Understanding the importance of your reputation in today’s economy is worth its weight in gold. Everyone is focused on how they are perceived online and offline – especially job seekers and those who are looking to hire.
We are in an age where impressions and judgements about a character of a person is decided in a matter of seconds – based on what is presented about them online. Privacy settings have evolved and changed across social media platforms and sites over the years. However, you can run away from embarrassing pictures, inappropriate updates, and many more damaging elements that could hinder your online reputation – but you certainly can’t hide from them. Even if you think you can delete your profile on various social media sites – like Facebook – it may still be accessible for others to see and make their own opinion based on the information presented. Here is a great info graphic on how you can manage your e-reputation.
Mashable just came out with a post regarding this very issue, which does present a key issue that young and established PR professionals have to be aware of. There are other good tips for job seekers and those just entering the workplace to keep in mind when they are looking at what others can see for themselves online. In addition – we have to be aware of exactly what is an online reputation in the first place, and what does it mean to proactively manage your online reputation? These are elements we have to think about and taken into consideration for our own online activities and how they represent who we are as a person and professional.
Here are some tips on what you can do to proactively manage your online and offline reputation for 2012:
- Be consistent with who you are as an individual: One set of manners my grandfather always used to say. Be aware of how people perceive you in person, and look at how that translates into your online discussions, interactions, and exchanges online through various social media platform sites.
- Search for yourself not just on Google: Look at what comes up on various search engines and see what other associate key terms people are actually searching for you. For example, if you search for me, you will get several results such as “karen freberg university of louisville,” “karen freberg university of tennessee,” “karen freberg blog,” and even “karen freberg.” This is good to know to determine if there are positive, negative, or neutral key words tied to your search results and what comes up online.
- Protect and safeguard your personal brand online: Be aware of what is being said about you, what people are mentioning you on Twitter, posting updates and comments on Google+ or Facebook, or possibly tagging pictures on Flickr or even Pinterest – we have to be prepared to address these potential issues and situations and be protective of our reputation.
- Study reputation management: Become a student in the area of reputation management – read the top books, articles, and papers on the subject to be familiar with what are some of the current trends and issues related to the topic of online reputation. Joining webinars or looking at what industry leaders in the area (like the Reputation Institute) are saying in relations to this topic.
- Treat your personal brand like a corporate brand: Be familiar with how businesses and other corporations handle their reputation, and take ownership and responsibility to be the best advocate and salesperson for yourself online and offline.
In summary, we are living in an age where technology and what people see online on websites, social media profiles, and other digital spheres will determine how they perceive us. More employers are using it as a step into determining whether or not to hire potential employees. While you may think you can delete the content online or even profiles you have created to hide some of these hidden skeletons in your closet – it won’t help. What is posted online stays online, or as they say – what happens in Vegas stays on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, and many more.
Hope you all are having a great day.
Best Wishes,
Karen
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