Monitoring Your Online Rep (Three Quick Tips)

By Chandlee Bryan
Careers in Context
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/chandlee

There's been a lot of talk recently about personal brand management and the importance of managing your online reputation. (Considering all the buzz generated by office holiday parties and end-of-year celebrations--this may not be such a bad thing.)

Last week, Laura Smith-Proulx posted a great piece on "Why LinkedIn Isn't Just About Personal Connections" that emphasizes the need to monitor what's being said about you online--and provides insight on how LinkedIn can help you "bury digital dirt." According to the post, "The best reason to maintain your LI profile REGULARLY is that it pushes older information down on your search results."

Social media guru Dan Schawbel regularly advocates the proactive use of social media as a tool for both job seekers and the happily employed. Through his Personal Branding Blog, he profiles job seekers and "successful" brands who have used social media to strengthen their reputations. Last week, Dan published a list of personal branding predictions which prognosticates that personal branding will become a "top of mind" catchphrase in 2009, but which also states the challenges of day-to day management.

According to Dan, "One of the biggest challenges with building a personal brand, in bits and bytes, is managing it over your lifetime."

I could not agree more.

With that in mind, here are three very quick things you can do now--even if exams or holiday obligations are looming over your head--

1. If you don't have one already, set up a LinkedIn profile. You may find this advice from Chris Brogan on how to write your profile for your future to be helpful

You can mark it as private until you're ready to use it. In the interim, claim your public URL (i.e. address) through the "Edit Public Profile" settings.

One reason why this really works: When you want to be known, you'll come up quicker in searches.

2. Set up a Google News Alert on your name so that you can monitor information about yourself (this may or may not work with Facebook tagging of photos--but you should be monitoring these, anyway).

3. Consider following Dan Schawbel's advice and buying your own domain name with your name--if it is still available. This way, no one else can snag it, and you'll have the space to place your own online portfolio if you decide that is something you want to do. (GoDaddy.com is one place to do this, but there are multiple vendors for domain names on the web, just search "domain names.")

Branding alone won't get you hired--you need to be able to demonstrate your fit for a position and fit organizational needs--but it can speed up your search.

Make these three quick moves and enjoy the holidays with the peace of mind that you've developed a foundation for "being found" when you're ready to move into high gear.