Three Ways to Clean Up Your Online Presence

Posted on Tuesday, September 19th, 2017

We’ve already written about the importance of managing your online reputation. The internet has become a key part of any job hunt, and employers do google potential employees. Making sure that your online profiles reflect you in a professional way is super important.

If you’ve read the article above, then you already have a head start on tidying up your online presence. You’ve googled yourself, untagged all those awkward Facebook photos, and built a stellar LinkedIn.

But how do you maintain a professional online presence? Today, we show you how.

1. Set Up Google Alerts

If you haven’t already done this, setting up Google Alerts for your name is the first step. Head over to https://www.google.com/alerts, type in your name (and any variations or nicknames you have), and save the alert.

This means that if your name shows up anywhere on the web, you’ll get an email telling you about it. That way, you know what’s being said about you online. It’s a great way to avoid surprises, and a great way to keep track of how your reputation is doing.

2. Set Up Notifications for Facebook Memories

You know how Facebook will notify you about something you posted five years ago (usually with an embarrassing photo)? This feature is a great way to keep your Facebook presence tidy.

You can set up your On This Day notifications so that you get reminded to review your memories every day. That way, you can clean out your Facebook over time, to make it more appropriate for a professional.

Here’s how to do it:

Go to http://facebook.com/onthisday and click on ‘Notifications’. Select ‘All Memories’. That’s it! Every day, you’ll get a Facebook notification to review your memories.

Beyond being hilarious for remembering what you were doing and thinking 7 years ago, this is great because cleaning up your Facebook is a really long, tedious process. You’ll have already gone through your photos and posts and untagged anything inappropriate, but this lets you finetune what you still have public.

3. Be Public

Knowing that employers and professionals are googling you can make it very tempting to hide under fake names online. But that’s a bad plan, and here’s why: People are googling you no matter what. If there’s anything negative about you—and changing your name won’t make that go away—that’s what will show up for them. And since you’re hiding, you’re not putting anything positive out there to counteract the negativity.

That’s why it’s so important to clean up your presence. You need to have public profiles that reflect you in a positive way—a reputation and brand that you control.

Keeping these public profiles regularly updated and on-brand further communicates your positive, professional reputation to anyone googling you. It’s work, but it’s worth it. A negative result in a google search can ruin a potential opportunity.

So commit to keeping a professional Twitter and LinkedIn. Be very picky about what you allow about yourself on Facebook. Buy the yourname.com domain. Social media isn’t going anywhere, so it’s up to you to keep yours professional. It will definitely help your career.

If you’re interested in taking a co-op program or have questions about co-op at Algonquin College, get in touch! Please visit our website at https://www.algonquincollege.com/coop/, connect with us at coop@algonquincollege.com or call us at 613-727-4723 Ext.7623. You can also follow us on Twitter @AlgonquinCoop.


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