Best bios: Complete your social media profiles
Once you have created a bio/profile that works as a persuasive marketing piece on your Web site, be sure to add that content to the full range of social networking and media sites. I am constantly amazed at the results these sites -- with their robust RSS -- generate in search engines. I write and blog constantly, and post my articles to a wide variety of online content sites, but my social media profiles still show up higher in search engine results than any other catetory of content.
When I Googled my name earlier this week, the top two results were my JDSupra and LinkedIn profiles -- which consistently rank even higher than this well-tended blog. Making a surprising showing at Number Ten was my Facebook profile -- which has long been a secondary effort. Even so -- it shows up in the first page of Google results for "Janet Ellen Raasch."
According to an article in Sunday's The New York Times business section, Facebook expects to register its 200 millionth user this week: "This saggering growth rate -- doubling in size in just eight months -- suggests Facebook is rapidly becoming the Web's dominant social ecosystem and an essential personal and business networking tool in much of the wired world."
Anecdotally, I would have to agree. I have received more requests to "friend" old acquaintances on Facebook in the past month than in the past two years. Something is happening here. I am going to pay much closer attention to "working" that profile. So should you.
Lawyers should Google their names to see what shows up on the first page of results and make every effort to "own" that first page of results. Post high-qualify, professional profiles on LinkedIn, JDSupra, LegalOnRamp -- and even Facebook. If you focus on personal injury, estate or family law, you should probably be on MySpace.
Look in your search engine results for directories like AVVO that have created pages for all of the lawyers in quite a few states -- entries that often include nothing more than your name and address. There is a lot of debate over the propriety of AVVO's tactics (especially its ranking feature), but an empty entry looks bad -- plain and simple. It looks like you are inactive. Complete AVVO and any other blank directory pages to include the profile that appears on your Web site and other sites.
