When you create a Facebook Group, you enable family and friends to share stories, photos, and discuss the deceased person with others. With the United States being so large and people spread out in cities all over the world, it can be challenging to visit a cemetery. Like other tasks with social media, visiting a digital cemetery is very fast. Where else can you visit a cemertery 24 hours a day, seven days a week? Certainly visiting a digital cemetery isn’t scary at night.

While the permanency of Web sites can be debated, there’s no reason to assume a digital cemetery should be any less permanent than a real one. Gravestones in real cemeteries wear out and the text can become illegible. Placed flowers will wilt and die. Digital flowers and text never get blown away, discolored or vandalized. All digital cemeteries need are a Web host and a miniscule amount of storage space for photos and text.

Social media sites enable you to have so much more than a gravestone. You can present a photo of the deceased person as they looked in their prime. You can support causes the deceased person supported in life, like the Red Cross. You can post video, literally bringing the person back to life.

A co-worker of mine was recently murdered. Friends built him a Facebook Group page, and my company asked my to build a custom blog where employees could share stories. On the blog I linked to the Facebook group, and the Facebook group linked to blog I created. Friends also created a Facebook Group to help track down the murderer.

I encourage you to create a Facebook Group or similar site for passed loved ones. Harness the evergreen capabilities of the Web to honor people you care about and create a lasting impression of someone’s life.

First, Twitter is more like a slow online chat session than a blogging platform. That’s because while the posts are instant, not everyone who will respond will be online at the same time as the person making the first post, or tweet. Ah, but many strangers are online and can respond fairly quickly. The public nature of Twitter is what I find most fascinating. Typically, online chat sessions and email are private conversations. Twitter, if you let it, will make all of your posts and status updates available to the entire world. Complete strangers can comment on what you’re eating for lunch. If they find what you’re eating for lunch is super-special, they can “follow” you. When you get followed, people basically subscribe to receive all your posts.

Twitter becomes like a Grand Central Station, you overhear conversations of thousands of people in a short amount of time. It’s this voyeuristic quality that makes Twitter interesting and have such broad appeal. Facebook, by design is a closed network. You often need to be invited to participate with friends. Twitter is public, and you can search for any topic using the service to pull up reactions for that topic. For example, I searched tweets to determine if Slumdog Millionaire was worth seeing. Many people posted that the movie was amazing. I saw it based on what people said about the movie. It was amazing.

Web 2.0 and public relations professionals love Twitter because news stories and Web sites can go viral when posted to the service if there are enough followers tracking the poster. Darren Rowse, a prominent blogger, credits Twitter with generating a lot of traffic to his site.

Want to know what celebrities are up to? You can follow Britney Spears and Al Gore on Twitter if you like.  If someone of importance tweets about a news article or video, it’s easy to see how it can generate a lot of traffic. It’s like having a podium available to you 24/7. What celebrity wouldn’t like that? Another application:  imagine a modern-day evangelist with “followers” on Twitter. Interesting.

Twitter is an open platform, so there are many applications and ways you can post tweets. You can SMS them on your phone, use one of the many iPhone applications, or use the Web. You can syndicate your tweets and post them on your Web site or blog.

Wanna find out what’s going on with me? Go ahead, I’m an open Twitterer.

In the past, I’ve always had luck getting freelance opportunities and jobs because of my online portfolio. But was it just luck? In 1999 a project manager for Learnlots.com contacted me about writing tutorials for AOL version 4.0. I had no idea who this person was and they were several states away. Clearly he didn’t hear about me through networking because I was in college at the time. How did he find me? A search engine. My Web site always did well at search engine ranking.  Having a higher ranking gives you authority. Authority gets you jobs.

Build Your Online House

Ever since 1999, headhunters and corporations have found my Web site. How do I stand out? How can you stand out? First thing to do is get a Web site. Your own yourname.com site. You are your brand. Differentiation makes one person get hired over another. Research other people in your field you want to emulate. What do their Web sites look like? How do they present themselves on their Web site? What makes them stand out? Remember that it’s not easy to gain trust over the Web. The Web is becoming more personal, but by design it is an impersonal technology. Having your own domain name lends a sense of trust. Anyone can setup a fake Yahoo! account. Putting your name online says you’re serious.

Post a photo. So many people online don’t post a photo in their online profiles and Web sites. I don’t get it. You can’t be “sticky” in the minds of headhunters if you’re just a name. A photo can convey a bit of your personality and make you seem real. Seeming real on the Web matters to people who make hiring decisions.

Make Your House Presentable

Once you have a Web site address, you’ll need to build content for your site. This depends on your industry, but why not first start out with a description of yourself? When I analyze Web site statistics for the sites I manage, some of the top pages are always bios of the people behind the company. People want to know who you are and what you’re about. Write a short and substantial bio about yourself. Get friends (ideally a writer friend) to review your bio and make sure it sounds professional. Next, you’ll need content on your site. Maybe this is a portfolio of art, music, Web designs, or if it’s something that isn’t visual, just go into detail about projects you worked on and post some visuals that represent your projects. You won’t believe how many Web developers I know who don’t have Web sites, much less blogs. Whatever industry you are in, you should be online.

Post Signs to Your House

Okay, you built your online house with fancy shutters and Spanish tile roof. How are people going to find it? Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I’m sure you’ve heard the term before. The reason it’s mentioned a lot is because it’s so important. You must understand that without good SEO, you’ll never be found. Google is blind, literally. Google reads text on a Web site like braille; it can’t see visuals on Web sites. So no matter how pretty your Web site looks, it will never compete against a site with excellent textual content.

SEO items in your site are like signs that point Google to your site instead of another’s. I do everything to make sure each all of my pages have all the details search engines need – descriptive titles, meta descriptions, content with keywords, and all-original content. My resume is posted in both Word and PDF formats. My resume describes what I do and the specific software I use to get my projects done. Since my site has been around for over 10 years, search engines give it some authority over sites that have been up for just a few weeks. You need to be around for a long time, too.

If you’ve ever used Google, you know that oftentimes the results on the first page of your search are very, very good. It’s almost like Google can read your mind. Headhunters know this, and when they find resumes at the top of the online search pile, they are pre-conditioned to have some trust in the site and its owner. I have an online resource page that can help you with marketing your site and connect with decision-makers.

Meet Your Neighbors

Search engines, Web site, yadda yadda yadda. What about Web 2.0? Haven’t things changed? Yes, in fact you’re in a whole new neighborhood now. Headhunters can reach you in more places now.

Build a profile on LinkedIn. Fill out every field with accurate, descriptive information. Post a photo. Post links to your new Web site. You may even have a blog. Post a link to that too. Headhunters are watching you on LinkedIn. Give them a show.

Start a blog. If you’re an authority in your field, you should have one. Headhunters will read it and place you in a different realm if they think you’re an expert and have a following.

Get on Facebook. While Facebook is primarily a social networking tool, you can get job offers and freelance projects from people in your network. Make sure you post links to your Web site and blog on Facebook. Headhunters and business owners are on Facebook too.

Spruce Up the Neighborhood

With Web 2.0, contribution and sharing are in style. Voice your opinion on forums in LinkedIn and Facebook. Write answers to questions people have that you can answer. Improve your online neighborhood. Networking is more important now than ever. People want you to reach out to them if you have something intelligent to say and can help them in some way. They will return the favor. You might have heard the term “be sticky” when it comes to job seeking. Send follow-up emails, forward links, present yourself in a memorable way. The same goes in the social media / Web 2.0 world. You need to be unique and everywhere headhunters and business owners congregate.

Own Your House

By using these tips you can control your career. And you don’t even have to be in the news or have written a book to be found.

Don’t search for jobs. Be sought-after.

(Photo courtesy tibchris)

One of the criticisms of blog comments has been that anyone can post any comment and usually do so anonymously. While I think there are some benefits to anonymous comments and should be an option, I believe the Facebook Connect option gives blogs a chance at becoming a more serious news and entertainment source. Many people have seen Godwin’s law in effect throughout the Web. A system like Facebook Connect could help mitigate the law that states as online discussions grow longer the likelihood increases of a comparison to Hitler or Nazis. I’ve seen the law in effect in Yahoo! message boards.

Many blogging platforms have indicated they are working on developing the necessary code to implement the feature. Since there is a bit of code involved I don’t think it will happen in the next few weeks, but I would expect it in the coming months. TechCrunch has noted that 20% of their commenters are logging in via Facebook Connect.

This whole notion of a unified login system brings me back several years to Microsoft’s failed Passport account. Microsoft tried to create a unified login system with your credit card information so you could go from shopping site to shopping site and use only one login for quick access to checkout. What a great idea! It failed, however. With the widespread acceptance of Facebook and no credit card information involved (at least not yet), I see this unified login system working.

What the Web really needs is fewer logins. With so many users on the Web now it seems inevitable using the Web will get easier. One fewer steps means one less discouraged Web user in my opinion.

With more veracity in blogging comments, should you believe the phrase, “don’t believe everything you read”? With a real name and photo, I’d think about it before invoking Godwin’s law…