Naples, Fla. — Chase Gregory has some advice: Google yourself.
You can find out if you, and your company, are doing a good job of building a presence on social media by how high up you are on Google.
"Page 1 of Google is like Times Square, and link No. 12 is like the bus stop in the middle of nowhere," said Gregory, senior partner of NGS Consulting Inc. in Orlando, Fla.
For a company, the goal is to link to the website, LinkedIn and other social media sites, and online marketplaces like ThomasNet News, he said.
"Your company profile is not just your website. It's your images, your videos," Gregory said. "Just because you spent money on a website, that's not going to get you on the first place of Google," he said.
The key is putting new stuff online — new results, new images. That keeps the search engine hits coming, he said.
And at a time when the plastics industry is looking for young employees, Gregory said, video is very important. He added that prospective employees Google the names of company officials, too, so that means monitoring your own online information and keeping it updated and transparent.
"It's really important to keep it short and simple," he said. "It shows you're well-rounded, and it shows that you care."