The First Thing You Need To Do To Improve Your Digital Profile

Improving your online digital profile is not as complicated as most people think it is. In fact, it starts with this very simple exercise I offer in my YOUR DIGITAL YOU workshops.


I ask people to Google  their name.

I know it sounds crazy, but I am always astounded by the number of people who tell me they have never done this before.

So go ahead.
Try it now.
Click this link and type in your name.

The second part of the exercise is to answer questions like these:

• Do you like what you found?
• Is the information recent or outdated?
• Are the results telling the story of who you are as a  brand?

We go a bit more in-depth in the workshop, but you get the gist. If it's all matching up to the picture you want to paint then give yourself a big round of applause.

It's possible that it all happened by accident, but the odds are it's because you have been putting attention on your online self.

You get that people such as....

• Potential clients
• Prospective employers 
• The referral you just got through your business partner
• The cute guy you gave your card to at your college roommates birthday party

......are Googling your name to find out more. 

You're keeping up with life in the age of digital. 

Of course if you are like most people, you have not been giving it any real consideration. In which case I suggest, if you are in NYC on November 13 you sign up for my last in person YOUR DIGITAL YOU -  the blueprint - the workshop designed to improve your digital profile of 2014. 

If you can't make that date - be sure to sign up to follow this blog or my newsletter to stay informed of future workshops in 2015.

Whatever you choose to do - put some attention on this! Your online you deserves consideration as much as your in-person you does.



YOUR DIGITAL YOU can be brought in-house to your business or organization and customized for your industry. For more information on how that works email me today.

The #1 Reason People Ignore Their Digital Profiles

Before I started working with people on improving their digital profiles I thought what was holding back most from paying attention to how they looked online was fear.

Fear of all these new tools. The little things like deciding which social network is best for their needs and how to find a Google+ community that makes sense

Fear of losing their privacy. Creating that LinkedIn profile that now broadcasts our work histories to the world can be a little disconcerting at first - even if the truth is that information can already be found online if one looks hard enough.

I was right about there being fear. But wrong about which one looms much greater than how to use digital tools and worries over privacy. 

The biggest fear is getting to what our story really is. 

Asking ourselves the  tough questions -

Like what do I do?

Why do I do this?

Who do I serve?

And the real stumper - what makes me remarkable?

Watch what happens when you ask someone that question. Most start to shake. They'll look away, contort their face into a grimace, pretend the question wasn't asked. There might be a nervous giggle and more than one is ready to back out of the room.  

And few believe me when I tell them there is something remarkable about all of us. We just have to take the time to look at ourselves - not just as we see us - but as Sally Hogshead says - the world sees us.  

How Digital Tools Can Work - A True Story

One of the requirements in my NYU graduate class is creating a blog. It serves two purposes. A place to complete the weekly homework assignments and a vehicle through which my students can learn experientially what it means to create and publish content.

I encourage them all to tweet out their posts and to interact with influencers online. That's always a challenge and one I easily relate to. It's one thing to complete a homework assignment. It's quite another to put that out into the world and to try and make friends with strangers. It's a scary place, not unlike the one I wrote about earlier this week.

But this is what can happen when you do.

The assignment last week was to find an example of newsjacking, a term defined as "the process by which you inject your ideas or angles into breaking news, in real-time, in order to generate media coverage for yourself or your business" and popularized by David Meerman Scott . One of my students wrote her post on what the London Hilton Hotel did to ride the news cycle around an event called Blue Monday,  a concept created a few years ago to spotlight what is considered the most depressing day of the year - the third Monday in January. 

Here's how Sonia used social media to get more attention to her post.  She tweeted the link and included David Meerman Scott in the tweet. David is one of those rare marketing people that actually practices the concept of social engagement - as opposed to just talking about it - which is just one of the many reasons I choose his book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR as the text for this class.

He read the blog and tweeted her back. 

This accomplished a few things. It made Sonia very happy. She got to see first hand, in real time,  how social media can connect. It's also a great example of CRM on David's part. David is a marketing influencer and Sonia now feels a greater and more personal connection than she did before and is more likely to help spread his messages.  And it put her blog link into his Twitter feed with his 104,000 + followers. 

When I saw what had happened I had to jump into the conversation. David already knows I use his book as our text but I wanted him to know Sonia was one of my students. 

The moral of this story is that this stuff works! Digital tools allow us to make new connections, expand our sphere of influence and overall - improve our digital profiles. 

In this case it also gave me material for a blog and a great segue to promote my new workshops! Your Digital You - the blueprint - a workshop designed to improve your digital presence.  

The 9 Reasons I Might Ignore That LinkedIn Invitation You Sent

A few weeks ago I spoke with a group  at a New York Women in Communications Digital Salon on the subject of digital profiles, their importance and how best to use them to our advantage. One of the questions I was asked was whether I accept every invitation to connect I get on LinkedIn.

My answer was a complicated no.

My general rule of thumb is that if our paths have crossed, I've met you at a function, worked with you, went to school with you, or are connected because of blood lines I will say yes.

But what if I don't? What if you are a complete stranger reaching out?  What do I do then?

There is no hard and fast rule. And while I generally do not like to ignore anyone, (I think it's rude and bad karma) in the digital world I sometimes do.

The question is, how do I make that decision?
The answer is, it's really pretty easy.

If I've ignored an invitation you sent to me the reasons are most likely one or a combination of those on this list:

1. I've never met you.
2. We have no connections in common.
3. You don't have a picture in your profile.
4. Your profile says nothing about you.
5. You lied to me and to LinkedIn and said we were friends and then admitted to me you lied.
6. You did not personalize your invitation.
7. You personalized it with something to the tune of "I think it would be good to connect" without a reason why it might be good to connect.
8. We share nothing in common. Not a group. Not a person. Not an industry.
9. It's looking like the only reason you want to connect is to sell me something.

LinkedIn is about my business. I'm there to expand it, to network, to share useful information and to find information I might find useful. Which means I am going to be thoughtful - maybe even a bit choosy at times - about who I want in my circles.

So if you want me to connect with you and you're a stranger give me a reason to want to engage with you. Tell me who you are. Show me your face. Let me know why you think connecting will be a good thing. For both of us.

Are You Choosing The Words That Will Get You Noticed?

Choosing the right words is essential to telling a good story. The right combination has the power to influence. If we do it correctly, words afford us the ability to create exactly the visual we want the receiver to have in their minds. 

In 7 Reasons You Need A Vibrant Digital Profile, I told you why it was important to make yours robust. So it stands to reason that the words you use to describe yourself be selected carefully. 

You might be considering a word like "creative". You assume this makes you unique. That it puts you on the short list of potentials for whatever the searcher was looking for. Who doesn't want a truly "creative" individual on their team? How many really possess such an attribute? This word, you are certain, will make your profile shine a bit brighter.

But alas, you would be sadly mistaken. You see "creative" qualifies as an overused buzzword. As do other seemingly sought after attributes like "effective" and "motivated." That is according to LinkedIn's just released 2012 List of Overused Profile Buzzwords.

Every word on this list is a good attribute. They're the kinds of qualities that a prospective employer or business connection would want you to possess. They're also the obvious choices.

And in the wild and crowded planet on which we live, one in which it is increasingly hard to be found, whether you are a person or a brand, obvious will not get you noticed.

So if everyone is using the same words, and they are all reasonably good words, how do you distinguish yourself? Do you simply check the Thesaurus and look for replacements?

Nicole Williams, LinkedIn's career expert suggests that you "Show, Don't Tell."

I'm all for that. Writers live by this maxim.  If they don't you won't keep reading. 

So do revenue producers. Anyone who has ever sat in a sales meeting has heard their managers reiterate, time and time again, that they don't want to be told you are going to get the deal.  They want to see the signed contract.

Apply that premise to your profile by not simply stating that you are "a problem solver" and "innovative" but by backing it up with authentic and hopefully interesting examples. As Nicole suggests you can use the Links feature and direct the reader to a website or article that substantiates your claim. 

I think another good place to do this in your Summary section. Instead of just listing off these tired old, overused buzzwords, tell your story in full sentences, including illustrative examples of your tangible accomplishments. The whole point is to make your profile more interesting and make you jump off the page as a real, breathing, vibrant human that the reader will be pulled to call in for a meeting.


In the words of The Bee Gees, it may sound like "it's only words." You may be thinking it doesn't really matter if you include timeworn ones  in your online profile. You may convince yourself that no one really cares.

But they do. In this very competitive and noisy online world we live in, words are often all we have to "take your heart away." 

Or to make your digital profile to stand out from the crowd. 


Click here if you missed my post on ForbesWoman last week, 7 Reasons You Need A Vibrant Digital Profile 


Click here if you'd like to sign up for a  Digital Profile Makeover.