When You Should and Shouldn't Use Your Real Name on Social Sites
People like me who teach online reputation and networking take it for granted that using your real name on social sites is a good idea, but a recent question on Quora reminds me that this is not as obvious as it seems. An anonymous user asked Did you provide your real personal info to Quora when your user account was created? and explains that he or she avoids using their real identity to thwart data mining. There might be cases when this is a good idea but for most people it is actually better to use your real name because it boosts your online reputation. When people hear about you or meet you for the first time they are likely to Google your name to see what comes up. This test will only find web pages that use your real name because Google cannot know that the owner of the username SqueakyPencil87 is actually John Smith. Some of the people googling your name will just be curious colleagues and friends, but quite often they could be potential employers or bus...