The Value Of Going Public

Concerning your internet presence, there are three basic ways to handle it:

1. Almost no presence / Anonymous

Your contact information is shared only with close friends and family. A Google search of your true name shows no result or whatever is in the phone book and nothing more.

2. Basic presence

Some of your contact information is public, but you’re still guarded in nature about revealing too much. A Google search of your best-known screen name will point to you, but not your true given name.

3. Public presence

You list your email address openly. You have a web site and your name is on it. You have Twitter and Facebook and list those URLs openly. You also state specifically where you’re from (city and state/province).

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If you want to be taken seriously on the internet as a businessperson, blog author or anything else you would want to be known for, “going public” is the best way to go.

Consider that actors do the same thing when one is trying to land a role on stage, television or feature film. Actors are very public because that’s the way you get seen and hopefully recognized later.

On the internet you follow suit. Want to be known? Want to be called by name? Then you have to let the masses know you exist.

Does this take a good bit of courage to do? Yes. Some people are simply not comfortable stating to the world, “This is me. This is my web site. This is how to contact me. This is where I’m from.” If you’re one of those types who reserved about your presence, there’s nothing wrong with that. However the people who are public will stomp you, exposure-wise.

Dave, owner of PCMech, has a very public internet presence as do I. A search for “David Risley” on Google brings up his web site first. A search for “Rich Menga” brings up my web site first. Both of us do this purposely because the name is what counts.

Contrary to popular belief, being “mysterious” on the internet does not result in you being liked. In business circles, mystery men and women are deemed very annoying.

Picture the following:

Potential customer: “Can I have your email address?”

Businessperson: “Um.. no. I’m sorry, I can’t give that out.”

The type of message that gives a potential customer is, “I don’t trust you.” When that happens, guess what? The businessperson loses all chance of ever getting a sale.

Were I asked the same question, I would not only give my email address but also my web site and inform the potential customer I’m on Facebook and Twitter, and would do all this without flinching.

And let’s say you’re not in it for business but would like to connect with more people. Be public. It really does work. No, you don’t have to give out your phone number or physical home address. But if you play hide-behind-the-monitor with everything else, that irritates people.

Also, when you’re public, you’re being honest. People like this, and you will too. You’ll also find out rather quickly who plays hide-behind and who doesn’t.

I find true value in having a public internet presence. I’m not saying it’s all fun and roses 100% of the time, but it does work for both business and personal relationships. You establish trust up front with your presence and it really works.