This article was originally shared in our Reputation.com customer newsletter. The newsletter, which is sent to Reputation.com customers twice a month, includes in-depth analysis of online reputation management, Internet privacy, and social media issues, as well as information about Reputation.com’s newest products.

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In the age of Web 2.0, it’s practically impossible to not use social media. Whether you’re keeping in touch with friends and family on Facebook, connecting with current and former colleagues on LinkedIn, or sharing your personal opinions with the world on your very own blog, new media tools have changed the way that we communicate and become an integral component of our daily lives.

When it comes to online reputation management, though, social media tools can be tricky. The very things that have made communicating easier have also made defamation and online harassment easier. In order to effectively protect yourself from online attacks, you have to learn how to use social media technology to its maximum potential. To this end, we’re going to share four of the top social networking websites we think you should be a part of for personal branding and proactive online reputation management.

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LinkedIn

With more than 55 million users worldwide, LinkedIn is undoubtedly the most popular and well-established professional social networking website online. Geared toward professionals at all stages of their careers, LinkedIn provides ample resources to promote your good name and make valuable connections with your peers and colleagues. The key to LinkedIn’s success, and the reason why you should be on it, is the inherent perception of quality surrounding the site.

Unlike Facebook, which is often dismissed as a place where anything goes, LinkedIn is associated with professionalism and tightly controlled sharing. When people visit your LinkedIn profile, they are not going to find party pictures, personality quizzes, or esoteric musings about life, they are going to find concrete information about your professional skills, your career history, and affirmations from co-workers and managers expressing how valuable you are as an employee. In short, they will find information that makes you look good.

Generally speaking, Google ranks LinkedIn profiles very highly, so when you sign up for the site, make sure you work on filling out your profile as thoroughly as possible. Here are some quick tips on getting strong Google results from your LinkedIn profile.

• Create a public URL for your profile that includes your name. Also, make sure that you use the name that people will be searching.
• Add a professional headshot to your profile. LinkedIn is not the place for funny Halloween pictures. If you don’t have a professional headshot to use, you can crop a nicer picture of you to fit your needs.
• One of the great things about LinkedIn is there is an internal mechanism in place to award and receive recommendations from colleagues. Having well-written recommendations is an important part of demonstrating your value to future employers and recruiters, so don’t be afraid to ask for them.

For more information on turning your LinkedIn profile into a world-class reputation management tool, check out this How To Guide from the Reputation.com Resource Center.

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Twitter

Last year, Pear Analytics published a study claiming that 40% of status updates on the popular microblogging website Twitter could be classified as “pointless babble.” So why is it then that we are saying Twitter is a must use tool for online reputation management? Because there is significant value to be had in the 60% of tweets that aren’t pointless.

Before Twitter, the way that people connected with like-minded netizens was through blogs. However, the time needed to create and manage a blog that delivered significant reputation value was too great for some web users. What Twitter has done is remove the technical boundaries that limited some people from starting blogs, thus opening up an easy opportunity for individuals to share their opinions with the world as easily as sending a text message.

The value of Twitter as a reputation management tool depends on how you use it. Here are some quick pointers on proper Twitter etiquette.

• Keep your updates mostly professional. While there’s no law saying you can’t share a cute anecdote about your kids, or mention your plans for the evening, the most valuable Twitter users are those who engage with their followers and offer useful content.
• Don’t follow blindly. In many ways, who you follow on Twitter is as important to your reputation as who is following you. Make sure that you’re connecting with people who offer real substance in their updates, and not any of the thousands of Twitter spammers.
• The 140-character limit is not optional. One of the things that new Twitter users often mess up is fitting their thoughts into the 140-character allotment allowed in a Twitter update. This sometimes causes updates to get cut off halfway through, which makes the user look technically incompetent. Work on condensing your thoughts to fit the character limit.

In addition to personal branding, there are many valuable components of Twitter related to job-hunting. In fact, the New York Times recently reported the development of a new job search application called JobDeck, which is a collaboration between TweetDeck and TwitJobSearch.

Even if you’re not interested in the social aspect of Twitter, it is still valuable to have a presence on the site at the very least to prevent someone from hijacking your name and pretending to be you online.

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Google Profile

If you follow our reputation management advice, there is a good chance you will be in control of the majority of the first page of your Google results. Considering that Google is the first place someone is going to go to look up information about you, however, it makes sense that you should have a guaranteed presence there, just in case. Enter the Google Profile.

To create your Google Profile, log-in to your Google account and then visit www.google.com/profiles. Once you have created a Google Profile, it is easy to fill out. Just add your biographical information, links to your other social networking profiles, and a picture of yourself so that people in real life can distinguish you from others who might share your name. The best part about the Google Profile is that, once a certain amount of information has been included, you have the option of featuring it as part of public searches. When you do this, your Google Profile will appear as an 11th result just below the top 10 organic Google search results for your name.

The benefit of setting up a Google Profile is two-fold. One, it gives you a guaranteed spot on your first page of Google results, and two, it helps distinguish from other individuals who have the same name. Additionally, while the jury is still out on the reputation power of Google Buzz, you need to have a Google Profile to access it. Because the Google Profile holds a guaranteed spot on the first page of your Google results, it is important that you are careful about how you set it up. Here are a couple of tips for making a Google Profile you can be proud of.

• As with your LinkedIn profile (and really every social networking profile you have) you should use a professional-looking headshot for your profile picture. This is important in making sure that the “you” people find online actually looks like the “you” in real life.
• Link wisely. Google Profiles offer a great opportunity to aggregate links to all of your social networking profiles on the web. However, that doesn’t mean you should link to all of them. Consider only linking to sites that give strong reputation value, such as LinkedIn. This way, people searching for you can easily find everything you want them to find.

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Fast Company

Considered one of the leading destinations for business news on the web, Fast Company is unique among websites in that it is also a successful print magazine. For individuals looking to manage their online reputations, this unique blend of old and new media makes Fast Company an especially effective tool for promoting one’s personal brand online.

There are a number of advantages to being a member of Fast Company. For one thing, because the site is a respected source for business news, being associated with it, even peripherally, gives you a reputation boost by default. On top of that, however, Fast Company provides its users with countless tools to engage with the greater business community and demonstrate their superior understanding of their industries. Fast Company members can even write blog posts through the Fast Company platform, which may in turn be seen by hundreds of thousands of potential connections. If you’re planning on flexing your blogging muscle for the Fast Company community, here are some things to keep in mind.

• Don’t step outside of your comfort zone. The best way to get your blog featured on the Fast Company homepage is to write something that delivers real insight and value into the business community. If you’re an IT expert, talk about technology. If you’re in human resources, talk about recruiting tactics. In other words, play to your strengths.
• Focus on feedback. Blogs thrive on generating conversations and the Fast Company community is one of the best on the web at giving intelligent feedback. If you’re writing a blog post, think about who you are talking to and what kind of discussion you want to stimulate.

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Online reputation management is a growing concern for all professionals, and the most effective way of keeping your name looking great online is to actively promote your identity through social media. If you haven’t taken the social networking plunge yet, we recommend you take it soon. We’re already at the quarter point of 2010. Don’t let another year go by without taking full advantage of the personal branding power of the web. For more help on crafting your online presence, feel free to contact one of ReptuationDefender’s trained reputation management consultants today.