Jon Samsel

If you’re an Average Joe like me, you probably search for your own name using a search engine once and a while to see what pops up in the search results. Call it curiosity or vanity, I would classify it as ’smart sleuthing’ to see how the engines display ‘who you are’ to the world.

The more common your name, however, the more likely YOU may not even appear on page one results. The more unique YOUR name is, or the more active YOU are online, there is an increased chance your name will be served up in the organic results for web, image, news, video, audio, or blog search queries.

There is good news from Google. They have created a new tool to help people JUST LIKE YOU exert greater control over their PERSONAL BRANDS.

Just type ‘me’ into the Google search bar and the first paid result will be a message to ‘create your own profile on Google.’ Having a current Google profile about YOU could help make it easier for people to find YOU versus someone with the same name that isn’t YOU.

Google Profiles is just one small piece of the larger brand-management puzzle, albeit a useful one, and I encourage you to try it.

Google software engineer Brian Stoler recently wrote in a posting at the Internet firm’s website that when searching for yourself on Google to see what others would find, results can be varied and aren’t always what you want people to see.

For example if you type in the name “Nick Lange” you’ll generate some Google search results that are quite disparate.

• Are you the Nick Lange who, according to one forum poster, “BEWARE OF SCAMMER: Nick Lange, aka Nick20, UWisconsin77…DO NOT do business with Nick Lange from Florida!******”
• Or are you the Nick Lange from the 1991 graduating class of Amador Valley High School in Pleasanton, CA?
• Or perhaps you are Nick Lange, illusionist, at www.nicklange.com
• And then there is author Nick Lange who posted a very opinionated research paper for the University of Illinois titled, “Interracial Relationships and Korean American Families”

If your name (aka personal brand) was Nick Lange, would you be concerned about what was already out there live on the web? The brand of Nick Lange is not unique. In fact, there are several real (or seemingly real) people all using the same name (brand). In the Internet, real people sharing the same brand can cause headaches for you if they are not managing their brand the way you would like them to. To the unsuspecting searcher, how are they to know one Nick Lange from another?

Besides the real Nick Langes co-opting your brand, anybody could pretend to be you and easily inflict brand havoc if they wanted to. And this scenario doesn’t necessarily cover the identity thieves who are actively trying to steal your persona for financial gain. These evil-doers can also inflict much pain on your brand if you do not catch the intrusions early, and rectify them.

So now that you’ve seen how a simple vanity search can provide valuable insights into how well you’re managing your personal brand and the dangers that may already exist, what are some good pointers for improving or protecting your egosurf results and the BRAND OF YOU? Here are five:

1. Establish your online brand baseline. The brand of you starts with a simple search on Yahoo, Google and MSN. Taking a snapshot of your search results is a great first step in managing your reputation
2. Publish your personal brand. Launch a blog, a resume website, or a personal website all about you could help boost the quality of your unique vanity search results. Better yet, ensure that there are unique image labeled as you, word docs, PDF’s and .ppt files branded you and live on the web, or go so far as to create and publish podcasts, videos, press releases, and the like — as you, about you or authored by you. Search engines don’t just serve up web page results, they serve up results in multiple media formats
3. Take action against online brand fraud or mistakes. If you find that your personal brand has been misused, take action against the site that has posted it. For example, if an unflattering photo of you has been posted on Flickr.com by an old high school buddy, ask that is be taken down or moved to a web service that is login protected so as not to cause you embarrassment
4. Stake your claim on social media sites. Utilize social networks to clone your online persona to be present everywhere. I nice service is KwonEm.com, which can check the availability of your brand across 120 of the most popular social networks. For a small fee they will register your brand on all available social sites on your behalf
5. Be diligent. Check and re-check your egosurf results often to see what others may see when they search for your name or brand. If you are surprised by what you find, imagine what others are thinking! Stay on the offense and you will be much farther ahead of the next guy or gal in managing the valuable brand of you

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 at 8:37 am and is filed under SEO, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.