Online presence used to mean what your website looked like and how easy or hard it was for people to use it. Online presence today is much more than that. In these days of "Web 2.0", who you are online can make a big difference in how people see you, find you, network with you, and believe in you.
Web 2.0? What's that?
Web 2.0 is many things, all coming together at one point: The idea that today's web is user driven. What you want to tell people, you tell them. What you want people to learn about you, you give them access to. All of this is done in real time, with community input. You might call that part of it "verification by reputation".
Web 2.0 is the sites like MySpace, Twitter, Flickr, blogs, and so much more. On demand content. Quick pieces that read easy and meet a need.
With all the new communities out there, you can become an expert just from posting comments on blogs and answering questions on line. The problem is, if you aren't consistent about how you refer to yourself, you can become a fractured personality.
Consistency is one part of the answer
When you read a blog post, do you comment on it? If so, what do you give as your name and your signature? If you join a site, what user name do you use?
Almost every site where I have established an identity in the last couple of years, that identity has been "callkathy". My email is a version of that, my Twitter ID is that, both of my blogs are that. If you look for older work of mine, you will find it under "jacobskl".
Why did I change? Simple... Jacobskl is a very formal name. It is my last name and my initials. But it doesn't tell anything about who I am or what I do. CallKathy, on the other hand, says something. A good part of my business is answering calls from people having emergencies with their computers. They have learned to "call Kathy for help."
I don't recommend using your real name. It works, but it isn't likely to be totally unique. You want something that people can associate with you at a glance or during a search. There are many people out there with my name. There is only one callkathy who is in the computer world.
In addition, I have gone to a single avatar, the picture you see at the top of every blog post. (What's an avatar? It's the little picture or drawing that you see by people's names that show who they are.) By having a single picture that I use everywhere, potential clients know that the information they are reading is coming from who they think it is.
A great example of online presence is Mr. Excel. Mr. Excel is an Excel MVP. He has used that name and a consistent avatar for a long enough period that if you search Google images for "Mr. Excel", almost every item that comes up on the first couple of pages relate to him. He even has copies of his picture that are both photographic avatars and drawn avatars. This allows him to choose which avatar to use, based on how he wants to be seen on any given site.
Use your online network
The second half of maintaining a presence in today's online world is to ensure that you have a presence. Set yourself up with an account on sites that connect you with the people that you want to find you. Two I use regularly are LinkedIn and Spock.
LinkedIn is a place to establish and track your online professional network. You provide information about who you are and what you have done. You ask people to verify who you are and you ask people to join your network. Next time you need a resource, you scan your network for people who can provide that resource. Your network isn't just the people that you have direct connections. On LinkedIn, your network is defined as the people you know and they people they know. I have 119 connections, giving me access to over a million people that I can connect to in just three degrees. (Three degrees is my colleagues' connections' connections.)
I also use Spock. Spock bills themselves as "...the online leader in personal search..." the site searches the connection sites of the web and connects people via their people search engine. Spock lets you define your connection to people as either favorites, related people, or both. Favorites are your personal stars. Related people are people whom you have found and defined a relation with. For example, Mr. Excel is a favorite of mine, but he and I also have a relationship. The relationship is that of co-author. So, I have both marked him as a favorite and related myself to him.
I tend to use LinkedIn to find business connections and Spock to find personal connections. The two networks do overlap, since LinkedIn is one of the sites that Spock's search engine crawls.
Verify your online presence
Establishing your online presence is only the first step. As with any other relationship based system, you can't just create an ID and then walk away. You need to be vigiliant about updating and expanding your network.
The biggest way you can see what people are finding about you is to Google for yourself. NOT for your name, but for your new tag. If you want to make that even easier on yourself, you need to know that there are two different Google Alerts systems. Google has one in beta that you can reach here. An older and more established service is GoggleAlert.
I have used GoggleAlert for several years and like them. I have one of the free accounts, which limits me to only 150 results across my search terms. I have thought many times about upgrading, but never have. On the other hand, Google's service is newer and has fewer limits. You can get results on a wider range of topics. You must have a Google account of some kind in order to use the service.
Once you are able to verify what people are seeing, the next step is to keep your networks updated. Publish a book? Add it to your profile. Add a product? Find blogs that relate to your product and start posting there. Don't sell your product through the comments, just offer opinions and make sure that your comments are linked to something relevant about your new product.
Make sure that you get good people to recommend you across your network. Be generous with your positive reviews and people will be more likely to provide reviews and recommendations for you.
One final note: I got caught up in Web 2.0 stuff thanks to friends who were signed up for services and kept asking, "Are you on XXX?" It became easier to keep in touch and keep current when I was on those services. If you want to find some of the newest services out there, find blogs and services that help keep you in touch, and keep yourself informed on Web 2.0, community, and technology, check out these other sites:
Watch for more in future blog posts.
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