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The best course of action is to quickly diffuse the situation and take the conversation offline. From there you can deal with the issue one-on-one and come up with a solid resolution. Focusing on providing great customer service is the best way to avoid an online reputation crisis. If you focus on providing the best service possible, your happy customers will be your best promoters and defenders of your business. They will support you and speak favorably on your behalf if your business ever has to deal with an online reputation issue.
A great brand can take years and millions of dollars to build. It only takes a few hours for a bad customer experience to go viral and impact your bottom line.
Use this guide to monitor, manage, and improve your online reputation so you can protect your brand against negative attacks. Do you have a question about online reputation management? Let us know in the comments below. Does your business need help with its online reputation? Our expert online reputation team can craft exciting content, create innovative campaigns and develop a comprehensive online reputation strategy that will fully protect your brand.
Contact us today to get started. Do you see something negative? Do you only see a couple or zero results for a website that you control?
Monitor Your Brand One of the most important aspects of online reputation management is to know what is being said about your business. If there's a picture floating around that you really don't want anyone to see, it's best to remove it or ask the friend who uploaded it to take it down. You can untag yourself, but the photo will remain visible unless the original uploader removes it. You can ask Google to remove your personal information from its search results, but this doesn't apply to embarrassing photos or emotional train-wreck blog posts.
No, I don't mean legally changing it, or going into witness protection, or anything like that. But you might want to consider using a variation of your name for professional purposes, to help keep your personal Internet life from leaking into your professional Internet life. If you have an extremely un-searchable-name, such as John Smith, you may want to use a variation of your name simply to distinguish yourself from the 1 million other more famous John Smiths trolling the Internet.
In this type of situation, I suggest adding a middle name or initial to your professional name, so that future employers and colleagues will find you when they search Google -- not some imposter. If you want to distance yourself from a not-so-great online reputation from your past, or if you simply want to keep your personal life private from your professional life, I suggest changing both the name on your personal accounts and the name on your professional accounts so there's no overlap.
This doesn't have to be a pseudonym: I use my first and first-middle name on my personal accounts, and I use my first, third-middle I have a lot of names , and last name on my professional accounts. This way, I know it's unlikely that someone looking for my professional accounts will stumble onto my personal accounts by accident or on purpose.
The best online reputation management strategy is a proactive one.
Instead of trying to suppress your past, focus on building your future. By adding new content in the form of new social network accounts, blog posts, articles and forum posts, you can boost your professional identity and tamp down your "drunk college days" identity at the same time.
This works because search algorithms like to see new content -- in Google's eyes, an up-to-date blog is far more relevant than a years-old Facebook picture, and therefore gets prime real estate near the top of the search results. Start a blog or a personal website.
This doesn't have to be a professional blog or website, it can simply be a personal blog with work-safe posts. If you want to write about Los Angeles salad places or restoring arcade cabinets, go for it -- just make sure you do so in a professional manner. Spiff up your social networks. Create a separate Facebook account for your professional identity. Add your boss, coworkers and professional colleagues, and post work-safe but interesting content to this account frequently.
Together, they cited information from 14 references , which can be found at the bottom of the page. Look yourself or your company up to see what the world sees when they are looking for you. Would a prospective employer be turned away by something they see about you online? Would potential customers be turned away by your online reputation?
If so, take action to remove any social media posts or other pages online that hurt your reputation. Refrain from posting unprofessional content. You might be tempted to tweet using bad language or post pictures of you at a party, but remember that your social media can help take away from or help build your brand as a personal brand or as a business. Consider putting social media accounts on private. Social media can be a great way to engage with strangers to network or to build your personal brand.
If you don't monitor and improve your online reputation, you're missing out on a opportunity to grow your brand, earn social proof and drive new. Lori Randall Stradtman, author of Online Reputation Management for have in- house staff managing their online reputations, it may be worth the cost. . I confess I would find it difficult to manage two Facebook accounts.
However, if you want your personal social media accounts to be less serious and want to post media that might be deemed inappropriate, consider putting your social media on private. They can easily screenshot your posts and share them. Clean up your social media. Go through your social media accounts and delete anything an employer would consider inappropriate or too public.
Just a few years ago, much of what we did was soon forgotten. There are plenty of companies that will help you clean up, protect and build a professional online rep for a price, but you don't need that. Here's how to manage your online reputation all by yourself for free. One of the most important aspects of online reputation management is to know what is being said about your business. If your social media is for a business, ask yourself if you have any posts that hurt the image of your brand. A great brand can take years and millions of dollars to build. Have separate email addresses.
If your social media is for a business, ask yourself if you have any posts that hurt the image of your brand. In the future, think before you post.
Post on your social media regularly. The key to having a good online presence is to post on your social media an appropriate amount of times. If you never post, you will have no online presence.
Posting too much might hurt your online presence and make you lose followers. Twitter three times a day, Instagram one time a day, Facebook one or two times a day, and a blog two times per week. Add social media profiles to a dashboard. There are many tools available online, such as Buffer, to help you manage all your social media in one place. Put your social media on a dashboard to make managing your online presence easier. Using a single platform saves you time and energy when managing your online reputation.
Schedule social media posts. You can use online platforms to schedule social media posts. Scheduling posts allows you to stay active on social media, even if you are actually not paying attention to it.