Google Sees All. Get Over It.

Between some well-intended privacy stories, some (very) sensational privacy stories and recent news from Google, I’m compelled to state what might be the obvious.

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You need to be smart about what you say and do online. For example, when creating a company policy about social media usage, I suggest that if an employee can’t say it in front of their Mom or in front of a competitor they probably shouldn’t put it online.

As marketers, however, we should be taking full advantage of the fact that Google sees all. We should be syndicating content across as many platforms as our customer community frequents. If they look for us in these 2.0 hot spots we want them to find us.

Consider the search implications of this distributed approach to content. In the past we created walled gardens to aggregate all of our content in one place. By turning that content into spreadable media, the opportunities to impact search results increase exponentially. And if in turn all of this media has distribution capabilities like ShareThis the search impact increases even more.

It all starts with Google
Have you Googled yourself, your client or your company lately? A brand’s search results are the first moment of truth online. Google now allows you to improve these results by creating a Google Profile.

It’s imperative that we make sure that everyone understands the implications of Google’s ability to catalog and cache seemingly all online activity. But we should also be deliberate in making sure Google finds our story in as many places as it makes sense. If we don’t? Google might find someone else’s version of our story instead.

10 Years Google by Patrick Chappatte
© Copyright 2007

Comments

[Jane West]

Hi, great post.

People don't realise half the time when they're signing up to new things that this information gets stored by google for longer than they might want! There's a good number of websites out there that will help you to find what's being stored out there about you - http://www.yasni.co.uk is one, if you're a business or person you can just put in your name and it will tell you what's out there about you - really helpful for managing your online profile.

All the best!

Jane

[Hillary Feeney]

A few days ago, my friend and I decided to Google search ourselves and were surprised by how many times we showed up.

As a part of my internship with Tehama Group Communications we discussed the impact that online profiles can have on the job interview process. To gain insight about applicants, employers are beginning to go online. In addition to a presence on Google, many people now have Facebook, Myspace or Twitter accounts. It is important to moderate the information published on these to maintain a professional image.

I enjoyed your blog,
Hillary Feeney
Account Executive
Tehama Group Communications

[Danielle Straub]

The first day of my Ad+PR Research class in January, our professor told us to a) check our social networking profiles (i.e. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) and b) change or delete anything incriminating or even inappropriate because our future and present employers have access to all of this information.
It’s scary that just anybody can Google search a person and find out information that we didn’t even realize others could access. After “Googling” myself a few minutes ago, I not only found my Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, but also my blog commentary posts and my name and phone number in the “Contact” information for a recent event I worked at my university.
I’m glad that Google can pretty much find anything and everything you are looking for, but when you realize some of the things it’s capable of, it’s kind of scary.

[Lindsey]

We have a lot of guest speakers come speak to my journalism classes. Almost every speaker mentions how employers have been looking people up on the Internet when decided whether or not to hire them. I think it's a good idea for Google to create these profiles so we can filter what people can see about us, however it seems that these days you can create a profile on almost every Web site. Do these Google profiles prevent you from seeing everything though? Or do they just highlight the things that you want people to see? Because if you can still find everything by Googling someone's name, even if they have a profile, then we still won't be able to hide from the things we don't want these potential employers to discover.

[Kevin Dugan]

Lindsey - Look at it this way. what worked against you initially (eek! there is a picture of me doing something silly online) can work to your advantage when you want to get rid of it. Create your Google profile, create profiles on some social media sites, create content like this blog comment and the silly stuff gets pushed down the pile of results.

Can recruiters look through every result? Sure. Some might, I'm not sure. But lets assume they are like the average web user? They don't go past the first page of results. Above average users go through the first three pages. So if you get that silly pic past the first page, good. If you get it past the first three pages? Even better.

[Caroline]

Yes, it is so important to keep your Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter pages clean! There are way too many horror stories in regards to "inappropriate material" posted on one's profile. A Google profile would be beneficial. I think business professionals would find this tool useful; it is just one more way to show their personality to potential clients of employers.

[Austin Sterchi]

Kevin, it really is true that anyone can find anything about anyone on Google. All companies really need to implement some form of social media standards with their employees. With this day and age, anyone can upload anything about their company with the use of social media. Take Dominoes for instance. I hope they have implemented something since their PR Nightmare earlier this month. I like your blog and keep up the good work.

[Shane Fallowfield]

My name is Shane Fallowfield and I am currently a student in Humber’s Public Relations program PRC 1C. I enjoy the Strategic Public Relations blog a great deal, though this story interested me a great deal. Not because of the implications for individual Facebook users being caught with inappropriate material on their page, but because of the implications for company and brand recognition. The implications with Google and the Google search is that you need to carefully monitor and engage in how your brand is perceived on-line. If you do not, on-line media users will begin to be drawn to other narratives about your brand that may paint you in a negative light.
My question pertains to which specific strategies and tactics you may wish to use in order to make sure the content you generate is first and foremost on Google. Outside of creating a Google profile, how else can you properly maintain your messages and your reputation in an era of Google search?