I love to spy on people. What can I say? I am a people-watcher, an eavesdropper, a Carmen Sandiego-type of lady. It’s just who I am, and luckily I found myself in an industry where online espionage is not only the reality it’s also somewhat expected. We are active online. We all understand what that means—our name carries with it a footprint of past comments, profiles, and adjectives that we are responsible for.

Enter…the problem. It’s called visibility people. If you are a job-seeker this transparency can hurt you. There have been thousands of posts on how important it is to manage your profiles, your images, and your online relationships for success. In fact the entire online community is acutely aware of how cautious you have to be if you are active online but what about NOT being active enough? What about the dangers of letting your name linger out there without any real direction or shape? What about lacking any presence in a community full of passionate potential partnerships?

This is what happens when you don’t manage your brand online. You not only miss out on the advantages of being active, but you leave your name out there to be shaped for you. Here are just a few other things that could go horribly wrong if you don’t manage your social media presence:

1. People can squat your name on other networks.
2. You lose the opportunities that come from cross-pollinating your social media profiles (linking to each other for viral visibility).
3. You lose share of voice online in general, making it harder to build your brand moving forward.
4. You run the risk of looking stagnant as the social media bandwagon continues to grow.

The lesson learned? You have to continuously seek out the right networks for your goals and build your brand on them. So what can you do to make sure you have stamped your logo down in the right places? There are a number of tools out there to help you scout out these profile possibilities and take control. Here are a few of our favorites:

KnowEm:  Checks the availability of your brand name, user name or vanity URL on 120 popular Social Media websites. You can also go beyond checking and actually subscribe to be automatically added to the profiles as they are added to the service. Talk about covering your tracks. 

Ning:  A network of networks. Use their search functionality to find social networks in your niche and get moving. If you don’t find anything…become the founder of a highly relevant community of people that share your passions.

WeFollow:  A directory for Twitter users, enabling them to tag themselves with certain niches, industries, etc. Use this to find the move-makers in your industry and see where they are participating. Nothing wrong with a little spying—errrr I mean---guidance.

So there you have it. Get started with these awesome tools that help you scout out where you should be active…then get in there! The truth is people are out there are building networks that you need to be participating on. Leaving your username open or being inactive is detrimental to not only your job search but your online brand as a whole.

For those of you that think this is all a bit shady...well get over it. You need to be listening to others, hearing where they are active, and join. You need to be checking out leaders in your industry, seeing where they are active, and join. In a nutshell you need to put on your espionage pants. So go grab yourself some night vision goggles and get moving…