Your Public Face

(This week's Bulletin is an update from a previous issue, run last year, on this subject. The online world continues to, at exponential rate, change the rules.)

More frequently, BNI is requested to conduct public image profiling - searches to uncover one's personal information, that which is readily available online. Beyond verifying the usual identifiers (address, DOB, phone number...), given the proliferation of user-generated content and social and business networking sites, a potential employer or partner can often obtain an alarmingly unfiltered profile of their candidate. For obvious reasons, this information is invaluable to just about every public, private or governmental sector industry that relies on its public image to operate effectively.

We've developed several public image profiling site checklists (each containing from 45 - 102, and counting, sites) , dependent on the requestor's needs, all of which include the below basic searches:

General: Google.com, Yahoo.com(check subcategories: Web, Images, Video...)

Social Networks: .Bebo.com, Broadcaster.com, Classmates.com, Facebook.com, Friendster.com, Meetup.com, MySpace.com,Reunion.com, Tagged.com, Twitter.com, 360.yahoo.com.

Business Networks: LinkedIn.com, Plaxo.com, Spoke.com, Naymes.com.

Blogs: Technorati.com

Site Ranking: Aside from your Google PageRank, Alexa.com, is an excellent source of business information.

Tip: It is also possible to backtrace a person by simply Googling that person's email. The searcher can quickly become privy to one's opinion/poll responses, newsgroups memberships, political affiliations, donations and much more.

Again, these are the basic sites to search to form a public image profile - or research one's own Netface.

Public image profiling is the new credit report.

Stay safe,

Lina