I just got and am fiddling with a Droid 2 smartphone and what a smarty it is. I’m truly amazed at the apps and functionality of these babies that work like a laptop and browse with ease. Now that I have both this phone and my Blackberry, there’s no comparison. I’m antsy to upgrade immediately.
Over the weekend, something happened to shock the pants off me – someone phoned me and instead of her photo popping up with her number, the image of another woman popped up (who also has the same name as the caller). At first I was confused how the woman in the picture got this phone number, and then I realized the caller was really who she was supposed to be, and the woman whose image popped up when the call came through was the “impostor.”
It didn’t take me long to understand how this could happen. The woman with the image is on social media with a BlogSpot blog as well as Twitter account on which she’s active. In fact, through the day, the other woman’s tweets began to cultivate in the contacts list on the Droid for the woman who owns that mobile number.
What to do? I’m open for suggestions on this one, folks, as it’s my job to fix this conundrum. Here’s the social-media-claim-your-identity strategy I’m going to follow (REPEAT: I’m totally open for suggestions on what you’d do, please!):
- Register the woman’s image on Gravatar. (I wrote about how you do this here.)
- Set up a Twitter account with that same image and help her with a consistent Twitter strategy.
- Set up an Open ID with that image, as well.
- Set up a Disqus account, Friend Feed, Bing, and any other social media sites
- Join Facebook and set up that account with that same image over her name.
- Hit LinkedIn and update her profile and make it viewable to the public with the same image.
- Set up a blog over her name and affix her gravatar with the blog and drive links and traffic to the blog.
- Update her website, for which she owns the domain for her personal name and every possible extension, with Internet marketing to boost search engine rankings. The site, currently in flash, may need to be rebuilt in a content management system like Drupal so the engines will recognize the content and coding. (I don’t believe the search engines have begun to accept flash sites yet for SEO?)
Beyond this approach, I’m still not sure I can get the caller’s own photo to synch with her mobile number after my phone already has the image of another woman locked in. By actually establishing her presence for the first time and trying to help her claim her social media identity, we’ll be that much closer to fixing the problem.
What do you think people who have the same name as another ought to do when they’re not interested in social media engagement? When something like this occurs, there’s no time for complacency – it’s forced engagement to protect a personal, and in this case, professional brand.
For the android specifically, make sure she has a Google account (gmail is always a good backup anyway) and have her image as part of that profile. While you’re there a Google Voice account (free) would be another way to attach her id with a more tangible real-world asset. Sadly, you’ve identified the the upcoming train-wreck that is identity management. Like with a real train wreck, the best you can do is to help people get out of the way. In some cases, building an identity not associated with the name at all (ie SteelToad) is one way to go. If you’ve got a unique name you’ve got a good head start, that was actually part of the reasoning for naming my daughter Krystina, any little uniqueness is going to come in handy once everybody knows everybody.
Hey Ray, wondering how Google Voice ties into identity management. Can you explain? I have a Google Voice # and I LOVE it, but don’t know how it would help with identity management.
Oh man, really need to change that gravatar photo I have…
The Google Voice number would just be one more data-point as opposed to being a major factor in identity management. When you ask any search engine about John Smith, they’re going to look at everything they have about any John Smith they know about. The John Smith they know the most about is likely to get a more prominent listing. Also if you’ve got your Google Voice number listed on your LinkedIn and other contact networks, then a search engine can aggregate anything tied those entries to a single entity.
Meanwhile deep inside the Frantic Co. search engine…
“John Smith”, “John Smith” … Ok, we’ve got 50 blog postings from a John Smith that all point back to JohnSmith152 on Google, we’ve got 280 check-ins from SuperJohnSmith on Foursquare, we’ve got a wordpress blog with 126 postings from a John A Smith, and we’ve got 2337 Yahoo forum posts by John Smith as JSXXXXXX at Yahoo dot com. ….
But wait, each of those profiles all have the same phone number,
OK then 2793 items for the John Smith at (000) 555-1234
Thanks Ray!
You kill me, Ray. I think it’s critical to open every Google app and try to claim/establish identity on each. Somehow, even the Voice app is going to get linked to SEO. Did you see Michelle’s comments re “new biz waiting to happen?” Prime the pump, Ray!
Ray, thank you. You confirmed something I intuitively was going to make happen. I was going to set up a Gmail account for her and run all the accounts through it. I hadn’t connected that Droid runs on Google platform, and having this will help.
I know nothing about Google Voice, though. Might you please shed some light?
Thanks for popping in so quickly this a.m.!
If I dive into that here, I’ll probably start detracting from you’re topic a bit too much, so I’ll send you an email.
It’s only one of the best features offered by Google (IMO)
https://voice.google.com
OK! Got your email about what you’re suggesting. Sigh. There is so much to learn; very exciting, and I so wish for more time in the day. Thanks, Ray!
Hi Jayme. I think a lot of your suggestions are good ones that will go a long way to helping this person claim her social media identity. Another place where she could open an account in her name is YouTube (owned by Google, by the way), where she could upload videos tagged with her name and other keywords relevant to her business (i.e. video SEO).
Steeltoad’s suggestions about the advantages of a unique name and a Google account are good ones. In addition to Gmail and Google Voice, I suggest she create a free business listing in Google Places (https://www.google.com/places) to help her business come up as a search result for her name or terms related to her business.
Hi, Rob! Appreciate your expertise, and I know this is a familiar topic for you. I will definitely add the Google Places listing to my strategy. Am exploring Google Voice right now and that seems like a phase two item. Will also work on optimizing YouTube with SEO, too. If this prompts a blog post from you, would be happy to run it on SMB Collective! https://smbcollective.com which is my other blog. Thank you!
Do these people have the same phone number (not sure how two people can have the same 10-digit number) or just the same name? Anyway…
If you have a common name and want to stake claim to a social media identity, I’ll add this tip to your suggestion: initial, usually middle. Search your name and its various forms, see if JohnSmith is taken, if JohnQSmith is open, etc. If you don’t want an initial, maybe you brand with a location like JohnSmithATL or an industry, like JohnSmithPR. Then configure your profiles and accounts. FWIW.
It was such a shocker…no, they have the same name but not the same mobile number. I think parents need to consider unique identity nowadays. I’d hasten a guess that you’re the only Davina Brewer in the world as am I the only Jayme Soulati in the world. That’s pretty cool. Appreciate the tips!
What I was trying to show was that you might have slightly different names on different profiles for different services, but that a common item like a phone number could be used to associate them together.
Funny, I know a John Q(uentin) Smith. I asked him about the middle name, his parents thought it would be unique (ah the irony)
I hope your buddy has adjusted his name a bit; like changing “Smith” to “Public.”
I see a new business idea here: Social Media Identity Management. I’d pay someone to get my name registered, photo uploaded, links built, and profiles filled in on every possible platform. There are just too many for me to keep up with.
This goes hand in hand with who the heck has the time to do any social network building let alone identity management? Show me the money! Let’s launch!
I like Michelle’s idea of a Social Media Identity Management business. Taking it one step further, celebrities and major brands copyright or trademark their image and likeness; maybe smaller business owners and consultants will have to do the same thing. If you use Jay Leno’s photo without authorization, you get sued. If you are the face of your business, I can see why you might want to do that.
I’m slacking, Brad, sorry it’s taken so long to comment back to you! Thanks for your time to do so, too. I’m having this discussion about trademarks, copyrights for a client wanting to brand herself. The only issue is liability; if you run a company, do you want folks to sue you or the company? I think I see a blog post here; know a good lawyer to ask to contribute? Thanks!