Such a simple greeting, yet sweeter words were ne'er seen (this morning, anyway). For those of you not in the know, the other day I found myself mysteriously sans Naymz Account. Without warning.
One minute I was neck-deep in keyword research at work, the next instant my husband was asking me why I didn't want to be part of his reputation network on Naymz anymore. (Jokingly he asked, "are you trying to divorce me or something?") That's right. Through no fault of my own (I later found out), I found myself instantly and completely Naymz-less.
What is Naymz, anyway?, you might ask. Well, you might ask that if you a) know nothing about what's going on online; b) don't know anything about online networking; c) don't work in the SEM/web industry or d) all of the above. (Or e) you're my sister. Which technically would also be d.)
Anyway. Naymz is an online networking and reputation management service. Much like LinkedIn, it's of a professional nature (not air-your-dirty-laundry-everywhere like Facebook) and has become quite the authority with search engines. I.e., for a proper name search, someone's Naymz profile is much more likely to come up first (or at least at the top) in SERPs over any other social media profile. (Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule; my own Naymz account has historically been the first result for my own name search.)
The point is, Naymz.com is a free service (with an upgrade to Premium if one so chooses) wherein a person can list previous and current jobs, resume, qualities/talents, links to related sites (i.e., blogs, managed sites, etc.) and even even endorsements from colleagues.
Of course, upon figuring out my lovely account – complete with endorsements/references, lots of contacts, and complete professional information – was, indeed, AWOL, I panicked and filled out a frantic plea to the Naymz customer support to please reinstate my account (and also what I could do in the future to avoid this very problem.)
Within 24 hours, those handy Naymz folks had indeed brought back my account – albeit missing a lot of information – and offered up an explanation as to what happened. It seemed some OTHER Sarah Bernier (they said it was "someone with a similar name as you") wanted a Naymz account deleted, and proper steps weren't taken to ensure WHICH account was actually being terminated. Of course, they apologized profusely and said with "over 2 million profiles, this is the first time something like this has happened in our 4 years of business..."
They also were gracious enough to offer me some comps for the mistake, which I gladly took. While it wasn't a big deal to have to fill in my employment history again, it IS a bummer to have to start all over with my network. I also had to bite the bullet and ask my references if they'd be willing to re-reference me! But, all's well that ends well and at least I've got my Naymz account back.
A heartfelt 'thanks' to the Naymz tech team for helping me out so quickly and fingers crossed it doesn't happen again...though I highly doubt it will. Live and learn!
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