We have to think differently about our personal brand than we did 10-15 years ago. Then, in order to get ahead, to get promotion, to get on that juicy project you could scan your immediate work environment and determine who it was you had to impact to make a difference.

Now, things have changed. Your network of influence might be social, virtual, global, segmented based on the communities in which you hang, participate, lead.

When I am hiring, the first thing I do in a cursory scan of a resume is to look for online avenues of investigation – therein I will get a much richer sense of someone’s talent, presence, persistence, ideas, leadership – if they have an online presence. If not, in a MarComms world at least – oh dear.

So, as a part of the BrandBoard exercise, we do a quick review of our online presence. It provides some focus. Where are you on Google? Are people looking for you? Do you own page one of search for your name? A useful outcome of having an unusual name, certainly (Assuming you have nothing to hide online!)

How engaged are you on LinkedIn, the professional leader in connecting, networking? And internally, how much effort do you put on your sharing activity on your enterprise social network? For me, that means Yammer.

None of this is done to judge. It is part of the process of determining how you show up. It is a mirror to your external self. Search is about finding – we are trying to find / uncover the real you. You might want to make an effort around that.

←This Much We Know.→