It’s so much easier to learn about people and companies these days – and what they’re really up to.  If a company says it promotes free trade, but has a sweatshop in the jungle, someone is probably going to find out about it and not only tell the media but all of their friends.  That might be a pretty extreme example, but hopefully you get the point – it’s probably better to be fairly transparent with yourself and your company online.

Now I’m not advocating sharing all your personal details and private life – that probably goes into the realm of TMI (too much information).  But people want to know that the person and company they are dealing with are genuine.  That you can do what you say.  That you do have the experience that you tout.  It’s so much easier for people to check up on what you know – just by googling your name and that of your company.  People can quickly find out pretty much everything you’ve done and said an everything that’s been said about you.

This is a good thing.  It’s much harder for people to pretend to be something they’re not.  To pretend to be an expert in an area they have no experience in.  Which means its much more valuable to be transparent with your customers.  Again, I’m not saying that you need to let them into your private life, but there’s not much point in pretending to be what you’re not.  No amount of marketing and advertising is going to be able to make up for what you don’t know.  At some point you won’t be able to keep up the facade, someone’s going to write about it and that one person will cancel out all those advertising dollars.

Online reputation is still evolving.  There will come a time when a paper resume will be pretty much useless – because it will be what you say you’ve done.  Instead, it’ll be much more valuable to see what everyone else thinks you’ve done.  Googling someone can give you a lot of information, but the information out there is still in its infancy.  You can still influence the information that’s available about you by publishing, by having conversations, and by encouraging your customers to do the same.

This is a guest post by Sarah Worsham, CEO & Web Strategist at Sazbean Consulting and blogging at Sazbean.com. Sarah is passionate about creating Internet strategies to help companies reach their business goals. Sarah provides guidance through Internet Marketing, Strategy & Business consulting. Connect with her on Twitter, Facebook or the Sazbean Facebook Page.