The small Sony HD camera I used for the @Ford website while I was at Ford. It's not the size that counts!

It seems as time goes on, as well, that these small and good quality video cameras are also being placed into almost every consumer’s hand by being in highly portable devices like small digital still cameras, FlipCams, mobile phones, and even iPods. Some of these device makers, such as with the Kodak Zi8, create their software with the ability to upload directly to Facebook and YouTube. To take it even further some devices, such as the new iPhone 4 or Ion Audio’s Twin Video, are equipped with cameras on both sides of the devices that allow for recording video of both the user and their surroundings at the same time. This, coupled with editing software built in directly, as with the new iPhone 4, means that consumers have the ability to create engaging video content for the web at almost anytime.

Ion Audio's Twin Video has the ability to record video on both side of the camera at the same time.

So the question then becomes what are you doing with consumers’ ability to create, edit, and upload video at almost any point during their day? According to YouTube, every minute, 24 hours of video are uploaded to it’s site. How much of that video is talking about your products? Reviews about their experience in your store or restaurant? Impromptu commercials for a special contest you’re running? Stories about how they are using your product or service to better their lives?

What are you doing to turn these consumers with access to amazing video technology into your brand advocates?

I’d love to hear about how you are using this evolving technology in your Internet marketing. Comment below!

As a small business and even large business owner, it’s hard not to hear about Internet marketing and things like social media everyday. It seems like there are people and resources telling you all the time that you need to have a Facebook page, a Twitter feed, a blog, then a YouTube channel, plus some PPC, SEO, SEM, and ROS ads; all while watching your ROI, CPC, and CTR! Who knew you needed a translator to get into Internet marketing?!?

It can be a little intimidating to get started in Internet marketing, especially when you are a small business with limited budget. The good news is that a little can go a long way if you’re willing to commit the time and effort. Along the way, here are three pointers to help you make sure you avoid wasting your budget and time.

1. Know your customer

Just as with your products and traditional advertising, in my opinion, the number one thing is knowing who your current and future customers are. When thinking in terms of Internet marketing, though, this goes well beyond just knowing what types of products they are looking for. You’re looking for how, when, and why they use the Internet as well as where they go online. Now this may seem like a huge and very complicated task, especially if you’re not particularly web savvy. The good news is that finding this kind of data is fairly easy to do using tools like Google Analytics or Clicky on your website.

If the tech approach seems  a little to hard to start, then there is nothing wrong with just asking questions to a good sample of your regular customers. For a recent freelance client, I did an online survey using Constant Contact’s survey system (super easy to setup and only $15 a month with no commitment), and the results were great. One of the questions asked if the user participated in Facebook and/or Twitter. While a very large number reported using Facebook, only 7% said they used Twitter on a daily basis. This means that while my freelance client should keep an eye on the changing use of Twitter, they are able to focus more of their time and budget towards Facebook.

2. Have a strategy

Just as you wouldn’t rush into product development, an ad campaign, or any other decision in your business without a strategy; Internet marketing is no different. Once you know who your target audience is, you need some kind of strategy on how to reach and engage them. I have seen quite a few times where businesses have just created a Facebook page or Twitter account because someone told them they needed to have it. I’m afraid to say that if you don’t have a strategy though, you’ll be wasting your time, your money, and even have the possibility of irreparably damaging your brand and reputation in the process. Here are a few questions to consider when developing your Internet marketing strategy:

• What are your goals? Engagement? Brand recognition development? High conversion rate?
• Knowing your customers, what tools will you use to meet your goals?
• How often will interaction take place using your selected tools?
• What type of content will you be displaying and what type of interactions will you be having?
• Who will manage the accounts and tools to be your voice online?
• How much money will you be spending and where will it be going?
• When bad messaging or PR appears how will it be handled and by who?

3. Combine your offline and online campaigns

According to a recent Forrester Interactive Advertising Model, online advertising is expected to grow to 21% by 2014. This is fantastic for Internet marketers, but it also still means that 79% of all advertising budgets will be spent offline. Looking at this, it is important that your online campaign play a direct role supporting your offline campaigns. As proof that this correlation helps, Marketing Experiments recently did a test where they took an existing online campaign created by a newspaper publisher and modified it to match the look and feel of the offline direct mail campaign. The result was an increase of conversion rates by 124% in just the first two weeks of the campaign.

The basic idea behind this is that a conversation started offline needs to continue with the user online. So how can this be done? Here are a few suggestions for combining your offline and online efforts:

• Landing pages, landing pages, landing pages – If you have an offline ad pointing online, create a specific URL and landing page that coincides with the offline ad. Without it, the user experiences an immediate disconnect as they search for the same info or deal
• Use similar fonts, colors, and images to help increase that connection of offline to online
• Place some components of your offline campaign on your website. A iProspect and Forrester study found that 44% of the people in the study searched for a company, product, service, or slogan after watching a television advertisement

Wrapping it up

While starting off an Internet marketing campaign can be a little intimidating at first, if you keep the three points above in mind, you’ll be off to a much better start. Always remember that it starts with knowing your customers, how they use the Internet, and having a great strategy for how you will implement everything.

“There will be no media consumption left in ten years that is not delivered over an IP network. There will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form. Everything gets delivered in an electronic form.” – Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft

Regardless of whether eBooks will completely replace printed text, their use and availability are growing. Similar to when digital cameras became popular (film vs. digital), growing along with their use are the numbers of people taking sides for the use of physical books or the use of eBooks. I, myself have been thrust into this battle as my master’s degree program has switched over to ‘eBook only’. As I have been trying to decide how I feel about them and their use, I have been creating a list of pros and cons. Here are some of the points I have come up with:

Man reading and eBook on an eReader

eBooks – The Good

One device, Hundreds or Thousands of Books, Magazines, and Articles

I frequently travel for work and trying to figure out what I’m going to take on my carry-on bag always turns into such a big debate. Having one device that weighs less than a pound, is smaller than a laptop, and has several different books, articles, magazines on it would make things like flying or even reading in downtime so much easier.

Instant Gratification

Much in the same way that hopping onto iTunes, downloading a song, and listening to it less than a minute later has changed many people’s purchasing habits for music; being able to purchase a text and have it minutes later for use will change how people will approach getting information… especially if priced right.

eBooks are less $$$

Face it, the quickest way to get the general populous to adapt to something new is to bring it down to cost savings. With eBooks saving users $5+ per book, depending on how avid the reader, the cost for the eReader is quickly covered and the savings begin. This also has huge implications for schools where budgets are major concerns. Instead of having to order thousands of books each year, being able to distribute an updated electronic file to all students on the first day of class cuts down a lot of costs even above the cost of the books themselves.

Technical Features and Integration with a Digital Lifestyle

I currently have my iMac, Macbook Pro, and Palm Pre perfectly syncing with each other. Why not have another device that can sync with all the others? Any time I write papers for my master’s program, its on one of my computers, so why not have my textbooks available for review or citation on my computer as well? Some eReaders and eBook software programs even have the ability to bookmark, highlight, and take notes that can be synced later. Also, when writing papers or articles, it makes it much faster to put in search terms than flipping through pages.

Man reading an eBook and looking surprised

eBooks – The Bad

My Eyes Are Burning

This is the biggest drawback that I see to eBooks. For my job and master’s degree, I already spend something to the tune of 15-16 hours a day already staring at a computer screen. This has actually, over time, caused me some irritating issues that are symptoms of Computer Vision Syndrome. I actually ended up needed glasses for computer work to help. So having to look at a computer to read text books or leisure books is just too much. Having a physical book in hand is actually a welcome alternative to sitting in front of a computer. Now, that said, as eReaders have become more user friendly, they are starting to incorporate more technology like E Ink® Vizplex™ which is supposed to make the screens resemble printed text more. Whether or not this would help in my case, though, remains to be seen.

You Don’t have to Charge or Upgrade a Book

Of course the nice thing about a book is that as long as you have some sort of light source, you can read it. There is no need to find a wall outlet to charge it. Also, as long as you understand how to read, you can pick up that book now or 50 years from now and still be able to use it the same way. With eBooks, you need some sort of electronic media to video them whether it is a laptop or a eReader like the Nook or Kindle. Since these are electronic devices, they need to be plugged in or charged. There is also currently not a set format for this sort of media. This means that there is zero guarantee that the eBook that you buy today will work 5, 10, or 15+ years down the road on whatever the new electronic device is. It also means that as time goes by there is no guarantee that the eReader or device you purchase to view the eBook on will be able to read eBooks in whatever format they come in 5, 10, or 15+ years down the road.

You Can Drop a Book

Have you ever had that stomach sinking feeling as you watch a laptop fall in slow motion to the ground? No matter which way you look at it, consumer electronics can be fairly delicate items. You drop your laptop, chances are something is broken. Drop your cell phone hard enough, its toast. A book, though, is pretty resilienet. We stand on them, sit on them, throw them, drop them, bend them, put them in the cold, leave them in the sun, and they work just as good as if nothing had happened. Outside of direct physical damage like ripping them apart or exposure to fire or water, books can take a decent beating without issue. Electronics though, unless specifically designed to, can’t usually take the same.

Digital Rights Management

Similar to music purchased through the iTunes store, most eBooks purchased through outlets like Amazon.com, have digital rights management (DRM) restrictions placed on them to prevent users from doing different things. Depending on the restrictions, a user may not be able to print any pages off, and many do not allow things like sharing or borrowing the books to friends. Technically speaking, even though a user may be ‘buying’ the book, really all they are doing is purchasing a license to use the digital file of the book for an indefinite amount of time. They never actually own the book. Another headache that can develop with DRM is moving the eBook from device to device owned by the same user. For example, for DRM restrictions only authorize a book to be used on one device at a time. So for me to go from my desktop down to my laptop or future eReader, I would have to go through the process of signing it off of one device and on to another.

eBooks – The ‘Meh’

eBooks are ‘eco-friendly’

The reason this falls into the indifference category is that I’m not really sure whether it is true or not (I welcome insight on this). Yes, at the end of the day, eBooks are not created by cutting down trees or using resources like water for their creation. So in a sense it is somewhat easy to see that they are eco-friendly. This said, though, I think people often times forget that electronic devices need electricity. Similar to why I think that electric cars are not the end all answer to auto emission pollution, devices like eReaders and laptops need electricity to be used. In 2008 only about 7% of all electricity in the US was created using a renewable resource like wind. This means that we’re still burning coal or other fossil fuel to create the electricity needed to power the computer or eReader. Also, since they are electronic devices that can contain batteries, some of the elements inside can be toxic unless disposed of properly. So, in the end, I’m not sure if eBooks are actually any more eco-friendly than physical books.

Well those are just some of my thoughts on the good, the bad, and the indifferent for eBooks. I welcome your comments on these points or input from your own experiences. Do you like them? Do you hate them? Will they replace print?

A few weeks ago, my wife and I were on a “date night” at one of our favorite local hangouts, Buffalo Wild Wings. It was a Thursday night, so all the TVs were tuned in to ESPN’s Thursday night college football game. I can’t recall what teams were playing, but I do remember it being a fairly close game and most of the other customers in the restaurant were fairly into it. With about 4-5 minutes left in the game, I witnessed something that really got me thinking about advertising on and optimizing for mobile devices. For some reason, the satellite feed coming into the restaurant for that channel suddenly went black and all the people watching gasped as the game was almost over. It was then, as if I were watching some sort of synchronized sporting event, at least one person at every table immediately pulled out their cell phone and navigated to a site that would keep them updated on the plays and the score. About 30 seconds later, the satellite feed came back and most of the  same people instantly put down their phones while some remained on them. I sat there amazed at what I had just seen. In a small timeframe, approximately 50-60 people, without a second thought, pulled out their phone searching for information. What a great time that would have been to be a scoreboard advertiser on ESPN’s mobile site.

Man with mobile phone

This event really got me thinking about mobile advertising and looking at how many companies had websites that we’re setup to be fully, or at least partial, functional on mobile devices. According to a recent Nielsen Norman Group report, mobile internet users trying to navigate a ‘full site’ on their mobile device only had a 53% chance of completing a task. That’s right, 53%! This task could be looking for information, purchasing a product, signing up for a service, etc. For sites that did have a mobile version, the success rate went up to 64%. This tells us that even though consumers may be able to use a mobile version of the site, it isn’t functional enough for them to do the tasks you are looking to have them do.

With almost 57 million people, and drastically growing, using their mobile devices to access the web, what are you doing to ensure that your current and potential customers are able to complete tasks on your site and increase your conversion rate? Will your success rate be more than 64%?

When you look at the fact that, according to CTIA 2009 statistics, there are 270 million mobile subscribers in the US, it becomes a very important thing for a digital marketer to figure out how to utilize this to get a company’s message and brand out to targeted consumers. I haven’t seen too many companies using mobile marketing, outside of apps for things like the iPhone, or at least doing it very well. This past weekend, however, I was pleasantly surprised by Best Buy.

Best Buy store exterior

My wife and I finally decided to make the leap (its about time) to upgrade my trusty old tube-based television to a flat-screen TV. Being in media, I’ve reasearched these ever since I saw the first one back in college about 7 years ago (which happened to be at a Best Buy and it was on sale for $10,999). So I went into the store knowing exactly what technology I needed to look for and what was good and what was bad. Once there, though, I wished I still had my computer and internet infront of me. The selection came down between two TVs and I was really torn. That’s when I noticed some small print on the price tag.

Best Buy price tag

It is hard to read in this image (my phone is another thing that needs to be replaced), but below the price information it said to send a text message to a specific number to receive detailed specs and reviews. I’m not typically the type to send text messages to random numbers, but a review sounded just like what I needed to make my decision. After sending the text, I received a response back a minute later with the make and model of the television followed by a link. This link took me to a mobile-optimized page on Best Buy’s website with the product information and a listing of all the reviews from the website. I was amazed! The text message also gave instructions to text back HELP if I wanted more information or to talk to a customer service person or STOP to opt out of any other information. It was so easy to use that I pulled down the specs and reviews for a few other televisions. In the end, the decision I made was based not only on the information I came in with but also strongly on the different reviews and detailed specs that were sent to me. It was a complete win-win as I gained the information I needed to make a purchase and Best Buy gained metrics on a customer looking for a television in one of their stores.

This is just one really good example of a company using mobile devices in their marketing/customer service. Has anyone else come across any other good examples? I’d love to hear about them!

“produce or disseminate (or aid in producing or disseminating) any material or information about the Event, including, but not limited to, any account, description, picture, video, audio, reproduction or other information concerning the Event.”

Due to a tremendous uproar over the policy by the media, fans, and free speech advocates, the SEC decided to revise the original proposal and posted the new guidelines earlier this week. The revision states that:

“No Bearer may produce or disseminate in any form a “real-time” description or transmission of the Event (i) for commercial or business use, or (ii) in any manner that constitutes, or is intended to provide or is promoted or marketed as, a substitute for radio, television or video coverage of such Event. Personal messages and updates of scores or other brief descriptions of the competition throughout the Event are acceptable. If the SEC deems that a Bearer is producing a commercial or real-time description of the Event, the SEC reserves the right to pursue all available remedies against the Bearer. Absent the prior written permission of the Southeastern Conference, game action videos of the Event may not be taken by Bearer. Photos of the Event may be taken by Bearer and distributed solely for personal use (and such photographs shall not be licensed, used, or sold commercially, or used for any commercial or business purpose).”

While this revision is a good step in the right direction, by now allowing fans to update things like Twitter and Facebook updates, it still is missing the point to all the uproar. I believe that people understand the SEC’s need to try and keep their exclusivity agreements. I think where people have the hardest time understanding this is how the SEC, in a sense, is comparing the video camera built into an iPhone and access to a Facebook account with the 5-15 HD broadcast cameras, production truck, satellite feeds, and on-screen talent/commentary that ESPN or CBS are using and providing. Being a college football fan myself, I can not imagine trying to watch a game or its highlights from someone’s cell phone video camera. Nor would I decide to skip watching a televised game because someone would be providing updates via a Twitter feed. If anything, any kind of interesting highlight, post, or Tweet about what’s happening in the game would make me want turn on the TV to watch. Bottom line, I think this policy came out of confusion and a basic misunderstanding of social media, its purpose, strengths, capabilities, and issues.

Some Organizations Are Doing It Right

When I think of sports organizations using social media to maximize their reach and audience, two particularly stick out. The first, oddly enough, is one of the SEC’s neighbor conferences The Big Ten. If you take a look at the Big Ten page or any of the schools in the Big 10 (University of Michigan, Ohio State, Purdue, etc.), you will find their athletic programs are fairly active in social media. A good example of this are all the official Twitter accounts for the individual schools and fans that are listed on The Big Ten Network’s site or the official accounts listed directly on the Big Ten’s main site.

Screen shot from http://www.bigtennetwork.com/twitter/

When thinking about sports organizations who are using social media to their advantage, the other one that sticks out to me are the New York Islanders and the NYI Blog Box. Basically, in 2007, the New York Islanders decided to create an opportunity for avid fans to be able to blog and talk about their team to increase the overall coverage of the team from a fan’s perspective. One thing that made this effort unique was in how the Islanders treated those selected to be a part of the Blog Box. These bloggers were given press credentials, placed in their own special section of the arena, and even given the ability to interview players and coaches after the game. While the bloggers were not allowed to blog live from the game, this still opened up an opportunity and showed that the Islanders encouraged this kind of communication via a social media tool. This is a quote from one of the fans turned blogger from the Islanders’ web site:

“Blogging as a function is actually the voice of the people, so, as Islander fans, we’re serving not only to entertain the fan base, but also to represent it,” said Dee Karl, author of the Unique Perspectives of the 7th Women blog. “It’s more work than I ever expected, but more fun than I could have ever imagined. It’s bridged the gap between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ and really has made us ‘all Islanders.’”

How the SEC and Other Sports Organizations Could Use Social Media During Live Events

No matter which way you look at it, social media and social networking are completely changing how people interact with their world and those around them. While there are a lot of growing pains that will take place, I believe that eventually most or all businesses (including sports organizations and even traditional media) will have to embrace and use social media to increase the overall engagement of their customers, clients, and fans. Instead of trying to stop the inevitable in this case, the SEC could have been very creative and come up with a few different ways to encourage fan participation using social media tools while still maintaining their media contracts.

Encouraging Use of Status Updates on Twitter and Facebook

As I mentioned before, there are not too many sports fan that I know (me included) who would rather watch updates from a game through someone’s Twitter feed or their Facebook status updates. If I was working on something else during a game and wasn’t able to view it live but saw someone Tweet about how Michigan scored an amazing touchdown or how close the game was, you can bet I would be doing everything I could to get to a television to watch. So by encouraging a fan in the stadium to Tweet, they just got another television viewer that ESPN and CBS can serve ads to.

Have “Guest Commentary” During the Game

Another way to use the tools and social media in a somewhat controlled environment would be to create a mobile website or mobile app that allowed fans to video record themselves with their phones doing commentary or talking about a highlight that just happened. This 30 second to 1 minute video would post on the site for viewing and would invite their friends to check them out talking about a highlight like the last touchdown. This could also be expanded into a contest where there would be voting on the best commentary for each game with prizes like free tickets, trip to a bowl game, etc. The end all benefit to this would be not only increasing fan engagement, but also bringing valuable metrics and exposure to people who may not have watched the game to begin with.

Live Interaction Using SMS

To increase live interaction during the game, they could post polling questions on the best play that quarter or have live voting for the “Fan Choice MVP” on the main scoreboard video screen. Fans present at the stadium would text in their votes using a special code or message using their cell phone. This would give fans a way to interact live with the event and those around them while also allowing the organization to capture valuable metrics and user information.

Calling An Audible and Moving Forward

As I mentioned in the last section, social media is drastically changing how consumers are interacting with companies and their world. This, both fortunately and unfortunately, is going to inevitably force businesses and organizations to ‘call an audible’ and change how they typically approach consumers or get pushed out of the way by those organizations that will. Like I said at the beginning of this post, I think the SEC revising their policy is a good step in the right direction, but they really need to take a cue from the Big Ten and engage their audience instead of trying to impose almost completely unenforceable rules on them. Because in this new social media world, it will be the consumer who decides who wins and loses in the end.

According to a new study on data loss prevention published by Proofpoint, an average of 1 in 6 US companies that took part in the survey investigated the exposure of confidential, sensitive or private information via social networking or social media sites. Here are how the numbers from the study breakdown:

• 18% of US companies investigated the exposure of confidential, sensitive or private information via video or audio media posted to a media sharing site (e.g., YouTube, Vimeo). 15% have disciplined an employee for violating media sharing/posting policies in the past 12 months. 8% reported terminating an employee for such a violation. 42% are highly concerned about the risk of information leakage via media sharing sites.
• 17% of US companies investigated the exposure of confidential, sensitive or private information via a posting to a social networking site (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn). 10% have disciplined an employee for violating social networking policies in the past 12 months. 8% reported terminating an employee for such a violation. 45% are highly concerned about the risk of information leakage via posts to social networking sites.
• 13% of US companies investigated the exposure of confidential, sensitive or private information via an SMS text or Webbased short message service (e.g., Twitter). 41% are highly concerned about the risk of information leakage via Web based short messaging (e.g., Twitter).
• 18% of US companies surveyed investigated the exposure of confidential, sensitive or private information via a blog or message board posting. 17% disciplined an employee for violating blog or message board policies in the past 12 months. 9% reported terminating an employee for such a violation. 46% are highly concerned about the risk of information leakage via blogs and message board postings.

Looking at data like this and seeing that companies are looking more closely at what their employees are doing, what is a person to do? Stop using the sites and services to be safe? No, I believe the answer is just use them smarter. Here are some tips on how to keep yourself safe while still being able to connect with friends and family on social media and social networking sites.

Check Your Company’s Social Media Policy

As social media and social networking becomes more prevalent, many companies are beginning to adopt social media policies for their employees. These companies recognize that having and encouraging their employees to post comments about the company on their own personal sites can help the company’s overall brand development and marketing. They also recognize that there are possibilities for having trade secrets or inside information released and so they make policies letting employees know exactly what they can or can’t post. If your company doesn’t currently have a policy, suggest that one be created and do what you can to help out.

Keep Business and Personal Separate

About 6 years ago I was working for a company and it was discovered that they were using key logging and screen capture software on the computers to monitor everything that was going on. This was not a published policy and it was only discovered after a fellow employee had been fired for typing some comments about the owners in an instant message session with a friend. I remember feeling like my privacy had been totally violated. I checked my personal email, bank accounts, sent my wife (girlfriend at the time) and friends email… and all of this had been monitored and captured by the company’s system. Ever since then, I live ‘off the grid’ while I’m at work. I don’t check personal email or personal sites while on a work computer. When provided, I don’t use a company laptop at home for personal items or web surfing. I even carry 2 cell phones when required to have a work phone. Some people look at this as extreme, but I believe that my personal life is my business and not my company’s.

Sometimes, though, you have to find a way to mix the two. You’ll probably make friends at work and want to make them your friend on Facebook or connect with them on LinkedIn. Should you bar them from being a part of your personal life? Not necessarily. Sites are now starting to recognize the need for changes to their publishing/privacy policy and capabilities. Facebook is one of them. If you have a Facebook account, one of the easiest ways to keep people separate and ensure that the right people see the right content is to create different Friends Lists. This feature allows you to place different friends into different groups. Once in these groups, you can set up different levels of privacy for your content. For example, you can create a group called Managers for all the management at your company who might be on your friends list. Then you could create a privacy setting that keeps the Managers group from seeing your status or photos tagged of you. Alison Driscoll wrote a great blog on how to exactly do this and I would recommend checking it out for more information.

Don’t Use an Updating Service

With something like 50+ major social media and social networking sites out there, it can get really hard keeping everything updated and synchronized. That is where update services like Ping.fm can really come in and save you time. The basic idea behind these update services is that you make one post and it will update all of your social media/networking sites. While the idea behind services like this are fantastic and really helpful, it can come back to cause trouble in the long run. For example, say you have done really good about keeping your Facebook all personal contacts and your LinkedIn profile a mix between professional and personal. If you had Ping.fm setup to update both, anything that you post to one will show up on the other. This just makes it too easy to accidentally vent on Facebook and then have it show up on LinkedIn. Because of this, as a general rule of thumb, I typically don’t recommend using these types of services. If you do, just pay attention to the next point and make sure you think before posting your update.

Think Before You Tweet

This may seem like common sense… but for some reason common sense is always overlooked! Before you Tweet, post that blog, or let those on Facebook know “what’s on your mind”, take a second to think about what you are about to publish for the world to see. If you’re using an update service like Ping.fm, what sites are about to be updated? Who is on your friends list? Should they see what you are about to broadcast? Could what you are about to submit be confidential or a business secret? Just taking a few seconds to think about questions like this and what you are about to post could mean the difference between collecting your pay check or a pink slip on Friday. As general rule of thumb, when in doubt… don’t post. Bottom line, social media and social networking sites are here to stay and can be fantastic resources. As more and more company HR departments use these types of sites in applicant screening, they can even be used to get you that next job. It all comes down to your ability to manage your personal brand and being able think about who will see the posting before you end up making a huge mistake that could cost you friends, your credibility, and even your job.

Creating Your Brand

One of the first steps in managing your online brand is to have one. This can be established a few different ways, but the fastest and best way is to make sure you have a presence online.

You.com

One of the best ways to ensure you have a strong presence online is to have your own website. This can be a very scary idea to some people who may not be as tech savvy as others, but with the different services available now, just about anyone can create some sort of website in a short amount of time. If you need to get a web address, in my opinion, one of the best places to get started is GoDaddy.com where you can purchase a domain name and even have them host your email and website. The added bonus to having your own domain is that you can have a more professional looking email address instead of something like pinkfluffybunnies23513@yahoo.com.

Google Profile

Another way to ensure you show up properly in Google searches for your name is to create a Google Profile. This profile will let you add as much information about yourself as you feel comfortable with as well as allowing you a place to put links to your other sites. The best part about a Google Profile, though, is that when someone searches for your name, your profile will appear at the bottom of the first search results page that Google returns! This can go a long way to ensure that potential employers find you and you control where they view your content online.

LinkedIn & Other Professional Networking Sites

While your first thought might be to use your Facebook or MySpace as part of your online brand, this may not be the best use for a personal social networking site. Friends or other people you are aquatinted with may post inappropriate content that you wouldn’t want a potential employer to see. Lucky enough, services like Facebook allow you to set up privacy rules to prevent people other than your ‘friends’ from seeing your information. Federal laws even protect you as it extended the reach of Equal Opportunity Employement to cover you if a potential employer did not hire you based on age, race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, or veteran status information they found in a private profile. Best rule of thumb, though, keep your personal networking and professional networking separate and lock down your personal profile sites. You may be wondering if you can’t use Facebook or MySpace, what is there to use? One of the best professional networking sites out there is LinkedIn. It is one of the best resources currently on the internet for professional networking and having your professional information available on the internet. Once you create a profile, I would recommend making most of your profile information available to the public as it will allow Google and other search engines to index the most amount of information connected to you which can help to increase your performance in organic search results. The other nice aspect of LinkedIn is that you can connect with others on the site in your company and profession. There is a common statement that says that “it’s not what you know, it’s who”, so the more people you can connect with in your profession, the better. Other professional networking/profile sites include: Xing.com, Zoominfo.com, and Spoke.com

Professional Blogs and Forums

One of the other places that can help you appear more online, and appear as a viable resource for your particular industry, is to contribute to the conversation on professional blogs and forums. Most industries have a space where professionals come together to talk about news, techniques, etc. Join one of these online communities and start contributing. Depending on how the administrator has the blog or forum setup, chances are that the search engine bots are crawling through indexing the information. Another thing to do is ensure that a link to your domain always appears in your signature on the profile. Not only will this help to drive traffic to your site by other members/readers, it will also help validate your site to the search engines. If for some reason you can’t find a good online community to contribute to… start your own!

Monitoring Your Brand

Now that you have your presence established, your job is about half over. The other side of it is that you need to continually monitor what is going on and how you are appearing. Sometimes directories can pull the wrong or out dated information from sites or, even worse, someone may be posting bad or inappropriate content related to you.

Google Yourself

One of the easiest and fastest ways to see what potential employers would see when looking for information on you is to do what they would do and google (verb not noun) yourself. While you are looking through Google, it may be worth the effort to also search using other popular engines such as Yahoo! and Bing. A quick searching tip, if you have a formal first name (Bradford) and a name that everyone calls you (Brad), make sure to check both.

Setup Google Alerts

One way to take your Google search to the next step is to use the Google Alerts service. The nice part of this service is that it allows you to setup a search term to monitor (i.e. your name) and when the search bot comes across that term during indexing, it compiles a report, and that report is sent to your email. While this is a fantastic free service, it is not updated all the time and, depending on your online activity, you may not receive an alert email more than 2-3 times a month. Bottom line, a great thing to setup but it shouldn’t take place of an occasional Google search of your name.

SocialMention.com

SocialMention.com is a great tool that will help you to track your appearances on sites like Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, and Digg. One of the best things about SocialMention.com is that the results page is fairly detailed and includes information like the average time between mentions and an estimate on whether the information is positive or negative. The site also offers a free daily alert service that sends results directly to your email.

Only You Can Prevent a Personal Brand Disaster

Depending on what you do and how well you manage it, when a potential employer goes searching for your information, they could find results that confirm you are the person for the job… or find items to give them second thoughts. In the end, though, you are the one that will control how you appear online. As Chris Brogan puts it, “the Web has become our workplace, our water cooler, and our social mixer”. You can get almost as much information about a person online as you can from talking with them in person during an interview. With proper management, the information they find about you online will set you up to be just the person they were looking for.