A recent incident with my sister reminded me of the importance of closely managing your online profile.
I opened a Facebook account several months ago to familiarize myself with the service and learn how it might be helpful to our work here at The Reinvention Institute. Since I wasn't ready to create an official TRI presence, I mostly limited my connections to family, personal friends, and the occasional 'friend-colleague' (these are people that I've met through work whom I've become personally friendly with). Mindful of the fact that nothing posted online is ever truly private (even with Facebook's highest privacy settings), I've chosen to be very selective with the information I share on the site.
Imagine my surprise when I went got a notification that I'd been tagged in a bunch of photos! My sister had posted some family pictures, including a number of candid shots from my bridal shower and wedding. Now in my sister's defense, I actually had a few wedding pictures on my own Facebook profile (I knew that the longtime friends I was connecting with on the site would want to see them). But what she didn't know is that they were carefully edited to include only those I'd be comfortable showing the remotest of strangers or potential business colleagues.
Luckily all it took was a quick email to my sister to get the pictures taken down. But it was a lesson learned that you must always stay on top of the image your online profile presents.
Tips for managing your online profile include doing an online search on
yourself, setting up a 'Google Alert' to send you a notification
anytime your name is
mentioned online, or taking an objective look at your LinkedIn,
Facebook or MySpace page. For a more comprehensive sweep, download a great checklist
from $100k+ job site, TheLadders.com.
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