Ensuring Others Can Find You On Social Networks

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I spent a lot of time trying to find former co-workers, classmates, and childhood friends on social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.  However, I eventually discovered that by following these guidelines I ensured others could find me:

• Include a picture in each of my profiles and when possible added albums with older pictures so other would recognize me,
• List current and previous e-mail addresses and contact information on each account
• Fully complete each profile on each social network so that I was searchable including:
  • Profile picture (as mentioned previously)
  • Schools attended with years of enrollment (often people search for their graduating classes)
  • Current and previous employers (search other profiles for the most common spellings) with years of employment
• Connected with networking hubs (i.e. popular former friends, co-workers, classmates, etc.) because others found me when they connected with these “networked” individuals
• Monitored my privacy settings and set them to public (allowing more people access to my profile)
• Used the same name and contact information on all social networks
• Lastly, join or start groups within different social networks that are relevant to you.

To illustrate the possible success of the starting a group, let me share my own personal experience.  I started the “Kellogg School of Management Alumni” group on Facebook, spent less than $50 on advertising targeting Northwestern graduates over a certain age, and invited my contacts to join the group.  In addition, I invited current administrators (i.e. career center, alumni relations, etc.) to join the group and update alumni about upcoming alumni events.

The result: Over 2,000 graduates have joined my group and Kellogg School of Management (which is a branch of Northwestern University) was recognized separately from Northwestern University so others could search for their old business school colleagues.

Whether you create your own group or join an existing group, I think I have illustrated the impact creating / joining these groups can have.

Note:  I made the “Kellogg School of Management” group private and validated each new member to ensure they were actually alumni using an online database.  This helped to control spam and to ensure the integrity of the group.

If you any questions or would like to contact the author, please free to contact Sanjay K. Gupta (CEO – Kreativ Enterprises Social Media Consulting) at sanjay@kreativenterprises.com.