Who is actually looking out for you?? No-one... therefore you need to do it yourself.
While its important to establish your brand on the T'interWebs, its vitally important to protect it. You have to remember that there are companies, and individuals out there that will be jealous of your success. You need to keep your personal brand healthy, and looked after!
Web Worker Daily had a great feature on "Do You Know Who is Viewing Your Personal Brand?" in October 2007. They had some tips on protecting your brand online. Here they are:
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Set a Google alert to your name, so that each day you will receive an email with the latest blog entries attached to your name.
Concentrate your Personal Branding efforts on a select few networks, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and your blog. These tend to have the highest installed bases, so they are more worthwhile.
Communicate to some of your most trusted friends, to make sure they are watching your reputation as well.
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Google your name periodically to ensure that your information is kept up-to-date and accurate.
Set complex passwords so that you’re accounts do not suffer identity theft.
ClaimID allows you to use your blog title as your OpenID, but also,
"On your claimID page, you can create a profile of all the sites that comprise your identity. We even provide you with a simple and easy way to "claim" those pages - allowing you to easily prove ownership of things like your blog or Last.fm profile"Link your online presence to a ClaimID page, and then link any mention to YOU there. If its not you, publish at ClaimID this is not me! Don't forget to link from your blog back to ClaimID though..
- Use quotes
- Search all of your name(s)
- Try spelling variations
- Use name association
- Search for things that don't mention you explicitly
- Don't forget things you've created
- Remember memberships, past and present
- Try lots of search engines
- Flickr (photo sharing): Use your name in the title and description of the image. In Flickr, you can also add links to comments and HTML. Also, take advantage of tags!
- YouTube (video sharing): The title of your video can help a lot. Popular videos are often ranked high in search results.
- Digg (social news): Digg and other social news sites allow you to customize your profile with your personal information and affiliated websites. There is also room for a short bio where you can emphasize key words.
- Wikipedia (collaborative encyclopedia): Wikipedia is a bit of a tricky one because you're not allowed to edit your own page or your company's page as per their guidelines. However, you can contribute to Wikipedia and use the Talk: page to engage in a discussion.
- Facebook (community): In order to display your profile in the Google results, you will need to change your privacy settings.
- Twitter (micro-blogging): Claim your username on Twitter (before someone else does) and fill out the short bio.
More info @
