Recent research by Harris Interactive and identified that 23 percent of people search the Web for the name of a business associate or colleague prior to meeting them. And this also goes for hiring managers who “Google” prospective candidates as well!
One thing is for sure, you can’t control your ‘on-line’ identity. You can however watch you leave your footprint – or should I say thumb print!
So what happens when someone does conduct an on-line search on you? Perhaps they’ll see nothing at all – which isn’t much help if you are hoping to make a positive impression!
Or if they do find a reference to the real you, it may be outdated or simply embarrassing or inappropriate.
Worse still is the possibility of a future boss or potential client stumbling upon information about someone else who shares your name but isn’t associated to you at all or what you stand for!
The latter case is what happened to me! Prior to co-founding my business, I had a wonderful career in a global international organisation. My identity was inextricably linked to the position I held and the brand name of the organisation I was with. I never gave a second thought to my ‘on line identity’.
After all I had a strong reputation and my name was unusual so I had no issue being remembered by the people who I thought needed to know of my existence!
As a result of seeing the above mentioned research, I “Googled” myself and imagine my dismay when I saw not references to me being high on the list, but over 23 million entries referring to the Hindu god Krishna. I was blessed with my name by my parents – one was Welsh and one Indian – and to be honest had also found it helpful that my name was quite unusual a name in the circles I moved in, but I don’t associate at all with the religious background to it.
What I can tell you for sure is that you can’t control what others write about you on the web. News clippings, blog comments and photographs that may appear about you may not reflect who you want to portray yourself. Trying to erase all unflattering content is almost impossible because Web sites may publish what they choose as long as it’s not libellous or otherwise a violation of the law.
So what’s the answer? Whether you work in a corporate organisation of you have a small business it is definitely worth while building an on line identity. This may be by a personal web page or portfolio, a weblog or check out solutions such as Ziggs.
Ziggs, launched in 2004 and has one of the most professional on line portfolios available if you don’t want to invest in the development of your own personal web site.
It’s easy to update, you can add your photo, and it has an international data base. What’s more it’s available FREE and for the for the princely sum of US$50 per annum you can upgrade to their premium service where they will guarantee premium visibility in search results with Google, Yahoo, MSN.
I’d strongly recommend that you invest time in developing your ‘on-line’ profile with Ziggs. Is it worth the risk of someone not wanting to interview you or not wanting to talk to you about a potential business opportunity because they can’t find you ‘on-line’?
And guess what – you’ll find me at Ziggs!!! I wasn’t going to take the risk of my ‘on-line’ identity not being found ever again!
Get ready to be “Googled” and develop YOUR ‘on-line’ identity!
