It seems to be the time where managing your reputation online is becoming a top priortity not only for young professionals emerging in the job market, but for everyone. An interesting article that appeared on ABC News says that there seems to be a trend where people are posting old pictures of their friends. These pictures range from when people were in high school and college doing some interesting activities that may make them appear unprofessional and could ultimately damage their reputation. How are people doing this? It appears that people are scanning in these pictures and posting them on Facebook for everyone to see.
There are several things that you can do to manage your reputation online. First, you have to realize that your reputation is very valuable, and you have to make sure that you are aware of what is being said and posted about you online. Whether it is photos or threads on discussion forums or blogs, it is important to be informed. Besides looking at web sites, it is important to look and see what is being posted about you on other sites as well (ex. YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, etc). In terms of pictures posted on Facebook, you want to make sure that you are aware of what your friends are posting.
The best advice that I can give you is to take the approach and ask yourself if you are in a questionable situation– would I want this to be online for the world to see, and how will this impact my reputation? The key is to think about how your present actions will be viewed in the future– whether it is the next day, year, or ten years down the line. We are taught to be careful on what we write in emails and make sure that we don’t write something that we wouldn’t want to be on the front page of the newspaper. Now with Facebook, the same rules apply. If people take the same proactive approach with their pictures, then all will be good! 🙂
So in other words, think strategically towards how you want to be presented today and the future, and recognize that anyone can post anything about you online– so you have to be aware and proactive about addressing this to protect and manage your online reputation effectively.
Hope you all are having a great day!
Best Wishes,
Karen 🙂
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