Google Me This

A funny thing happened in the process of online self-promotion. I succeeded. And it was as surprisingly easy as it was fast. Okay, so I did set up a Google Analytics account with all the whistles and bells and give them permission to crawl through every nook and cranny of my pixelated self, but other than that I just put myself out there and made the settings public. You should understand that this is so far beyond my comfort zone as to cause a momentary panic attack when I saw that my name had actually been Googled this afternoon. For some reason I seemed to forget that in the desire to promote my role as a writer, I was also promoting me, the person. And that takes some getting used to.

I’m in my 40s and have been obsessively protective of my online presence. In fact, until just a few weeks ago a basic search would only find the same four or five pieces of information and only I knew how much of it was accurate. For example, while I appreciated that promotion to COO at my last job, it is not factually correct.

Any social media accounts are on lock down (please do not take this as a personal challenge to prove me wrong). I didn’t Tweet until a few weeks ago. In the rare occurrence when I felt strongly enough about something as to comment online, I always used a screen name that couldn’t be tracked back to me. I even Googled myself monthly to make sure nothing squeaked through and nothing ever did. And then I would smugly shake my head at those crazy kids that posted questionable things, knowing they would regret it when they were older like a bad digital tattoo.

So this is the new normal and I guess I should just go with it. I will, however, follow that sage advice that says, “don’t ever write anything you wouldn’t say in public.”

Because of course I always am.