I recently spoke with Thomas Drugan, co-founder of Naymz and author of “Not Just Your-Space: The College Student’s Guide to Managing Online Reputation“. Thomas has been involved in online marketing for over ten years, and considered a pioneer of the personal branding/online reputation management industry. In the interview, we discuss the importance of personal branding,the necessary steps to manage your online reputation and some humorous stories of personal branding gone wrong.

You co-founded Naymz in 2006, after years of working in online search marketing. What problem or mission does Naymz  address?

Naymz launched when Blogging and MySpace were all the rage. Individuals were publishing an unprecedented amount of information about themselves and others online, without fully understanding what consequences that publicly available content might have. As more personal information was becoming available online, others began to see search engines and social networks as a means to conduct background checks.

We began to build out Naymz as a platform to help individuals monitor and build a good online reputation.

We shifted our focus to professionals and added a “social networking” layer to Naymz in the summer of 2007.  Since then we have added many features and enhancements similar to other leading social networking sites while continuing to make personal branding a core focus.

Your E-book discusses this idea of monitoring your image. What are the basic personal branding  steps someone should take to manage their online identity?

1. Assess what information is already out there about you by using search engines and checking social networks.
2. If there are web pages out there that don’t position you in a favorable light that you control, remove or update those pages.
3. If there are web pages out there that don’t position you in a favorable light that you can’t control, ask the owner/administrator to remove it.
4. Next, become your own Personal Branding agent. Get a professional photo taken of you. Write a well crafted biography and post it to all of your profiles. Update your resume. Write blog posts, white papers, or articles which provide thought leadership on whatever industry you are in. Get endorsements and recommendations on sites like LinkedIn and Naymz. Post a video interview of you on YouTube. Comment on others blog posts using thoughtful and insightful responses.
5. Finally, you should always monitor your name online. Create a Google Alert for your name. If you want a more comprehensive tracking check out Trackur.com, SocialMention.com or ReputationDefender.com.

Your eBook includes a few horror stories of personal branding gone wrong. Any favorites?

We had a client in the San Francisco area who was dating three women at the same time, and none of the women knew. One of them had an inclination he was cheating on her and started a blog. It quickly rose to the first position in Google for his name. Within a few weeks, the two other girls found this blog and posted their stories and ruining this guy’s reputation. There were several other woman who dated this guy in the past who joined in on the fun.

In your opinion, what are the MOST important personal branding  steps a recent college graduate should take to make his or her online presence stand out?

1. Absolutely make sure his/her Facebook, MySpace, or other recreational social network they use is cleaned up before starting the interview process. According to a CareerBuilder study from last year, 1 in 4 hiring managers used search engines to screen candidates. One in 10 also checked candidates’ profiles on social networking sites such as MySpace or Facebook. College was a lot of fun, but one photo or dumb status update can ruin the chance for a new graduate to land that perfect job. Remove those questionable pictures or status updates, or make them private.
2. College grads should also build a presence on social networks like Naymz, LinkedIn, Xing, and other professionally focused networks. These profiles typically rank well in Search Engines and will give the appearance that a college grad takes his/her professional brand seriously.

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