Effective Internet Presence, Why You (Need To) Care

An excerpt (draft) from Effective Internet Presence, Now required for success in business and life, coming Jan 3rd, an absolutely free ebook.

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First Impressions Matter, and They are Often Online Today

• I asked the 500 people in my keynote speech yesterday how many had googled me. Almost everyone’s hand went up.
• A senior hiring manager at a Fortune 500 company trained all his people how to look up potential employees online last year, going well beyond a simple search engine lookup. The results affect who gets hired and who doesn’t.

“18% of working college graduates report that their employer expects some form of self-marketing online as part of their job”
   -Digital Footprints, Pew Internet and American Life Project, December 2007

• A reporter from Investors Business Daily interviewed me yesterday. It was obvious he had googled me online before we spoke. If he had found nothing or nothing interesting, we wouldn’t have been speaking.
• My friend Chuck has a new girlfriend. He definitely googled her before considering dating her, and she looked him up online as well. Is “Love at first google” possible?

People google you all the time. They google you before they meet with you, they google you if they may be working with you, they google you if you’re dating their sister.

If they really care, or are Internet savvy, they will do more than simple search engine lookups.

83% of recruiters used search engines to learn more about candidates in 2007, up from 75% in 2005 according to ExecuNet.com.  43% eliminated candidates based on the results on 2007.

If You Don’t Exist Online, Do You Really Exist?

Good Question.

Certainly people are googling you, and if they find favorable results it’s much better than if they find unfavorable results or nothing at all.

People Look for Businesses and Organizations Online Too

In fact I haven’t used the phonebook in years, how about you?

Now Available, the whole ebook!:
Effective Internet Presence, Now required for success in business and life

Comments

[Alfred Thompson]

According to my logs someone searches for me by name a couple of times a week. That still surprises me but I am glad that what they generally find is content I have created with my brain in gear. (Well mostly :-) ) I also notice that a lot of searches include the work "blog." People are looking for my blog or to see if I have one I assume. Probably a good thing that they find one.

[Ted Demopoulos, Blogging for Business]

Alfred,
I'll bet many people that search on you by name never click on the search results and show up in your logs. There are probably more people checking you out online than you suspect.

It is surprising, isn't it? I can't believe so many people search for me either.

[Nupur Maskara]

I do too n so do others to me too- have been fallen in love with at first google and vice versa.
I use google also to track where friends, enemies and their uncles are now.
It does serve as a filter if we need to know more about people who we will meet so that we can decide whether it is worth the effort or not.
Am more than what google's got on me, and so are people i have googled- so i never lose sight of the fact that it's just a fun way to nosy spy! :)

[Ted Demopoulos, Blogging for Business]

Nupur,
Good comments -- people ARE more than their Internet presence, but it's often the first impression or the latest impression we get.
I don't think I've googled anyones uncle yet, at least not on purpose :)

[Dan Schawbel]

"18% of working college graduates report that their employer expects some form of self-marketing online as part of their job"

VERY INTERESTING....I see this multiplying in 2008!

[Micah Baldwin]

Great points. I think it is as important what is being said about you online as just being online. Sometimes something will follow you forever! A quote I gave 4 years ago still appears when someone searches my name.

[Robert Porter]

It strikes me that there is a business opportunity to be had here. A service that performs searches on behalf of someone about to enter the job market or re-enter it. Perhaps something akin to FreeCreditReport, but rather for keeping tabs on a customers online "credit" and good name. With email notifications when something new shows up, negative or positive.

Other services could be helping someone get better content higher in search rankings, cleaning up or replying to unwanted content etc.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm

Cheers,

Bob

[Ted Demopoulos, Blogging for Business]

Hi Dan,

Yes, I was very interested in that statistic too:

"18% of working college graduates report that their employer expects some form of self-marketing online as part of their job"

Definitely will be increasing -- one of my clients now expects the technical consultants they use to help market (and I'm helping the consultants learn how to help easily and effectively)

[Ted Demopoulos, Blogging for Business]

Micah,

Some silly comments I made on a blog about "Belly Button Lint" long ago are still there -- things don't go away, for better or worse.

Bob,

Hmmmmmmm, yes, I'm thinking too :)
Lots of opportunity.

[The Hairy Beast]

Google "The Hairy Beast" and you will be directed to a plethora of appallingly seamy sites, the shadows of which would never fall upon a true gentleman.

[Ted Demopoulos, Blogging for Business]

Yes, but what if I Google your given name.
That's the name you should be claiming online, and fortune and fame will follow. Well, maybe I exaggerate slightly. Fame and fortune typically require hard work as well Oh Hairy One