While reading an article on social media and online reputation monitoring, I came across a paragraph that explained how the author monitors the social activity of her business partners and subcontractors. I found this to be very interesting.
The author explained that she first acquires the usernames of some social media profiles for any potential contractors and business partners. She then Google’s those names to see if there are any that are not divulged (NOTE: Sneaky tactic No. 1 can tell you a great deal about potential partners; it may be worth a try).
After locating all the social media profiles for potential business partners, this author explained that she rolls all of the feeds those people’s social activities into one master feed. (NOTE: Sneaky tactic No. 2 could very well be a way for employers to keep tabs of their employees; could be worth trying).
But if that isn’t enough, the author went on to explain how she runs the master feed through two filters. The first filter is a filter that looks for important keywords that she monitors. This is done to see how much those potential partners might actually know about important concepts they’ll be working with. The second filter, however, is really telling. The author explained how she uses red flag type words – “sex”, “drugs”, “party”, etc. – to see how personal and revealing her potential partners are while online. If there are any strong red flag signals that second filter will show it.
(Sneaky tactic No. 3: Ouch!)
Yes, this is very sneaky, but it can sure tell you a lot about the people you are working with or considering working with. This is also evidence of how important it is to monitor your own reputation to make sur that you are presenting yourself the way you’d like to be seen – by clients, potential partners, and anyone else. It sure adds a new spin to reputation management. Doesn’t it?
