Why Your Online Reputation is part of your Image
(Article published in Issue 25 of the Australian Business Solutions magazine. August 2012.)
Author: Nicola Barnard
Your reputation is a valuable commodity. It is linked to integrity, trust, and can influence what people are willing to pay for you or give you. High profile people utilise their reputation to earn an income and add value to projects or causes. Every person has a reputation. It can be grown, and it can be damaged by misinformation and negative associations.
We are using internet content more and more, for research and decision making. One of the first things a prospective employer, recruiter, date or customer may do when looking for you, is to put your name into a search engine. The question now is not if you want a web presence, but what you want your web presence to communicate. If your web-presence is managed or monitored, there is more opportunity to make it as accurate and positive as possible. You can no longer afford to leave it to chance. It is highly recommended to do an internet search for your name every six months. Put your name into Google and see who comes up and how high you rank. It can be fun and valuable to know if there is anyone else out there with your name and see what their image and reputation is like. Any potential slur on your reputation by an incorrect association can then be managed.
The things to monitor may include: What sites are you associated with? What photos of you are visible? What text and comments about you are visible? Pay attention to what keywords are in your information. All this builds a picture for someone to form an opinion with. If a prospective employer or client gets to see photos of you from when you were twenty years old half naked, drunk and in a strip club, will that sell you to them as the type of person they want to hire, or be associated with? It may not be important to your role but it will certainly have them form an impression of you. Remember, because the web consists of many computers linked together, even if you delete a compromising image from one system, it may still exist on another and therefore be accessible in future. Anything online could potentially come back to haunt you years later.
Once you are aware of what is or is not online, create a plan to manage it. The level of importance of web-based information can vary depending on industry, role, seniority etc. For example, someone who plans to build a career in the entertainment industry will make different decisions to someone forging a career in corporate business management. For business, professionals in senior positions and job seekers will need to actively manage their online presence more often.
If you use social media, have the highest security settings and do not allow both business and friends to see the same images and information. One way to manage this is to have one platform for business, LinkedIn for example, and one for family and friends only, such as Facebook. The way public sites are used is constantly changing, so reassess this periodically to make a fresh decision as to what works for you and your needs.
The up-side of the internet is that it is now easier to have your own domain name and website. It is worth investigating if you can register your own name as a domain. That way, you can be more easily found and have the information you want visible. Like having a resume online, the content and delivery can be managed and changed by you as needed. For business owners this is becoming a must. For others, a well maintained LinkedIn profile may be sufficient.
If you can encourage positive associations and actively manage negative ones, this will allow you to maintain your online reputation. There will always be some circumstances out of your control but awareness and active management will always be more effective than ignorance or leaving it to chance.
