Managing Your Online Identity

You are not Katy Perry “Pictures from last night, Ended up online, I’m screwed… Oh well!”

Why does it matter? Exercise about Google/Facebook roommate before school First Impression Bias Today your first impressions are made online Matters in a lot of contexts -dating -friendship -graduate school admissions -landlord -etc. But most importantly it matters in business… which is why we’re talking about this here at the career summit

Colleges Care 24% Of college admissions officers have gone to an applicant’s Facebook or other social networking page to learn more about them. *The survey was conducted in July and August 2011 as part of Kaplan Test Prep’s annual survey of admissions officers.

Employers Care 70% of employers admit to having rejected a candidate based on information they found online. *Microsoft Market Research “Online Reputation in a Connected World”, January 2010.

Employers Care

I’m leaving the Internet… Strategy 1: Nuke Facebook – disappear Strategy 2: Create a strong online presence -better because it’s defensive (bad stuff pops up, less likely to get noticed) -avoid confusion with someone who has the same name -first impression bias used to your advantage

Let’s do this! Strategy 1: Nuke Facebook – disappear Strategy 2: Create a strong online presence -better because it’s defensive (bad stuff pops up, less likely to get noticed) -avoid confusion with someone who has the same name -first impression bias used to your advantage

How to create a strong presence? Step 1: Decide what content you want online Step 2: Clean up your current presence Step 3: Build and maintain going forward

Deciding what you want online… Have a reason for sharing Understand that context matters NMI is the new TMI

Three case studies

Cleaning up your past content… Take an online inventory Delete certain content you control Ask others to remove content you don’t like Use your privacy settings

Cleaning up your past content…

Cleaning up your past content…

Going forward… Set up a Google Alert (www.google.com/alerts) Create positive content Crosslink that content Claim your name

Questions?