Personal Marketing in the age of Google
A friend of mine, a consultant in the imaging business, lost out on a potentially significant contract and she only later learned why.
As it turns out, it was my friend's facebook photo gallery that did her in.
I must mention that my friend is at the top of her game. In the world of image consulting her name surfaces high up on any list. But it wasn't enough for a prospective client who in making a final decision surfed my friend's facebook and came across some images of her "wining on a guy".
" I couldn't hire her, my CEO is really conservative, from the images I don't think they'll be able to relate."
"But that man is her husband," I protested.
"Does not matter," said the prospective client "it just sends a bad message."
And out went a great piece of business
I spent many hours wondering if I would be crossing any lines if I told my friend to remove the photographs. This led me to wonder about how much one's personal brand should be divorced from one's professional interests. Turns out that in the face of facebook it never really is.
In conversation I find that more and more HR managers and business clients are turning onto social media profiles to get a better feel of job applicants and prospective partners. And the long trail of status updates, twitter messages, personal notes, wall messages and photographs reveals an authencity that is missing from interviews and meetings.
I eventually did call my friend. Sure, I thought the photograph was an innocent one. And yes, it showed a man and his wife having fun in a way that's relevant to our culture. But with the 2 international conferences approaching and prospective clients from all over the world surfing the Net in search of good image makers on local soil, an innocent photo, I thought, could be misconstrued and attached with altogether different meaning.
It's a good lesson not only for my friend but for all of us. Google never forgets. It's like what one marketing expert says: better to overload your social networks "with a long tail of good stuff and to always act as if you're on Candid Camera, because you are."
http://www.mangomediacaribbean.com/blog/trackback.cfm?7AEF835F-3048-2D03-0A8730AD0DB9707C
Judette Coward Puglisi (MSc, Dip IR, BA), Managing Director. Find out more 
My question is does this company also seek to regulate the behavoir of its clients, are their certain individuals that they will not do business with because they are wining in a party. Another question, if this was a man gyrating on a woman would they also have issues with it. Seems to me that we still judge women harsher, our male celebrities can have children out of wedlock and not be the primary care givers but we judge harshly our females for being full time single mothers. Its one thing if its a work function outside of that, I am on my own. The company pays me, it does not own me
Life of itself is stressful enough, when I go out to relieve the pressure I have to keep in mind that it can be misconstrued or judged as inappropriate. We all know ... Read Morethat in that this time appearances are everything but this is taking that adage a little too far.
I wonder if the company was looking at employing the husband if the picture would be looked at in the same context.
A pity (lost contract and all), but for to us all a valuable lesson of the times.
Clients often want to identify with the consultant they choose, your reputation, your work and increasingly more and more of your private life is becoming a consideration.
In this case the client was concerned that the facebook photograph would raise alarm bells for her ultra conservative President who was not too keen on image consultant in the first place.
I can see both sides of the coin.
Many folks forget that the privacy settings on facebook allows a great deal of control, they simply forget to turn them on. Professionals are also now looking at having two facebooks: one for friends and the other for professional contacts and business.