Managing Your Internet Presence – Tips
January 15, 2009
(Highlights from my Feb class. Want more? Please register or schedule me to speak with your group or organization!)
What Is Internet Presence?
- Your Online Reputation
- What People See When They Google You
- Consists of anything that appears in a results page of a search
- Your Responsibility!
Why Does It Matter?
- You are being Googled before meetings by referral sources and potential clients
- Your worth to your company and to the marketplace is always being evaluated
- It’s what makes you different, special, interesting, competent, fun, friendly, successful, altruistic and philanthropic that improves your professional reputation
- You can be the driver of your reputation or the passive recipient-which do you choose?
Online Places To Be Present:
- Company Website
- Paid directories
- Organization or Networking Group Sites
- Published articles or press releases
- Quotes in published articles
- LinkedIn.com
- Your own blog or podcast
- Comments or quotes on other people’s blogs or podcasts
Website
- May be the anchor of your internet presence if you have any control over it
- May detract from your internet presence or perception
- You need to know where you are and strategize accordingly
YourName.com
- Domains cost about $15 per year to rent
- It’s a kind of insurance
- If it’s available — Reserve IT!
- Got Kids? Reserve their domains too
- Either leave it blank or forward it to another domain until you are ready to use it
LinkedIn.com
- Simple: An online “black book” of who you know
- Complex: An incredible tool for getting known and knowing others
- Upload your contacts – invite them to join your network
- Ranks very well in search engine results-even for a fairly common name
- Works best if you invite and recommend only those people who you actually know and have worked with
Facebook & MySpace
- Facebook is more professional
- Depends on your line of business-MySpace is good for younger clients and entertainment
- Can take an enormous amount of time to maintain well
- May be of value — proceed with caution
Blogs, Podcasts & Twitter
- These can be useful tools if you have the time and enjoy them
- They can be detrimental if you don’t
- Even if you don’t have your own — leave intelligent comments on others with links to your website or LinkedIn Profile
- Start a free blog or podcast on something non inflammatory and low key to learn the basics
- Decide how to proceed from there
Professional Listing Sites
- These are sites that rank well and that you pay to be listed on
- Enter search terms that your clients or referral sources use and see which sites are on top
- If you try one or are already using one:
- Take advantage of the tracking that is available to see how many hits or calls you are getting
- Keep ownership of your site separate so that you maintain control
Professional Organizations & Community Groups
- Make sure that your name and web locations (sites, blogs, profiles etc…) are accurately listed on their websites
- Link to their sites from yours
Attend the Feb Seminar or schedule you own and learn..
- The Top 3 Free Online Tools To Manage Your Internet Presence!
- How to have the first page of search engine results be mostly populated with items that you want
- How to prioritize your online time
- The down and dirty on Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace
- To blog or not to blog
- Strategies that you can use if you have a common name
- How Amazon.com can boost your reputation (or ruin it!)
- How to “bury” bad or unwanted press so far down in the results that most people will not see it
- How to manage your online life so that you have control over what people learn about you
- What types of online activity will help your business and what will hurt
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