“I accepted the LinkedIn connection request and the other Jeff SanGeorge sent me a LinkedIn message. He had seen my design work on my online portfolio, and wanted to talk with me about a website design.” Jeff SanGeorge
I collected social media success stories while writing the book “Success Using Social Media.”
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@jeffSanGeorge jeffsangeorge.com linkedin.com/in/jeffsangeorge |
It was 2005 when I first became intrigued with the world of websites, google and blogs. I also googled myself for the first time.
Every time I did, I found two other people with my name, Jeff SanGeorge. One was Jeff SanGeorge the pro Dirt bike rider, the other, Jeff SanGeorge the Children’s book author.
There were other results, but these two were the most interesting and identifiable. However, each time I googled my name I realized that the Jeff SanGeorge that was the most important, me, was missing from the search results. Maybe it was vanity, or maybe it was a sense of the world to come, but I knew I wanted to be in the results for that search. I wasn’t sure how to get there, but I knew I would’t be professionally riding a dirt bike, or writing a children’s book anytime soon!
As the years went by I got very busy in my career and life. I also began to actively blog, network, tweet and use LinkedIn. Slowly my content from blogs, Twitter and LinkedIn began to creep up the pages of my google search results.
In 2009 I received an email that got my attention quickly. It was a standard “Jeff, I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn” message. The subject of the message was “Jeff SanGeorge wants to connect with you on LinkedIn”. Surely this was a bug in LinkedIn. But it was no mistake, Jeff SanGeorge the Motocross pro and the Children’s Book Author (turns out it was the same guy), said he found my profile online and wanted to connect. Wow, this seemed strange, yet so cool.
I accepted the LinkedIn connection request and Jeff sent me another LinkedIn message. He had seen my design work on my online portfolio, and wanted to talk with me about a website design! Wow, Jeff SanGeorge wanted Jeff SanGeorge to do some work for him.
Within a few days I was having a surreal conversation on the phone with the “other” Jeff SanGeorge. We actually had a lot in common, and to make this story even more interestingly, we both grew up in Western New York, within 45 minutes of each other.
Jeff hired me to design a website for one of his clients. The look I got from the bank teller was priceless as I handed her a check to deposit into my bank account.
A few more years went by before Jeff SanGeorge hired me again to do another project for him.
Not only did I find a possible distant relative, because of social media, but I also found a very interesting client.
Now Jeff and I happily share the first page of Google results in a search for “Jeff SanGeorge.”