The Conversation of You on the Web

Last week I had the opportunity to participate in a discussion entitled The Conversation of You on the Web. The discussion, which was sponsored by the Business Alliance at the Cardinal Club in Raleigh, focused on the increasing prominence of "social media" such as LinkedIn and Facebook and the importance of your personal online presence on the Web.

During the event I distributed a one-page flier to attendees; the contents of that flier are inserted below. The information below is by no means an exhaustive list of strategies and tactics for an effective Web 2.0 presence; it is simply intended to provide a list of basic principles to consider as you get your feet wet.

The Conversation of You
Branding Yourself and Your Business on the Web

Key Principles

- Have a Vision / Goals. In an ideal world, what would your personal online presence look like? What message do you want to communicate? How do you want to position yourself and your business? Who should be able to find you? When do you want to be found (i.e. do you want to be found by people searching for a certain service in a certain situation)?

- Know Where You Stand. Assess your personal online presence. What results appear when you Google yourself? Does your online presence communicate the message you want it to communicate? What do you need to change?

- Be Pro-Active. Take the bull by the horns and pro-actively work to build the online presence you need. Pro-actively generate and publish content which reinforces your desired personal and professional brands. Make sure that content is published in places which can be found by Google and other search engines.

- Be Professional. If you blog, write articles or otherwise generate content on the Web, be professional. Make sure it’s well written, and make sure there are no typos.

- Don’t Sabotage Yourself. Anything you write or post on the Web can (and will) be found by people outside of your intended audience. Opinions, blog comments, letters to the editor, seemingly innocent photos, etc. can be found by important people, taken out of context and undermine your desired online brand.

- Stay on Top of Things. Regularly monitor your online brand. Google offers a simple tool, Google Alerts, that can help you do so. Set up Google Alerts to e-mail you any time your name or your company’s name pops up in a blog, news article or elsewhere on the Web.

- Be Active. Join online networking sites such as LinkedIn. Establish a strong, credible, professional presence on those sites.

- Be Consistent. Make sure your online brand is consistent with your overall brand.

- Integrate. Find ways to integrate different online branding tools. For example, entries from an external blog can be automatically imported into the “Notes” section of a Facebook profile.

- Know the Medium. Web 2.0 is more interactive and more conversational than most traditional marketing. Give others a chance to engage with you.