Frost yourself!

If you haven't seen the movie How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days, you probably wouldn't get the title of this blog, but allow me to explain. In the movie the female character comes up with this tag line for the male love interests' jewelry advertising campaign. This idea goes over great and they fall in love of course, but this is not the point.

I believe that in the internet marketing a company must frost itself. This can also apply in reference to your personal branding.

It is definitely essential for a new company or product to be branded through many outlets. The internet is a great place to brand. You can place display ads on websites that appeal to your targets, you can create awareness to an entire generation through Facebook or Myspace, and you can pay for keywords that relate to your product or company to ensure that viewers begin to associate you with these words. You can also use Search engine optimization to improve your rankings for your products or services (Reference.) If you could come up with a great new idea for the internet and have people all around the internet referencing you (ex. Just Google it!..Googler), then you must take this approach to branding.

In the same frame of mind, if you are a young professional, or a professional of any age you should definitely look into branding (and frosting) yourself. First of all, you need to Google yourself. What does your keyword say about you? Now, for some with common names or who share their names with famous people, this could get more difficult. You will have a lot more competition to get to the top of the page. Luckily, my mother and father decided to give me a name no one can pronounce correctly so branding myself has been relatively easy for me. It can be easy for you too!

Potential employers may search your name and do you want the first thing they see to be you in your scandalous halloween outfit on facebook. I think not! If you would rather your facebook account not show up on search engines then you better make sure you opt out of that. This could definitely be damaging to your professional reputation, unless you are a professional party girl (or boy) a la Paris Hilton.

Now, a little shout out to my professor, James Moore. In his words, "if you are not on Linkedin, you need to be." This is definitely the truth. My Linkedin profile is one of the first results when you search my name. It is definitely good to have the information up to date.

If you were to Google me you would see Facebook, Linkedin, a awful poem I don't remember writing, this WONDERFUL blog, and some of my interests and alumni clubs. I will honestly admit without shame I Google myself regularly to ensure that my reputation is still in tact and that I am taking up the first page. Honestly, who looks at page two? I plan on continuing to frost myself online, by keeping up with this blog and linking it to sites that are crawled regularly by search engine robots. This is another tip :)

Be sure to check yourself out...add some frosting to your online presence!