Optimizing Your Personal Brand on the Web

A few months ago I thought to myself - wouldn't it be great if there was a website that let you create an online portfolio of yourself and your work? Not as formal and restricted as LinkedIn but not as informal as Facebook. Like every 'original' idea I have - someone stole it directly from my brain a few months earlier and already implemented it.

Flavors.me and About.me are two good examples of how people are branding and creating their online personas. Its one portal you can refer new and existing contacts to in both your formal and informal networks. Its unbelievable and somewhat scary how people exist in so many different domains online. To give you an example: here is Joe Bloggs Link Buttons to: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Spotify, Vimeo, Flickr, Foursquare..you name it.

It makes sense but what I want to know is how do you optimize yourself as a brand on the web using sites like these. So if you are 'googled' by a potential employer or new contact you have your best content at the top of the listings rather than the 'Spokes' or 'People123' which is basically an invitation for people to stalk you. I can see this becoming more relevant for all of us as more and more of our personal information becomes digitized. For example, I would much rather LinkedIn or that great interview I did show up before the Flickr photo of an inebriated night in New York.

So I would love to hear peoples thoughts on this - is it only in the control of the SEO sophistication of the sites we sign up or don't sign up to to or is there more we can do as individuals to get the rankings we want when Googling our names?

And for those interested, check out the slick video for Flavors.me:

Flavors.me from Hiidef on Vimeo.