This is a response to two recent posts from TechCrunch and Reputation Defender.
Online reputation is a hot topic. 80 million names are Googled every single day. Three out of four hiring managers are required to research candidates online. Whether you’re trying to land a job, win clients or generate new business, the importance of your online reputation speaks for itself.
TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington recently wrote a post about the future of online reputation and how minor indiscretions will become largely irrelevant. Reputation Defender CEO Michael Fertik countered with predictions of his own. Both articles make compelling arguments, but neither pinpoint what I consider the fundamental issue that most people have on the web.
TechCrunch’s View
Arrington predicts that online reputation will become a dead issue. More and more of our personal, professional and past lives will be available on the web, and eventually employers and peers will become desensitized. In other words, a picture of you doing a drunken keg stand on Google won’t be a big deal.
Reputation Defender’s View
Michael Fertik agrees that a few negative results won’t harm a reputation, but not because people will ignore it. He predicts that since so much information about you will be available online, people won’t need to make judgments based on isolated results:
- Searchers will determine who you are as a person based on hundreds of factors: credit reports, social circles, online purchases, medical history, Google results and more
- People searching for you (i.e. employers or potential clients) will have snapshot tools that aggregate all this information and provide a reputation assessment based on multiple factors
- People need tools that show them what’s out there about them, and protect them from negative or private information showing up
So, what do we think?
Brand-Yourself’s View
The future of online reputation is promotion, not protection. The average person suffers online because they simply fail to exist, not because they have negative photos – and not because there is too much information out there. When they are being searched online they are failing to return results that represent who they are or what they do. Since we know they are being searched, they are missing opportunities to win new opportunities.
The future of online reputation will be social media tools that empower individuals to proactively put their best foot forward to the people who can help them achieve success. Arrington is right: isolated negative items like drunken photos are already diminishing in importance. And Fertik is right: tools that grade your reputation based on aggregated data will undoubtedly arise – we’re actually on the forefront of this arena by grading how well you’re branding yourself online.
But both of their posts fail to address the fundamental problem we face: many opportunities will be lost because people fail to exist or to engage effectively in the right places. There is a lot of talent out there, but those who use social media connect to the most opportunities. If you don’t get why, consider this: Twitter is a global and open cocktail party. LinkedIn is a worldwide professional networking event. Blogs are a platform to differentiate yourself from the masses. Combine all three and you can connect to anybody in the world at any company and blow them away with how you’re a perfect fit.
The future will be less about removing digital dirt or protecting your private information and more about allowing you to achieve your specific goals by tapping the power of the social web. Smart individuals are already creating the content they want associated with their name and promoting it to the right people and the right places online. Are you?
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