Friday, June 18, 2010

New Trends In Monitoring Online Reputations

Posted by Amanda Walsh

As most of our loyal readers know, we have been advocating for quite some time on ThePRLawyer a responsible approach to online reputation management. A recent Pew Report announced some new trends in monitoring online reputations.

Some interesting facts from the report include:
  • 46 percent of online adults have created their own profile on a social networking site, up from 20 percent in 2006.
  • 56 percent of people use search engines to look up information about themselves.
Young adults ages 18-29 are the most active in management of online profiles. They are most likely to customize privacy settings (71 percent) and limit information about themselves found online (44 percent). Furthermore, 47 percent delete unwanted comments and 41 percent remove their names when tagged in photos.

In comparison with users in age groups 30-49 and 50-64, the younger 18-29 crowd seems to be the most vigilant of their online reputation and have reported that they are “less trusting” of sites that host their personal content.

The results of the report shed light on the idea of promoting or downplaying certain aspects of our social media profiles depending on the audience. According to the report, “44 percent of online adults have searched for information about someone whose services or advice they seek in a professional capacity.” This shows that online reputation certainly has an impact.

Are you monitoring your online reputation? Are you taking the steps to be more cautious about what you say and post? To read more about the report and findings check out the NYTimes.com article.

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