No blog? Then you need a Google profile

One of the currencies of social media is that when you participate, people find out who you are.

For example, when you leave a comment on someone else's blog post, you can link to your profile on the Web. All the blogging tools have a place where you can leave a virtual calling card – your own web URL where people who read your comment (especially the blogger him or herself) can find out who you are and perhaps contact you.

Most people link to their blog in that comment field.

However, most people don't have a blog. What the heck do you do then?

I've seen many solutions, most very limiting.

1. Leave no URL. (Nobody can find you in this case).

2. Leave a LinkedIn or Facebook profile URL (This has limitations, because people must ask to be your friend in order to see your full profile).

3. Leave a company home page. (This shows your affiliation, but nothing about you personally).

I've found an alternative solution that works very well.

Create a public Google profile for yourself and then use that as the URL that you point people to. You can have a photo, a bio, and contact details. It’s really cool and it is free.

Here is the URL where you sign up.

Here is what my profile looks like.

I chose to make my profile simple because I want people to visit my site or my blog. You can make yours much more detailed if you wish. (See the example on the sign up page.)

There are probably other alternatives to a Google profile (if you know any, please leave a comment on this post.)

People who I have suggested this technique to have found Google profiles to be easy to create and flexible to use.

Once you've got a public profile, use it as your virtual calling card all over the Web. Just one example - link to it from your Amazon review page so the authors of the books you review can see who you are.

Comments

[Neil Sequeira - ReadyContacts]

Pretty nifty...I've never come across this before.

[Andy Church]

Very cool. Prior to this new feature, I simply leveraged the word go in front of my email address, and blogspot entry. goandychurch.blogspot.com and goandychurch @ gmail.com where quite effective in terms of personal branding and being easily googled.

[Jason Pinto]

David,
Thank you very much for posting this.

It is a very exciting time to be participating in all that social media has to offer - you continue to provide very practical suggestions to help people get the most of out of it.

Thanks,
Jason

[Joe Mescher]

Just emailed this article to my Dad, a budding social media user.

He's looking for a way to communicate without getting bogged down by info overload.

Excellent solution. I've been using Google Sites, Knol, Tip Jar, and pretty much every new Google property to leverage my name on the Interweb.

I think people are beginning to understand that 'pride in ownership' is overrated.

What I mean is, it doesn't matter if you own the website or not (like in the case of Google). If it's a great, respected online source then jump aboard and share your story.

[Michael Lunsford]

Very insightful. This is something I've not heard elsewhere and probably would not have thought of on my own. I need to get on this.

[CHary Izquierdo]

What's your opinion of twitter profiles for the same purpose?

[Erin Brenner]

After you create a Google profile, you can then create a vanity Tiny URL for it. Easy to remember for you and your audience! (I didn't come up with this; you can thank @ScottHepburn for that one.)

[mkedave]

Excellent information. When I travel and use google maps, I particularly like to find the maps made by other google profile users and top contributors. Like, statesman.com in Austin has good barbecue placemarks.

[CathyLarkin (@CathyWebSavvyPR)]

Good tip as others have said. In answer to the person above, about using a Twitter profile; that idea has pros and cons, to me.

If you are commenting on a post that is about Twitter, then yes, a link to your Twitter profile might be a perfect fit. But, if it is not Twitter-related, then a twitter profile could confuse folks who are not familiar with how it works. Unless they sign up for Twitter, and are signed in - they can look at your profile, but can't click on your link etc.

I have my Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook profiles linked from the home page of my blog, so that helps folks find me once there.

Although, on my blog, I have thought about saying - If you are on Twitter and leave a comment, put your blog or website in the comment link box, but feel free to leave your Twitter ID at the bottom of your comment so we can connect there too. In the past this might have been looked at as comment spam, but I like the easy way to connect with folk who take the time to comment.

I cheat a bit, and make my comment username my full name and Twitter name in parenthesis - Let me know if you think that's tacky?

[David Meerman Scott]

I think a Twitter profile is okay, certainly better than nothing, but the big fat "So and so is using Twitter" banner may be off putting for those who do not know Twitter. And you have to look closely to find the profile on top right (which is limited in character count).

[Joe Beaulaurier]

www.PeoplePond.com, our new service, is available for this reason and also to guide people to all your online content (social media and beyond). In the very near future, you will also be able to verify your identity to others (and protect it from others too).

PeoplePond is currently in a controlled beta. Follow @PeoplePond on twitter for multi-use invite codes.

[Jerry Smith]

Thanks for this post - not something I was aware of. It would be nice if you could upload a profile picture from the computer rather than needing to use Flickr etc. but that's a minor point.

Will be very useful to add to other sites like Goodreads etc.

[Rachel Bryant]

Great stuff David. Thank you for sharing. I've been contemplating starting a blog for awhile but not sure a) how much I'd have to say and b) how well I'd be able to keep up with it. So this works great...just started one.

[SpiritintheVillage]

This makes sense. Google is such a central place to find everything these days and putting some time into having a profile there (even for bloggers) is a good idea. Thanks.
Kevin

[Ari Herzog]

FYI, Chris Brogan had a little blog post about Google profiles a few months back... http://www.chrisbrogan.com/get-your-google-profile-tidied-up/

[David Meerman Scott]

Joe, I signed up for People Pond and am excited to see what it can do.

[Steve Keifer]

Excellent tip. I have had plenty of challenges getting OpenID to work so this is a nice alternative. But actually, what I found more intriguing is to hypothesize about Google's entry into the personal profile space. Is this a first move to compete against LinkedIn and Facebook? They could certainly optimize their search engine to more prominently display Google profiles in search engine results, which would provide a competitive advantage.

[seamus walsh]

David, another great tip! I have been linking to my main site, starting now, I wills tart linking to my blog!

[Greg Group]

This is a great tip for those without a blog. The social revolution is all about participation.

Greg

http://greggrouppublishing.com

[Analisa]

At first I was skeptical...another profile on the internet? Can having your face and name (individual or business) plastered on every social media site really be a good thing or could you be spreading yourself too thin? I wondered if I should concentrate on making my facebook or twitter or blog the priority and avoid adding more and more profiles, or is it good to be present in each new medium?

Then I read Chris Brogan's post on the subject of google profiles, and he pointed out that google maps will link to your profile when you write a review. This makes me think that I should take advantage of this automatic connection and put a better profile up on google. I love their services anyways, so it can't hurt!

Thank you for the advice, I am also currently enjoying reading your book on "New Rules of PR & Marketing".

[Eric Flamm]

It can be a bit pricey, but qalias (www.qalias.com) seems to provide a very professional profile, along with highlighted links on Google searches for your name (the "Google Me" idea).

[Jared Young]

David, a while back I was looking for new places to set up public profiles to generate more traffic to my website and one of the first I set up was my Google profile. Now that profile is one of the top referrers to my website.

I remember not too long ago when many people still didn't have email addresses. It seems as though now we're getting close to the point where everyone has a public profile online somewhere.

[Joe Kraus]

Hey David, great post. Thanks. I'm the product management director overseeing profiles at google. can you drop me a line because I'd love more feedback (just use the contact me' feature of my profile

http://www.google.com/s2/profiles/103999052247442168278

[Kathleen Delaney]

thought this was an interesting read today, http://mashable.com/2009/03/16/facebook-privacy-setting-everyone/

Facebook opens their profiles to the world. Gotta love how Google influences the world these days...

[Liz Pendleton (lingoliz)]

great post thanks David - am now subscribed. I find it easy to use my Google profile wherever I go, and only point people to my blog for, well, if I know they will be interested in my waffle! - I actually found your post while searching to see if Google do a userfriendly url instead of the http://www.google.com/s2/profiles/104604198107960093733 (current profile link) and rather than using tinyurl. I think it would make them slightly more appealing....but, as you say, they're pretty great already!