Spring Cleaning your Personal Online Presence
…because we’re not using the “b” word (personal brand).
Earlier this week, David wrote about Spring Cleaning Your Social Profiles. I’d like to offer a slightly more personal take on the subject.
When I was in college, I wrote for our student newspaper. As a young and eager reporter, I covered many beats, from business to campus to the arts. The experience of working in a newsroom turned out to be a tremendous asset, and has helped me a great deal in my public relations career.
A few years later, while doing some job hunting, I decided to type my name into Google to see what links popped up. I found the usual stuff—links to articles I’ve written for various publications, online petitions I’ve signed, and so on. But one link in particular caught my attention.
I had written a short, informational article about getting prepared for Spring Break during my last semester of college. A website that specialized in, shall we say, ‘spring break fun,’ decided to include the article on their news page.
I was concerned that a potential employer might see this and be offended, so I sent the web site editor a polite message asking to remove the link. He obliged without hesitation.
The point of this story is that you never really know what’s out in the internet stratosphere…or who might be researching you. It pays to do periodic check-ups of your name on various search engines. If you see something fishy or potentially damaging, contact the site editor and see if it can be taken down. By keeping your online social networking profiles up-to-date can save you from problems as well.
After all, if you don’t care about your online image, who will?
