Part of my Web footprint, or trail of online information, consists of personal details that I voluntarily provide on popular social networking sites, such as, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. I have these accounts for a number of reasons (below), even though I know that this information is searchable by anyone and that what I share is connected to me forever. For this reason I’m very careful about what I publicize, I use the privacy settings, and I don’t post anything controversial. I also don’t post my contact information because I don’t want it to fall into the wrong hands.
- Facebook: Four years ago, I moved to the Chicago area from Ohio, and Facebook is a great way to stay connected with friends and family. We can view and comment on each others pictures and posts online at our leisure. Everyone is busy, and Facebook allows us to share information with all of our friends on our own time.
In my profile, I post some photos and general information: interests, favorite movies/books, and hometown to name a few. I don’t post contact information or religious/political views because I don’t want all of my friends (like co-workers) to see this. Also, I know that these preferences may change over time, and I might not want my views today to be connected with me in 20 years.
- Twitter: The thing that I like about Twitter is that I can “follow” interesting people, like celebrities, artists, and journalists. However, I don’t like posting tweets because I’m a private person and can’t think of anything interesting to tweet most of the time. My account hasn’t gotten a lot of action lately - that’s something I’ll have to work on.
- LinkedIn: I have a LinkedIn account for networking purposes. This profile contains most of my employment and education history, connections, and a link to my Twitter account. I don’t post a picture or contact information.
In the Proseminar class that I took last Fall, our class read a PEW Internet Report called Digital Footprints, and we did a similar assignment. One of the things that I learned from this assignment was that it's important to periodically enter your name into a search engine to see if your profile information pops up - as this is what a potential employer would see. My name unfortunately is very common, and I don't show up at all in the results....I think that I just found my question for this week. How can I get my profile information to show up on the first page of Google search results?
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Hi Jess, I think you have a very good outlook on your footprint. Reading that you are a private person makes me feel like I'm intruding. However, I know that since this is an assignment you're willingly offering this information up :) When I did my post, I wasn't expecting anyone other than Joy to read it - so that took me by surprise when my classmates were commenting. I don't have a Twitter account, however I think I would use it like you do, getting the in on everyone else.
ReplyDeleteOne recommendation for your google results is to maybe include your middle initial or middle name in your profile names. I have used babecker for almost everything. Brooke isn't so common but there is a brookebecker.com and it's a very sad story about a girl who was in an accident and is now selling her paintings. So maybe try adding a uniqueness about your username or url and you'll get distinguished in the results because then you can use your full name in the content of the page.
I think Brooke has a good point about using your middle initial. This could help you differentiate from the pack of Jessica Moores out there. Also, when you have the chance, try to have your full name appear in the actual URL of the sites you're on. I swear I'm not Facebook stalking you, but I checked and your Facebook profile URL is simply your id number- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=30105110&ref=ts. You could change that to personalize your URL, i.e. mine is www.facebook.com/nicoletrafton. This might help you obtain higher search results for your social media pages.
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