Beware of the Blog

Growing up, my father frequently discouraged me from keeping a diary. His logic was simple, an oft-repeated chestnut drilled into my brain from grade school onward: “Never put down anything in writing that you wouldn’t want to defend in a court of law.”

(Naturally, I didn’t listen.  And naturally, I wound up in some hot water with him when he unearthed a nasty note a girlfriend and I had traded back and forth about an especially strict junior high school librarian.)

Upon entering the professional world, I would hear the same advice after landing a job at a D.C. public affairs firm, updated with a D.C. flavor: “Never put anything in writing you wouldn’t feel comfortable seeing on the cover of the Washington Post.”

In the Web 2.0 world, these words of wisdom ring truer than ever, as prospective employers hit the web to check out applicants’ online lives. I received a call from a former colleague just last week looking for advice on how to unearth a job applicant’s MySpace page and blog history.

Stories pop up daily about college grads’ difficulty landing jobs due to their youthful indiscretions plastered all over the Internet. Indeed, entire businesses have been built on the premise of managing personal online reputations.

As Techdirt reported yesterday, however, we must also stay vigilant about what others are saying about us.  The blogger links to (what else?) a Washington Post story about a law school message board that may be costing some of its subjects job opportunities: only they aren’t the ones writing the comments.  Clearly, inflammatory message board posts or blogs written by others about us can ruin our online reputations as easily as our own words.

What should you do about potentially damaging material turning up on Google?  Be your own PR agency.  Google yourself frequently. Post positively on message boards, start your own blog about a topic that interests you (so long as it is well-written), set up a MySpace page to keep in touch with friends (making sure to only allow comments that you approve first).

Above all, keep that Washington Post test in mind.  The best way to repair a damaged Web rep is to proliferate as much positive material as possible, pushing the “bad” results further down in search engines.

My father might say the best way would be to avoid putting one’s self online in the first place, but in the year 2007 joining the conversation is pretty hard to resist, particularly for those of us in public relations.  We just need to follow the advice of Microsoft’s two-word blogging policy handed down to employees: “Be smart.”

And no matter what, don’t blog any nasty things about your junior high librarian, unless you want an earful from your dad.