but it should show up in a google search. The benefit of doing this is that you have control over the content.
Join a social networking group - such as facebook or linked in ... google will also show results for these listings. But make sure you monitor your account regularly. If your old college roommate decides to tag you in a picture from your "college gone wild" days ... make sure you remove the tag. Also remove any comments about your photos that are inappropriate.
Create a blog - This will enable potential clients to see that you are an expert in your field. If your blog is on your corporate website, it will also help, as google will recognize new blog posts as updated information on the site.
Get involed in the community - This last one takes a little more commitment as it involves volunteering your time by either getting involved in community causes, industry associations, boards and/or sponsoring events. Your name will then have the potential to show up on the websites for the various associations you have joined or in news spots about the work the organizations are doing.

If you googled your name and all that came up were the pictures of your "college gone wild" days ... I would highly recommend you invest some time and enhance your online personal brand. One piece of negative information doesn’t look so bad surrounded by multiple pieces that are positive.