This week is the presale of my new book From Burnout to Bliss. To say I’m excited is an unde
rstatement!! I’m giddy!!! This book not only applies to entertainment industry professionals, it’s for everyone who is experiencing or is on the brink of burnout.
Because the book is opening me up to a broader audience, I thought, “Better Google myself and see what’s showing up and where.” It’s an important exercise to do for yourself. Today’s article explains why.
And if you want an autographed copy of my new book for yourself and others you know are burning out, click HERE and in the “second address line” please ask for an autograph. Thank you in advance for your support in this early stage of my launch. It means the world to me!!
Three reasons you should Google yourself
Billy and Nick are salesmen whose careers have gone down the tubes because of the digital world. They “sell” their way into a Google internship surrounded by tech-savvy geniuses. They proved their relevance and so did Google.
Google is a made up name that is now a verb. “To Google” is to search for information about (someone or something) on the Internet using the search engine Google.
While you wouldn’t tell someone, “Hey, I Googled you,” (seriously don’t, they may get creeped out!) it is a good idea to “Google” when you are researching a person with whom you’re about to meet. But what are they finding when they Google you?
I Google myself once a month and here are the three reasons why:
1. Brand Control- It’s important to know what’s showing up in regards to my “brand” which is ME. When I Google my name in quotes 5,090 results show up. I check my first page because that’s what people see immediately. Images come up, my websites & social media sites, and then it leaves my realm of control. There’s a video of an interview a colleague did of me, some links to bookstores carrying my books, and in the top right corner, my Google+ page. When I continued, I found links I expected, links of people who were sharing my information in a positive way, links of interviews I’d done and forgotten about, blogs that included me that I didn’t know about, and some spammish type links that used my name but had no content about me (those probably made up 4,000 of the results). With my brand in tact, I continued on to reason number two.
2. Other people tooting your horn- As I wrote, I found great pieces on me I didn’t know were there. If you are my FB friend, you may have noticed I’ve been posting them the last week leading up to this article. Why? Because other people are “tooting my horn.” I may not want to put in my FB status “I’ve been recognized as one of The Top 100 Multiple Income Streams Women.” Instead I posted “Found this cool article while googling myself… I’m 66 out of 100… pretty good!” Someone else did the horn tooting for me. Having coached for many many years, I see so many talented people miss maximizing an opportunity because they shy away from “bragging” about themselves. With this strategy you can let others “rave” about you instead, and you just share what they raved. Which leads me to number three.
3. Googling helps you determine what’s missing compared to your competitors. Are they in the media? Do they have a highly ranked website? Are they on social media sites that you aren’t? Do they have articles written about them? Are they being interviewed? If your personal Google search shows up with 3 links and your competitors have 300 links, it’s time to work on your marketing!
AND ACTION!
1. Google yourself today and yes, look at EVERY link.
2. Grab links that toot your horn and save them to a file to be shared intermittently.
3. Compare your Google results with those of your 5 top competitors OR the people whose career paths you’d like to emulate. Evaluate how you compare and write down 3 actions you can take to improve your Google search results.
The Internship is a movie centered around Google, so get on board! Billy and Nick had to.
