Real Estate Web 2.0 -- Google Is Watching
Wednesday, February 20, 2008 at 07:42AM Howard makes a good point about reputation management. Our online reputations can be sullied with just one dust-up where search results on Google can't take context into account. Someone's searching and just happens to find a conversation where your response looks pitifully weak out of context. What does this mean? Should I write all my responses with Google seach results in mind? I don't know if I can do that.
Or, should I be conservative and cautious and avoid hot-button issues? I don't know if I can do that either. I can be more comprehensive with my answers which is probably a good thing in itself, regardless of Google searches.
What I can not do, absolutely,is change myself out of fear of being misunderstood by someone doing a Google search. I may have to take the chance that people are inteligent and if they are really curious as to what I'm about they'll research and find out. However, Google search results do play a factor when business concerns are taken into account. Perhaps this is one reason mediocrity creeps into online communications, where safe issues are presented with pretty pictures and everyone is cordial and supportive. There's nothing wrong with this, except it's not very challenging.
I was having a conversation the other day with someone about human behavior and how we avoid painful and difficult situations (topics). He brought up Carl Jung and Jung's ideas about necessary pain and unnecessary pain. He said we experience much unnecessary pain in an attempt to avoid necessary pain, that there is a certain amount of necessary pain we must go through to become whole people. Yet we avoid this necessary pain and create all kinds of unnecessary pain that will never lead us to wholeness.
I'm afraid there is a certain amount of necessary pain (difficulty) we will all experience in the grand online experience if we are ever to progress and manifest the promise it has to offer. These are high-falutin ideas but I think they are true. The avoidance of objectivty and outright honesty will probably cause a lot of unnecessay pain (difficulty). At some point the online experience must reach a more pure level of expression and honesty for it to fulfill its potential.
In practical terms it means being real and dropping personas, getting past the superficial commercial interests (however, commerce is a vital, real part of the experience - note "superficial") and building true relationships that are more than buddy lists. It's not until we can trust the experience as real that we can create mutually beneficial relationships that help us grow personally and professionally.
I suspect there is a huge referral potential out there that is largely untapped - referral of knowledge and business. As we have more movement around the country, I'm always running across people going from here to there. And for someone going to Charleston, SC it's a no-brainer, I'd refer to Howard. However, if the network was larger and more real, more trustworthy, it would be the same for almost any city in the US (or the world, for that matter).
We are wasting too much energy on unnecessary difficulty when the energy should be used for the necessary difficult task of building networks, sharing knowledge, information and business.
I've spent three or four days arguing over words when I could have been building a network, but, who knows, it might be necessary to go through this difficulty to create true relationships. It's difficult for us to get to know each other online -- face to face, over a beer, or duirng a round of golf, it'd be much easier, but this is what we have to work with, if we are to create networks that are useful.
So, what I'm saying is that it might be worth it to lose a little Google love if the results of dust-ups help open the lines of real communication. I think I get to know people better during highly charged "episodes" more so than the regular displays of business personas. Hopefully no one comes off as an irredeemable ass, just strong personalities with opinions. If someone Googles this, please be gentle and understanding.
Reader Comments (4)
I know you but little so far, but I have a great admiration for your strength of character and for your thoroughgoing mind.
As a matter of purely venal practicality, your association with BloodhoundBlog and with BiggerPockets is of far greater significance to Google than any one particular post. With us, your site is being linked on each one of over 3,000 very popular pages. With BiggerPockets, the same effect is occurring for every page on which you see your picture. These two sets of links will massively increase the strength of any long tail search terms associated with your web site. Your posts on Bonzai or BHB may tick someone off -- or thrill someone else. Either way, your funnel at MikeFarmerRealty.com is going to get very big, particularly since you're in a smaller market. Focus on regularly creating new long-tail-rich content on MikeFarmerRealty.com and the effect will be even more impressive.
I'm a Greek to the core: We must live by principle, always, but we don't have to spurn the beneficial secondary consequences of virtue. Your talents put you into two very demanding fora. Your primary rewards might be communicating important ideas or forging relationships with truly kindred spirits. But as a secondary consequence you will reap fame and, one hopes, fortune. None so deserving, surely.
Thanks, Greg. I feel like the connections with Bloodhound and Bigger Pockets are two great connections in my personal network.
I've already seen a marked increase in traffic and leads at my main website.
It's difficult in an on-line community to express yourself and your personality. Mike, you do it very well. I, on the other hand, can tend to some sarcasm on occasion and have had to curb that tendency. Not because I'm so much concerned about the google search, but my warped sense of humor can be misinterpreted by someone who doesn't know me or has had little contact with me. Hurt feelings can result. And yes, that does concern me as that is never my intent.
As a relative new entrant into a few different blogs, I learned the hard way that sometime we just need to control ourselves and our words/insinuations. Smiley's don't necessarily communicate that we are "just kidding".
We do have to be conscious of how people are finding us. When someone googles or yahoos you, what do they find? Who do they "meet"? The best rule of thumb, to my way of thinking is just as you say honesty with integrity. I'll add kindness and compassion. The internet offers obscurity, but only to a certain point.
We also need to remind those younger than us about the power of the internet. Those keg party pictures will come to haunt you!
Yes, thanks God the internet wasn't around when I was in my twenties -- I would be famous, but in a real bad way.