One of my colleagues, Maria Duron, posted information on Facebook about Wisestamp. You can go to http://www.wisestamp.com and download a free version for your Firefox browser. At this writing, it is not supported on all email platforms, but is supported on many of the major platforms (i.e. Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL, and Hotmail).

3 Reasons to Use WiseStamp in Your Email Signatures

1.     You can include links to your social media platforms where you are active (they have 40+ social media platforms) and IM profiles.

2.     You can enter your blog’s RSS feed. As you see below, my signature includes the four social media platforms where I have an active presence. The “Career Design Coach’s Blog” includes a link to read the most current blog post. When I publish a new blog post, the link is automatically changed to the new URL and title.

3.     WiseStamp now offers an Email Apps Gallery that includes Twitter, StumbleUpon, Disclaimer, and more. The Twitter app shows your latest tweet, StumbleUpon lets you share your recent stumbled web page, and the Disclaimer app lets you add a disclaimer at the bottom of your sent emails.

As you are building your personal brand across social media, Wisestamp provides an excellent tool to brand your email signature. It supports HTML, so you can use a tool such as www.mylivesignature.com and “sign” your email with either your own signature (fee for this option) or with a font that you choose that most closely resembles your signature. I also use the “My Live Signature” to “sign” my blog posts. You can see in the picture below how my email signature currently appears. I use the signature HTML at the end of my blog posts on Career Design Coach to sign my name.

©2012 Kristen Jacoway | Career Design Coach. All Rights Reserved.

The overwhelming majority of employers and recruiters Google potential candidates and the more I poll audiences to see if they realize this possibility, the more I find that at least half of the attendees never considered this probability. Have you Googled your name? If not, put your name in quotations (e.g.  “Kristen Jacoway”) and see the results you obtain on the first 3 pages. Why only 3 pages? iProspect did a study that found that 92% of respondents do not click past page 3 of a Google search result.

Three Tools for Evaluating Your Own Online Brand

1.     Online ID Calculator: The online identity calculator was developed by William Arruda and Kirsten Dixson who wrote Career Distinction. You will enter some data about yourself plus the results you receive when you Google your name. The calculator will score this information and rank you as Digitally Disguised, Digitally Dissed (means you have unfavorable results), Digitally Dabbling, and Digitally Distinct.

2.     Addictomatic: You can search many different types of platforms to get a clearer picture of what the Internet says about you. Addictomatic shows tweets, posts through FriendFeed, videos on YouTube, Truveo Video Search, blogs, Wikio, Bing, Yahoo, Flickr, and more.

3.     Klout: Klout is becoming a standard to measure your social influence online. Scores range from 1 to 100 using more than 35 variables on Facebook and Twitter to measure the following factors: True Reach, Amplification Probability, and Network Score.

In December 2009, research commissioned by Microsoft found that 79% of U.S. hiring managers and job recruiters reviewed online information about potential job candidates. If someone Googled you, are they likely to find information that supports that personal brand for which you want to be known or not? Consider this-in this same study, they found that 70% of U.S. hiring managers have rejected candidates based on what they found online about that person.

Tips to Protect Your Online Reputation

• Be mindful of what you tweet or comment on Facebook: Companies have employed the utilization of social media listening tools like Radian6, TweetBeep, Google Alerts, Company Buzz, and more. The majority will “hear” if you use their name.  Likewise, be careful of what you say in general. I had a client that made a negative comment on a Facebook Fan Page and the comment ended up being on page 1 of her Google results. If you wouldn’t want a potential employer to read it, then don’t type it!

• Set Your Privacy Settings: Most social networking sites offer privacy settings. If you are using a social network strictly for personal use, then set high privacy controls. Think about your objective for using the site—is it to establish your thought leadership and expertise? If so, you will not want high privacy settings so that you can be found.

• Be careful of what you are doing AT ALL TIMES: Not to increase paranoia, but be mindful of what you are doing. With the rise of people having cameras and video cameras on their phones, all it takes is a couple of clicks for a compromising picture or video to be uploaded to the Internet with your name tagged (making it a searchable result). The very nature of the Internet is viral and can be spread very quickly causing it to be difficult to remove.

• Sign-up for Google Alerts for Your Name: Go to Google.com/alerts and sign-up to receive an email when your name appears on the Internet. Again, put your name in quotation marks to receive clean results. Monitor your online brand so that you can be proactive in managing your reputation.

How to Deal with Digital Dirt

• Contact the owner of the website or administrator of the page and ask nicely for the content to be removed.

• Contract with a company such as Reputation Defender if your attempts to get content removed are not successful.

• Hire an Online Identity Strategist who can consult with you on ways to build a stellar online presence. Reach Communications certifies people worldwide as online identity strategists.

• Develop relevant, on-brand results for the Internet via articles, book reviews, blogging, and more to try to push the results past page 3 of a Google search.

To summarize, be proactive about your personal brand both offline and online. At one point statistics showed that for every job opening, there were approximately seven qualified people on the candidate list. Monitoring your online brand is more critical today than ever in this tight job market.

This article first appeared on Career Rocketeer

©2012 Kristen Jacoway | Career Design Coach. All Rights Reserved.

I created this video originally to demonstrate some pretty fascinating statistics about the power of social media in a job search. However, this information is equally relevant to career management. One of the strategies for establishing your personal brand online includes building profiles on professional platforms. Naturally, if you are working within a company, you will want to adhere to the company’s social media policies.

Top 5 Social Media Platforms for Career Management

How is building and participating on social media platforms helpful in career management? Networking and showing your expertise/thought leadership! Laurie Smith stated in her article, “Using Social Media as a Career Management Tool,”  there are five main tools that are especially effective for business owners, executives, and professionals looking to manage their career. They include:

• Facebook
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• Blogging
• Twitter

Key Ingredient BEFORE Building an Online Presence

Remember, unlocking and leveraging your personal brand is the critical step prior to building online results. Why? Simply, you want to establish your expertise in the area(s) that best match your long-range goals.

Interestingly, Kelly Global Workforce Index™ reported on Nov. 11, 2010 that Americans say personal “branding” is key to employment opportunities. The traits individuals identified as most important in this article include:

• Verbal Communication Skills
• Technical Knowledge
• Resumes
• Written Communications
• Personal Attire
• Use of Social Media

During the next several articles, I will take you through steps to establish yourself and build your presence on these five platforms, giving you resources along the way. We’ll start with LinkedIn and look at building a stellar profile, importance of keywords (and a little known tip for a keyword-rich profile), must-have apps for your profile, building your network, and many more. We’ll also take a look at LinkedIn’s beta project, LinkedIn Signal, and discuss how this tool may revolutionize the way you utilize LinkedIn.

©2012 Kristen Jacoway | Career Design Coach. All Rights Reserved.