Maintaining a professional online image is a very important aspect of your career. Through a simple online search, an employer or client can find out what you like to do, how you blog and tweet and see the overall professional online image you portray of yourself.

1. Don’t use your status updates to share information about the actions an employer doesn’t need to know about, censor your wall posts and patrol the posts written by others on your own wall.
2. Never post pictures of yourself at a bar, party or other situation that may be inappropriate and inform your friends to ask for permission before tagging you in a photo.
3. Try to avoid joining groups, fan pages and applications that are not relevant to your field. If you decide to join an irrelevant group, be sure it is about a topic you would be willing to discuss with a company CEO and your grandmother.
4. Even with strict privacy settings, it is still possible for other people to get access to your Facebook account. Always be insistent on maintaining a professional online image, even if your profile is set to private.
5. Build a professional online image by sharing ideas and information and adding knowledge to the community. Write relevant and useful tweets.
6. Request recommendations, join groups and answer questions of other users after creating your LinkedIn profile.
7. Strategically write blog posts that will showcase your skills and knowledge and comment on other industry-related blogs.
8. Create a clean, well-designed Web site focused on promoting your personal brand in your field to help build your image.

via Rachel M. Esterline and Brand-Yourself.com