Are you using one or more of Google’s free applications? With over 150 million users just on Gmail, you are not alone. Did you realize that YouTube, Google Reader, Docs and Gmail will all work with one set of login details? The time has cometh for you to amalgamate these into one account that will speed up your user experience.

Once you have connected all your Google services you will want to set up a Google Profile, a social media type profile that will allow you to be found through regular Internet searches. As a career advancer or jobseeker, your goal will be to have a strong and positive personal brand that recruiters and employers can easily find online. Google Profiles is one integral part of your branding strategy and here’s what you need to do to get going.

Activate your profile

Go to www.google.com/profiles and login as you would to your Google account.

Fill in your details

Just like Linkedin or Facebook you write a bio about yourself and tell the world who you are and what you can do for others. Make sure you put lots of buzzword and keywords in your text as it will be indexed for searching.

Upload some pictures

Google Profiles lets you upload a profile picture just like Linkedin. It also lets you connect a photostream from Picasa or Flickr. Adding a few more photos for people to see will add some personality to the profile – just make sure they are all employee friendly.

Link to your other social media outposts

The beauty of Google Profiles is that you can link it up like a portal to other social media profiles you have. Add your Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, website or blog, Flickr, YouTube etc. You enter the URL of your profile, type in “Follow me on Twitter” for instance and the corresponding icon will appear to the right hand side of your profile.

Activate Google Buzz

This one is optional. Buzz is Google’s answer to Twitter, a micro blogging service where users share information in a feed. From Gmail you will be able to enable Google Buzz and whenever you Buzz something up, it will be public on your Google Profile. Again, this can serve to strengthen your personal brand as a recruiter can see what you read and share with the world; hopefully valuable content relating to your industry.

Conclusion

There is no doubt Google will add more functionalities over the next weeks and months to their Profiles application. If you have followed the simple steps in this blog post, you have a solid foundation from which to adopt whatever Google chooses to dazzle us with next!