Thing #39: Managing Your Online Identity

C'mon, admit it: you've Googled yourself. And your ex-significant-other. And your best friend from high school. In fact, a study from the Pew Research Center suggests that seven out of ten online adults have searched online about other people. But what if it's not an old friend or flame searching for you, but instead a potential employer? (Did you know that one in five employers use social networks in the hiring process?) Or a professional contact? What do these people find when they search for you? What kind of image are you conveying of yourself on the internet?

If you are active in the online world, you have an online identity, whether you realize it or not. Take me, for instance. When you search for michael sauers on Google, the first page of results include hits from my blog TravelinLibrarian.info, along with my Twitter, blogger, and Flickr accounts. Head on over to pages two and three of the results and you start finding podcasts I’ve done and books I’ve written. Add some quotes and the state I live in to my name ("michael sauers" ne), and you get links to the Nebraska Library Commission, and Nebraska Libraries on the Web, my current project involving free Web sites for public libraries in Nebraska.

Taking Control of Your Online Identity

At this point, you probably have a pretty good idea of what I'm all about. I'm fairly happy with these results, but they could certainly be improved with a little effort on my part. So how can you take control of your online identity? The easiest way is to check your profiles on various social media sites (more details below). These seem to float to the top of search results frequently, so make sure they are updated and contain the information you want on public display. If you don't have a profile on any of these sites, consider creating one.

Here are some examples of sites you can use to build your online identity:

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Google Profile
• Hi, I’m

Your profile on each of these sites is indexed by search engines (as long as you've set them to public in your privacy settings), making them a quick and easy way to get information about yourself out into the world.

Another approach to online identity management is to "claim" sites that are about you. ClaimID allows you to do just that. You can add a description of each site ("I designed this website for a work project") and categorize your sites. The advantage to using a site like ClaimID is that you can credit yourself with sites that may not have your name on them anywhere and therefore otherwise would not show up in a search for your name.

If you are ready for a real challenge, you can create your very own personal website. This takes more time and effort, but it is worth it to completely customize what information you present to the online world (and how it is presented).
Examples of sites creating your own free websites include:

• Blogger (We’ll assume you’ve already got an account here ;-)
• Wordpress.com
• Weebly
• Google Sites

Or, you can get your own webspace and domain through a provider such as Bluehost and set up your own site from scratch! You can do anything you'd like in this situation, ranging from simple HTML pages to installing your own content management system, such as Drupal or Wordpress.

Tracking Yourself Online

Once you've better established your online identity using the ideas above, how do you track what's being said about you? One way is to use an alert system, such as Google Alerts. You enter your keywords, and it will send you an email when a new search result matches your keywords. You can also subscribe to an RSS feed of your alerts if you want to keep your inbox clutter-free.
Other examples of alert/tracking sites:

• Technorati (blog search engine)
• MonitorThis (creates RSS feeds for your search from 22 different search engines)

This Month’s Activity

1. Search for yourself in several search engines, such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo. (Feel free to use others, too!) You all are librarians, so I don't have to remind you to use a variety of keyword combinations to see how the results vary. :)

2. Check out one or more of the suggested sites in the "Taking Control of Your Online Identity" section above for creating an online profile. (Or check out one we didn't list - and tell us about it, of course!) If you already have a profile at one or more of these sites, take a look at your profile and make sure it's conveying the information you want it to about you.

3. Blog about your experiences.

(This month’s Thing is adapted from “Managing Your Online Identity” by Jodie Gambill, as part of the Tenn-Share Learn & Discover program.)

Thing #38: Use Things to Market Your Library

You've been promoting your library's services for years. And you've been doing it in many ways - displays, posters, newspaper stories, radio ads, newsletters.

Now, Web 2.0 has brought us even more tools to encourage people to use our libraries. But, working with these new tools can be different from working with the traditional tools that you have always used. No longer do you just push out the message you want and leave it at that. Today, with social media and networking, marketing and promotion has become a conversation, rather than a speech. Your users can, and will, respond to your outreach in ways you haven't encountered before. And that's something you need to be ready for.

A great introductory article to using these new Web 2.0 resources for marketing your library is Darlene Fichter's Seven Strategies for Marketing in a Web 2.0 World.

You can also find lots of information and resources on The M Word: Marketing tips and trends for libraries and non-profits. This blog is co-written by Nancy Dowd, Marketing Director for the New Jersey State Library, and Kathy Dempsey, Editor of Information Today's Marketing Library Services newsletter.

For this month's Thing, we'd like you to get creative with your marketing thinking and try something new. We'd like you to pick one of the services we've shown you in Nebraska Learns 2.0 that you haven't used before at your library. You can choose from our current program or our original program. Then, come up with an idea for how you could use that Web 2.0 service to promote one of your library programs or services.

Now, don't panic! You don't have to actually implement this plan. We just want you to think of a new way to promote your library, using one of the new tools we've shared with you. But who knows, you might actually end up with a great idea and want to try it out!

This is not an exhaustive list, but here are some of the services you could use:

• Flickr
• Facebook
• Twitter
• YouTube
• Podcasting
• Screencasting
  

But, some of you may be wondering - what if we've already used one of these 2.0 services for marketing and promotion at our library? Well then, please share your story with us! We'd love to know:

• What was your strategy?
• Was it a success?
• Would you have done anything different?

Assignment

1. Read Seven Strategies for Marketing in a Web 2.0 World.
2. Pick a Web 2.0 service and come up with a new marketing idea. Or, share a Web 2.0 marketing plan that you've already used at your library.
   
3. Blog about your new marketing plan.
   

Some ideas for your blog post:

• How does marketing with Web 2.0 services compare with traditional marketing tools?
  
• Would a particular service work best for a particular library program?
• Can you think of a way to use multiple Web 2.0 services together to market a library program or service?

Nebraska Learns 2.0 Project Update

Please excuse this non-Thing post, but we just wanted to take a moment of your time to update you on some of what's been going on behind-the-scenes with Nebraska Learns 2.0.

First, we noticed a few months ago that participation was down. As a result we re-doubled our efforts in publicizing the program and since then have seen a significant rise in Thing completion and new participants. Whenever a new Thing goes live we're blogging it, tweeting it and Facebooking it. If you know of anywhere else we can let people know about the program, just leave a comment and we'll do what we can.

Second, as you may have noticed, we've started to re-visit some previously discussed topics such as Flickr. This was a response to the number of new participants who hadn't done any of the original 23 Things and due to the fact that some of these services have evolved since we originally posted them. Don't worry, not everything coming up in the future will be review-like in their nature. We've got plenty of new Things in the works.

Third, and lastly, we've been looking at the Participants list and have decided that it needs some weeding. We know that you're not required to do each and every Thing, but some folks signed up for the program, started their blogs, got them on the list, and then haven't done a single Thing yet. This isn't a judgment on your level of participation (we understand how things can fall by the wayside; see above), but we've decided to remove from the list anyone who hasn't logged a single completed Thing. What this ultimately accomplishes is that it gives a more accurate picture of the participants in this program. Looking at the list now makes it seem like not many people are active with the program and that's not what we'd like to portray.

So, if you're reading this and you have every intention to have this month's Thing be your first, no worries. We won't be weeding the list until after June is over. If you're thinking that July will be your first thing, just leave a comment with a link to your blog and we'll be sure to keep it on the list. If you've done any previous Thing, it's all good, your participant entry is safe with us.

If your blog is removed from the Participants list next month, but you decide to revisit Nebraska Learns 2.0 sometime in the future, just e-mail Jeannette to let her know, and your blog will be added back onto the Participants list.

As always, if you have any questions about this post or any other part of the program, leave a comment below and we'll get back to you ASAP.

Thanks for participating in Nebraska Learns 2.0!