Why It’s Important to Have Control Over Your Personal Reputation Online
In the last couple of years it has come to people’s attention how the internet reveals so much of a person’s identity. Online, you can be googled at any moment, by anybody and for any number of reasons.
As such, everyone should be preoccupied of their presence on Google and across social networks. Your first and last names represent your personal brand. What’s your personal online reputation? Similar to commercial brands, your personal brand can generate either positive or negative reactions which one day will influence the outcome of someone’s opinion or decision.
Most of adult internet users in the United States said they have entered their name into a search engine to assess their online reputation. In today’s world it’s a realistic assumption that your reputation will be checked online, for example by recruiters.
Ultimately, they are looking for information about you, to get to know you better. The information they find could come from you — your website or your social network pages. The less desirable alternative is information coming from other people, often without your consent — making personal reputation management a necessity.
The Personal Brand on Social Networks
As you understand the power of Google, it is important to develop a proper communication strategy for your personal brand on social platforms. It is advisable to embrace the online paradigm and have profiles on popular social network accounts. This way, positive content will show up when you’re looked up on Google. Going beyond the creation of an account, what’s important is the content, and the added-value it brings you.
If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, then you shouldn’t be talking about it out in the open. Be mindful when leaving comments and photos online where everybody can see. Facebook pages and groups, forums, photos with you in them, videos on Youtube, your blog articles, even links to political organizations or associations — it’s important to be aware of the risks when doing anything online.
Your Digital Identity Depends on Google
Anything published on the internet will generally be forever available for viewing, either to recruiters, colleagues, family or friends. The process of deleting or suppressing information that is damaging to your online reputation can be very tedious and sometimes ineffective.
The one thing that is certain is that words are indelible on the web. By taking control of your own online image, your digital identity, you prevent others from doing it in your stead thus placing you in the controlling position of your own reputation.
