For me, high school was not the "best years of my life." I do not look back fondly on my experiences, and senior prom, yeah not so much. I'm not going to lie, I went through a real awkward phase from about 4 to 17: big glasses; 80s perm; and so on. I have not, and probably never will, attend a high school reunion. Yeah, I know, I'm bitter. Get over it. For years, I've been hounded by friends and family to hop on the social networking bandwagon. The thing is, if I sign up for these sites, people will be able to find me. Not just people I'm friends with now, but people I was once friends with, or acquaintances from once upon a time, or that dude I meet at a bar one night 5 years ago. I've done almost everything humanely possible to make it more difficult for people to find me. I've changed my last name, I've moved 5 times, and I've kept my web presence to a minimum.
All that changed a few months ago when I Googled myself. The problem with running a web 2.0 business is that your name is everything. As Melissa and I send out media kits, and ramp up the magazine, I actually want people to find me. One of the key rules of SEO marketing is "links, links, and more links." You need to link out to relevant sites as well as have relevant sites link back to you. So, when I Googled "Meghan Udell," I found out that I have a doppelganger; one with whom I really didn't want to be associated. The other "Megan" had a huge web presence. Now, in the past, when I wanted to use social networking I had used my alias (it's an alias, so no, I'm not sharing). This enabled me to "cyber-stalk" people if I wanted to, but not actually have them know who I was. This plan worked remarkably well until a 15-year-old in Sacramento started to get all media savvy.
So I created a real Facebook account, a real Twitter account, and yes, I started to write on this blog. I've managed to wipe "Megan 2" off my first page of Google results, but it's a huge amount of work. People have started to "friend" me on Facebook, I have to post "tweets" every day, and I've actually been taking lame quizzes on Facebook. My Google search results have started to dictate the start to my day. Red (my husband) thinks I'm crazy. He's refused so far to even sign up for a LinkedIn account. I admire his ability to cling to anonymity, but he doesn't run his own company.
I'm a little confused about how to balance a professional web presence with a personal identity, especially when my professional life is so personal. My personal brand is my professional brand, and vice versa. What are your tips for keeping your "real life" offline? Or separating your personal and professional "brands"? Would love to hear your thoughts.
~ Meghan Udell (the real one)
p.s. That's me at prom. I look happy, but it's a lie.
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