Why you should use Social Networks to promote and protect your online reputation

Have you ever gone Egosurfing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egosurfing)? You can bet some of your customers have searched for you online and that more will be doing so in the future. One of the easiest ways to make sure your customers and business partners will be seeing something positive about you is to utilize Social Networks (Click here to learn what a Social Network is).

LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/) is the best for this. They have engineered their website so that when anyone searches for one of its members on a major search engine the linked in profile for that person will generally appear as one of the top 5 results. I would also recommend that you create professional profiles on both MySpace (http://www.myspace.com/) and Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/).

There are also many niche sites that allow and promote member profiles that can be utilized to advance your online reputation.  For Realtors I would recommend having a profile on the following sites:

Truila (http://www.trulia.com/signup/)
Zillow (http://www.zillow.com/directory/)
ActiveRain (https://activerain.com/action/signup/step1)
RealTown (http://www.realtown.com/signup)
Zolve (http://zolve.com/)

Don’t forget that these websites can and should be used for their intended purpose which is to network. This is a great way to use online tools for both online and offline success. When you sign up (or if you are already a member) be sure to check me out online and add me to your network:

LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/in/jamiesteigerwald)
MySpace (http://www.myspace.com/jamie_steigerwald)
Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/people/Jamie_Steigerwald/1355510884)

Be sure and comment below, ask any questions you have about utilizing social networks to promote yourself online. And  let me know about any success you have had.