Branding youself (letters, employees, interviewing, work)

[jade408]

A few years ago I had a huge online and social media incident. Without going into the gory details, I basically called out a business for being rude and disrespectful to me on my blog. (my blog is not one of the most popular destinations on the web) They got mad, and decided to slander me on their own website. Then my posts got more and more traffic, and other people started to share their experiences with that company as well. They were really shady.

But midway through, for a few months, googling my name brought up that incident. And on that day, I decided to "SEO" my own name if you will. (I work in marketing)

To some of you this sounds a little bit vain, but personally, knowing that so many people google prospective employees, friends and suitors, I think it is prudent to work on "branding yourself" and your web results.

Nowadays, googling my name pops up mostly stuff I have control over:

• linkedin profile
• professional blog
• twitter profile
• google profile
• facebook profile

A few other things pop up, letters to the editor and stuff like that. But that horrible incident is long gone (only relives on my blog). And the online version of me is a pretty good pictire.



For anything I want linked to my "public" persona, I use one single name, as much as I can. I try to claim it on all social media sites. (Some pesky person beat me to it on instagram).


I have recently taken the next step: purchased a domain to match, and another domain to use for other personal branding purposes.


Do any of you regularly google your name and work on branding yourself?

[joe from dayton]

No. What is the purpose? To me, you brand yourself by having the respect of your peers and supervisors; the rest just seems like vanity.

[jade408]

I get pitched by recruiters every 2 weeks who searched LinkedIn for someone with my skillset. In my space people google you to find out if you are an "influencer" and as part of the background check when offering employment. It is prudent to make sure the online picture of you is flattering.

[Teckeeee]

I don't brand that way, but I refuse to work at Walmart because it will ruin, IMO, my brand of being a high tech sales professional. I am multi year Presidents club with many other awards. If I were a hiring manager I would question me if after my layoff I went to work low paid retail. Now if I am starving, that would be a different thing, but I have $$$ in bank.

Agreed Jade I have a linkedin photo of me with shirt and tie no kids no skiing in background I am a professional not a party planner.

[maus]

I don't go that far with my online persona as I have no reason to nor the time to keep up with all those different avenues, but it may be more important to some than to others depending on your career/job. If you have a relatively common name, you can be somewhat anonymous online in Google searches.

Most of my job-related stuff is on linkedin only. I don't worry about bothering with all the other social networking sites as they are not related to what I do professionally. I leave all those other social media outlets separate from my linkedin, just a way to keep my online "work" profile somewhat low as possible. Even with just that, I do get recruiters and hiring managers interested in interviewing me time to time via Linkedin.