You always thought your Facebook was personal – and being authentic and transparent meant telling it all – the good, the bag, and the ugly, including those nasty comments about your former boss. Of course sharing all included documenting with pictures that sometimes . . . well let’s just say that even your best friend winced when she/he saw them. Now that you are working hard to climb the ladder and be a professional who is respected among your peers, it’s time for cleanup. We’ve included the basic steps to help you on your way to a pristine online presence.
Determine the Damage – Google Yourself
Enter your name on multiple search engines. According to eBizMBA, the top six are Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ask, AOL, and WOW. Beware – you may be shocked at everything out there about you.
Remove everything with a smudge
Remove all incriminating posts, photos, etc. Delete, or at least de-activate or close any sites that you are no longer using. You won’t be able to make a clean sweep, but get rid of what you can.
Bury
You won’t be able to remove it all, so bury what you cannot. Most people searching, including recruiters, wont’ go past the first three pages. Take time to post professional articles, positive activities, intellectual conversations, etc. and lots of them. The more great stuff you have on any of your sites, the deeper you can bury your past mistakes.
Change privacy settings on the sites you are keeping
If you want to be up close and personal with your friends, keep a private personal Facebook page and a professional one. Just ascertain that your personal one is very private.
Build Multiple Professional Social Media Profiles
Create a website (with your name in the domain). Include a professional photo, profile and email address. Use this same photo, profile, and email address on all your professional sites. (Just like Facebook and other personal sites, keep your personal email separate.)
Create a professional Blog. Offer interesting articles pertaining to your industry field. Post on a regular schedule. If you build up a following, this will rise to the top of the search engine when others are “searching your online presence”
Be Pro-active
Once you have established a pristine online presence, keep it. Think, and rethink before you post. Make wiser choices. Focus on being stimulating, interesting, inspiring . . . you get it. Eliminate gossip, bashing, profanity, and anything else that has even the tiniest potential to hurt your reputation.
Bring your pristine and professional presence to Springborn Staffing. Contact us today and let us help you use your presence, as well as your skills and experience to climb the ladder in Bangor and Portland, Maine.
