Online reputation: all your traces in one lump

Why is online reputation so important? Because the web puts all the traces you leave together in one big pile for people to make a judgment about

Once apon a time, you went somewhere, did something in the real world. Whatever you did, you left traces.  Footprints, DNA, garbage, bits of paper, notes, recordings..  But whatever traces you left stayed where you left them.  The only way somebody else would find those traces would be if they took the same journey as you; if they literally ‘re-traced’ your steps.  That’s why Columbo was such fun. That’s why the TV ‘serial killer’ was all the rage in the days before Google.

Your reputation was the same.  Because it was either ‘word-of-mouth’ or ‘old-fashioned-media’ it could be different in different places.  In this village you might be thought of as a scoundrel.  In that City, a respectable member of the community.  Unless you got into the broadcast media, the traces of your behaviour tended to stay where you left them – visible only to the people directly affected by them.

But things are different now – very different.

Google brings the traces of everything you’ve ever done online together into one big, steaming lump.  And very soon, Google will be adding everything you’re doing right now – every Tweet and every Facebook update – to the pile in real time.

What does that mean, Lt. Columbo? I’m glad you asked that question, Sir, I really am.

What it means is that people nowadays assess your reputation from the bigger picture they get when they look at that pile, not from any single thing in it.

Your online reputation – how someone perceives you – is the sum total of the following 3 risk factors:

1. The things you choose to say about yourself (your websites, blogs, profiles etc)
2. The traces you leave of yourself (your participation in any online discussions, activities etc)
3. The things that other people choose to say about you (customers, critics, friends, enemies)

The real problem for most people is that they only really give their online reputation any thought when something significant happens in the 3rd risk area i.e. someone starts maligning them or their business on a blog or a forum.  My clients are invariably reeling from the shock of finding themselves under attack when they contact me.

Of course there is plenty we can do at that point to repair the damage and build a stronger reputation to limit the damage of any future attacks – and there’s nothing like being in a bit of discomfort to focus the mind on the issue.

Of course, the secret is to think about your online reputation before you come under attack.

So, to sum up: take notice of the fact that from here on in,  Google WILL bring together everything you do and say online for people to form an instant – and lasting – impression of you.

And start behaving accordingly