So you have a Facebook account, LinkedIn profile and blog or microblog (e.g. Twitter), but are not yet being heard? You may need to improve your credibility, popularity and transparency in order to make a bigger impact on your online presence.

Email Signatures
Make sure to include links to your different websites, blogs and social media profiles in your email signature. This allows people you contact out-of-the-blue to view your social media presence, which may improve your credibility.

Private Profiles
You'll notice that on some social media websites (such as Facebook) it's common practice for people to keep their profiles private, meaning you can only view it and interact with them if you're a friend - while platforms such as Twitter are generally more open.

A 'public profile' will increase your social media transparency, and you're likely to find that more people are willing to befriend or follow you if they know more about you from the start.

Be Alert
Make sure that you're listening to your audience and are ready to respond to any questions or comments they might have which are relevant to you or your industry.

Don't Be A Robot
Personality breeds transparency and if you behave like a robot online - or worse, employ the services of an automated 'bot' to send out message or respond to requests - you're likely to leave your audience as cold as your messages.

Give your online activities some flair, and never be afraid of showing that you're a real person - this could be mean signing off by first name in an email, acknowledging a spelling mistake in a prior tweet or releasing the occasional video.

About the Author

By Ehud Furman. LookupPage is an online service that provides personal visibility, online reputation management and business promotion for professionals and small businesses. Using LookupPage in conjunction with social media optimisation and taking control of your Google CV can open up many opportunities online.