Enhancing Your Digital Footprint

Here’s a (rhetorical — of course you have) question for you: have you ever Googled yourself?

Regardless, others certainly have.

The results that come up are likely to form that person’s first impression of you before you’ve even met. And first impressions are hard to change (because of the “primacy effect”).

Building a Professional Profile is More Crucial Than Ever Before.

Potential employers care about what you have to say online and off the clock. Potential employers, for example, often conduct social media screenings to identify red flags such as criminal activity, offensive comments, or misalignment with company values before hiring someone. In fact, a Harris Poll found that 70% of hiring decision-makers in the US believe that employers should screen all social media profiles. And with AI, the trend is accelerating. An estimated 88% of employers now use AI tools for their initial candidate screening. Why? A company’s HR personnel may miss things that AI will not.

It’s Also Good for Business.

If you’re a business owner, executive, or trusted advisor (think: accountant, attorney, consultant), then you should know that your personal online reputation is also impacting your business.

In a report titled The CEO Reputation Premium, Weber Shandwick, a global communications agency, surveyed over 1,700 executives worldwide about their CEOs. The survey found that executives attributed 45% of their company’s reputation and 44% of the company’s market value to the CEO’s reputation. A positive CEO reputation also helped attract investors (according to 87% of respondents) and employees (77%).

In other words, managing your online reputation is business strategy. Done well, it can be a cost-effective way to enhance trust, credibility, and long-term value.

What can you do to boost your online reputation?

First, start by reviewing your top search results.

All of us have left behind a digital footprint across the Internet, even if we don’t intend to. Maybe it’s a social media post, a comment made on a blog, or a one-star review for a bad restaurant experience. Everything we publicly do or say on the Internet contributes to our online reputation.
So, before anything else, start by vetting the top search results that appear when someone looks you up on Google.

Do this in multiple browsers, including at least one you don’t usually use, and while you are signed out with your browser cache cleared or in incognito mode. Beyond the obvious step of searching up your first and last name, misspellings of your name, your name and city, and your name and occupation. You can set up email alerts from Google to notify you when your name appears on the internet.

Next, filter out the content you don’t want people to see.

Typically, this means going directly to the source and requesting that the site remove your content. There are a few things you could do if they refuse:

• If the content is harassing, defamatory, or reveals private medical/financial info, you could report it to the platform (Facebook, X, Reddit, etc.) as a policy violation.
• If you own the copyright to the content (for example, if it’s a photo or video you took), you could file a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice to force the site to take it down.
• If the site still refuses to remove your content, you could ask search engines to ‘de-index’ the link, meaning, if granted, it won’t appear when people search for your name. Google, for example, has a ‘Results About You’ tool that lets you remove search results that appear for your name.

You may also want to scrub your data from any public records, which data brokers like Whitepages and Spokeo sell. As of 2026, California residents can request deletion of their data from over 500 data brokers. If you’re a resident of another state, you’ll need to visit individual data broker sites to manually opt out.

If none of these steps succeeds in removing your content, that’s where the next step comes in.

 Next, design a communication strategy.

By actively creating new content, you can effectively suppress any content you can’t remove from the Internet. Content creation is also essential if you’re looking to establish yourself as a thought leader or to build your professional brand.

There are four basic ways to do this:

• Owned media: content you create on websites or blogs that you own.
• Earned media: any free press you may get from other people’s articles, social media posts, or other forms of content.
• Paid media: online content you’ve paid for, such as social media ads or a call-out on another website.
• Thought leadership: shareable content published by third parties or that you post on social media platforms.

If you’re looking to improve your professional brand and leverage your reputation to gain business, consider writing articles or creating other content that demonstrates your knowledge and experience. LinkedIn and other social platforms are good for this.

Publishing your content in online and print publications from respected publishers can be even more effective, as it adds credibility and implicitly communicates to readers that you must be objectively good because your work was accepted by that publisher. Also, once published, you can note the publication on social media. Speaking on respected webinar platforms, podcasts, and other media also serves this purpose.

Once you’ve set a clear goal, establish your tone of voice and the messaging you want to put out. Any past content that doesn’t align with this should be deleted from your public channels.

If you have the time and discipline, you can create a content calendar to ensure that all future posts adhere to the strategy and are also published consistently. If you have the bandwidth, you can use analytic tools to see what performs well. If your content isn’t performing well, try tweaking your strategy.

Some more advice from us on paid media opportunities…

Paid media opportunities come in many forms. They can be ads that you post on social media, paid SEO that boosts your Google search rankings, or sponsored content published on reputable websites. The paid media space is attracting increasing opportunities for advertisers, especially as Google and Microsoft have recently rolled out AI tools to help with ad creation and optimization.

These are all legitimate strategies that drive brand awareness, positioning your professional profile or business in front of key audiences.

But if you’re a professional with a LinkedIn profile, there’s a good chance you may have been approached by a salesperson about thought leadership opportunities, where you pay a fee for the chance to speak or write.

These are not all bad. Take The National Law Review (owned by the publisher of this newsletter), for example: law firms and other professional service firms pay a small annual fee, and in return, the National Law Review syndicates content written by their professionals, which has been published elsewhere. The fee is quite small relative to the service provided, the firms that are permitted to participate are well vetted, and, most importantly, the business model is clear. Other examples include Financial Poise and DailyDAC, also owned by our publisher, neither of which accepts any payment from its contributors.

On the flip side, not all paid opportunities are good.

There are, for example, numerous articles and videos attacking Forbes Council as a classic ‘pay-to-play’ scheme (not to be confused with pay-to-play arrangements in other contexts, which carry their own criticisms). For example, you can read Forbes Council: Same Business Model as Trump U, You be the Judge, 5 Reasons to Just Say NO! to the Forbes Coaches Council, and Forbes Councils Are Bullshit. There are some good reviews out there, too (though we think they are wrong).

There is nothing wrong with self-promotion, especially if you’re writing articles or speaking publicly. These are highly effective ways to stay top of mind for potential clients and show them that you know your stuff.

The problem is when you’re paying for, as opposed to earning, the privilege of being referred to as a thought leader. Sophisticated clients can usually tell the difference between earned thought leadership and paid-for thought leadership. In such instances, if you rely too heavily on pay-to-plays to boost your profile, your credibility is likely to take a hit.

Our suggestion?

Be discerning about the paid media opportunities you take on. Choose reputable organizations that align with your brand — the more natural the fit, the more credible the partnership. Use these opportunities to demonstrate value by educating and informing your audience, rather than making a hard product sell.

And finally, don’t rely too heavily on paid media in your communication strategy. Aim to find a balance between paid and organic media. Use paid media to drive reach and to target your audience. And on the other side of the coin, create unpaid media content to establish your authenticity as a thought leader. It’s in finding a balance between the two that you will ultimately enhance your professional reputation online.

©2025. DailyDAC^TM, LLC d/b/a/ Financial Poise^TM. This article is subject to the disclaimers found here.

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