Have you Googled yourself and really thought about what impression the results give? In this article, we focus on the reality of your online reputation and how it’s becoming just as important (if not more important) than your offline one.
Hey everyone! It’s been a while since I have added my thoughts to our Top Tips series. I have been busy learning lessons, making mistakes and preparing to evolve The Social Adviser into something, well, better.
We have pushed hard (change is never easy) and to create momentum we have been focusing on the big, the challenging, and the vast opportunity to evolve that Social Business presents. Of course, we also had to create a business that would fund our crazy ideas, as distracting as that can sometimes be.
Now I want to spend a little time getting back to helping you (the professionals) to be better. Over the coming weeks, I am writing a series focused on the effect that your online presence has on both your professional reputation and your brand.
This series is not about Social Media as such, it is about how ‘business as usual’ has changed. For those of you sitting on the fence, or dipping your proverbial toes into the water, it will move you with undeniable facts and real-world examples as to why you must own and actively control your online reputation.
For those of you who are already converts, these posts will be just what you were looking for to send to your employees, boss or your business partner down the hall.
Social Media can be the most powerful tool imaginable for growing almost any business, it can open doors and create opportunities for any professional. But the truth is that having a great online profile is now a must have even if you don’t care about innovation, leverage, Social Media, finding new clients or just growth in general.
Most professionals are still sitting on the Social Media fence and while they do, they miss one important fact; business as usual is leaving them behind.
Whether you like it or not you are being Googled, searched for on LinkedIn and digitally stalked by everyone around you. You can stick your head in the sand and pretend that what they find doesn’t affect you or you can start to take steps to secure your professional online reputation and brand.
The reality is that almost anyone you hope to have a professional relationship with is going to do one simple thing – they are going to Google you by name… not your company name… YOU!
Whether you like it or not people want to know about who they are doing business with. Just having a website with a crappy corporate picture and a few words about your expertise and specialisations is not cutting it any more. Having this kind of profile is just giving people permission to move on and find someone who cares more about their public perception than you do.
Let’s make this even more real for you! Chances are that a prospective client, customer, corporate contact or business partner is also (at one point or another) going to Google your assistant who makes the appointments with them, the person from accounts who regularly emails them, and every other person in your team they come into contact with.
Have you Googled yourself and really thought about what impression the results give? Have you Googled the person next to you and realised that what you find is effecting you directly because you too are being judged by it?
The world is wising up; finding out about and “knowing” the people you do business with, apart from being the most rational thing in the world to do, just simply feels better. When it comes down to it, we the people know we can’t trust or rely on a ‘fake corporate veneer’; we now realise we don’t have to take the risk because finding someone with a credible authentic online reputation is as simple as ‘just a few clicks’.
If you can’t find enough online about a professional to make you feel comfortable, that lack of presence is in itself a reason to be uncomfortable and distrustful. Simply avoiding the issue and not having a presence is now more damaging than having a half-baked one.
Often professionals will dispute this idea with the contention that they themselves are not Googling people in this way. There are two things to say in response to this; firstly, you are now in the minority and secondly, are you crazy?! Not doing homework on the people you want to do business with by simply clicking a few buttons and typing their name in a search engine is like deliberately leaving your car unlocked with the keys in the ignition. Why would you open yourself up to this risk when it is so simple to mitigate it?
Most people don’t even bother looking at corporate websites now because even if they manage to find something about the people they are interacting with, it’s going to be like every other professional ‘profile’… an impersonal pitch that tells them nothing meaningful.
The simple truth is that the world has changed; almost all of us make important decisions with the help of the internet. What’s more, people are seeking out the authenticity behind the facade. No one wants to be duped, and especially when it comes to making decisions that have the potential to impact their lives dramatically.
Whether you like it or not, how you appear online effects every element of what you do for better or worse, and whilst solving the challenge of securing your online professional reputation may seem daunting, it just takes the right steps and a little focus. Make sure that you own the space that reflects your name and that what people find is the ‘real you’ (a reflection of your value and worth).
If you are not in control of your online reputation then it is in control of you!
Want to learn more about securing your online reputation
