Managing your online reputation
A 2013 Jobvite survey revealed it's crucial to monitor what's being said about you online. Let's look
As digital marketers, we’re all concerned with our clients’ brand. But have you taken a moment to consider what your personal brand looks like online?
You should. Jobvite’s 2013 Social Recruiting Survey revealed that 93% of recruiters are likely to look at a candidate’s social profile. In addition, 42% of the recruiters who took part in the survey stated that they have reconsidered a candidate based on content viewed in a social profile.
It really is more crucial than ever before to control what is published about you in the digital stratosphere.
How do you handle your personal ORM? With the same professionalism you would a consumer brand:
Find out what is said about you
The first step in managing your brand is to Google yourself. See what comes up. Google images of yourself as well. Then go to your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social profiles, and view it with a critical eye – is there anything that might scare off a future employee?
Should you not find any incriminating information or photos, well done! You can skip the next step and move on to step three.
However – if you found anything you don’t want recruiters to see, proceed to the next step.
Do damage control
Should photos on Facebook, Instagram or the like be the problem, ask friends to untag you (or do it yourself). Better yet – ask them to delete the photos.
Update your security settings while you’re at it. On Facebook, make photos visible to friends only; make your Twitter or Instagram accounts private.
You should also delete any offensive posts, statuses and tweets. Jobvite’s survey showed that recruiters view these elements in a particularly bad light:
- References to doing illegal drugs
- Posts or tweets of a sexual nature
- Profanity
- Spelling and/or grammar errors
- References to guns
- Pictures of consumption of alcohol
If the problem is not within your control, such as an article written by someone else, ask them to take down the post or ask for the opportunity to rectify the situation referred to, whatever it might be. Following this, the publisher could be more easily persuaded to delete the content.
Build your brand
In order to build your brand, you first have to decide what you are all about. Is it social media? Is it content strategy? Then, once decided, build your brand around this:
Create a personal website. It’s not as hard as you think. Weebly, for instance, lets you create a website quickly and easily. And it’s free! Be sure to optimise it so that your website can be found during online searches.
Start a blog. This can be on your website or on a separate platform. Blog about topics that will show off your passion and expertise. If the blog is not hosted on your website, be sure to link to it from your website.
Strengthen your social profiles. Create a LinkedIn profile immediately if you don’t have one yet. Ask previous managers to write recommendations – this adds enormous clout to your profile. On Twitter, rewrite your bio and link to your website or blog. It might be harder to make your Facebook and other social profiles more “business”, but do whatever you can.
Share and chat. Share information of interest on your social profiles. This will get conversations going, making you more visible. If others don’t start conversations, then do it yourself by commenting on articles, blog posts or tweets. Don’t forget to share your own blog posts with others.
Monitor
You can’t sit back and relax when the initial work is done, you have to continuously monitor your online reputation. An easy way to do just this is to subscribe to daily Google updates for your name. This will ensure that anything that’s published about you, is delivered to your inbox on a daily basis.
Remember, the internet is global, so whether you’re in London looking for jobs in Cape Town, or in New York looking for jobs in Melbourne, your future employer can see everything about you. Think twice about every tweet or post you put your name to.