Not too long ago, a good friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, was having a problem with her reputation online. Although the posts were not horrible or, as my 8-year old likes to say, ‘inappropriate’, they were somewhat embarrassing to her. Moreover, they were not the kind of results that she wanted a prospective employer to find and read – she would have preferred more professional profiles, articles written and career-oriented material.
As most of us know, it’s almost impossible to have anything ‘removed’ from the Web. Once it has been published, it’s virtually forever. However, it can be pushed down to the 17th page of Google results instead of landing on the first page. Thus, obscuring it from view except for the most determined Internet sleuths.
John Jantsch, a marketing coach and author of Duct Tape Marketing, offers some advice in the December issue of Entrepreneur magazine on controlling your reputation online. His advice, which is good for corporations as well as individuals, centers primarily around participating in the conversation. If you are not listening, and not talking (or typing), you won’t have a say in the conversation. His main points include:
1. Sign up for news alerts to monitor your reputation – Google Alerts, BoardReader
2. Participate in social media, creating profiles for yourself/your company, submitting articles, comments and content with attributions – LinkedIn, Facebook etc.
3. Host a blog (or my suggestion – just Tweet!) to have a platform for discussion that you shape
4. Employ social search engines to enhance your business listings – Yelp, InsiderPages, JudysBook etc.
5. Build your reputation with people you trust by asking them to write reviews about you on reputable sites – LinkedIn, Naymz, RepVine etc.
Read the full article online.
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