Online Reputation Management

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Managing the reputation of your image or your company's image online can feel very daunting. The world of the internet is constantly changing as technology advances and security gets stronger, but how do you manage the reputation of your company in a realm where you have no physical control?

You can try to control all aspects of your company or personal image as best as you can, but nothing is ever as private as we think. Our technological footprint, similar to that of our carbon footprint, never goes away even if a post or picture is taken down. So how can you attempt to secure and manage your reputation? There are several ways to go about this. One option is to completely abstain from any type of online presence, meaning no social media, no websites, no posted pictures, and no personal information used on the internet.

The above method might be the most effective to keep your reputation and image to face to face interactions. However, in today's world, a company without any information, representation, or reputation online is bound to be less successful than their competitors who utilize the strengths that the internet can provide.

So besides staying complete off the web, how can you go about securing online reputation management? Chances are, if you are trying to get online reputation management, then it is not your area of expertise. That's where we can come in to help and give you guidance in learning about how to manage your online reputation or how others can do it for you.

Managing Images on Search Engines

If you have any sort of social media, public or private, and you post pictures to it, they are on the internet indefinitely, even if you delete them.

So, the first way of managing your online reputation is to be very careful about what you are posting. If you are posting publicly on an open server, like a public Instagram account or a FaceBook page, your pictures can be saved by others and often end up as the results of an image search of your name or company name. This is because our social media is tied to our names and our brands that we represent, so when the pictures are posted in conjunction with the name or brand, those images will surface when a person searches the name or brand in a search engine.

The best way to manage what images are the results of a name or brand search is to limit and monitor what you are posting with a connection to your name or company. You can combat this by hiring a social media representative for your company who posts specific images with specific tags to maximize the reach of the company while preserving and keeping your reputation in check.

It can be difficult to have images removed from search engine results if they were not your original post. For example, if I post a picture on my company's account of myself using the product the company sells and someone reuses my picture for their blog or review of my product, the picture cannot be removed from another web page or publisher unless it is identity theft or copyrighted material.

I could take the photo down from my page, but there is still a ghost image on the internet that I can never delete. So you should make sure that any pictures you are posting are watermarked to bring other audiences to your web page and be very careful where you are posting and what you are posting. Having a social media manager who deals with images, blog posts, digital marketing, and so on can benefit you and your company's online reputation.

Personal Websites Optimized
for Online Presence and Appearance

A great way to manage what your online reputation looks like is to create optimized content on personalized websites. Creating a website where you control what gets uploaded can help minimize disasters of fake web pages and false information. This way, when you or your company have something to share with your customers or your audience, you are the one in control of the narrative. You can make a clear statement about sales, events, or informational posts.

You can optimize your website by making it personal to a point. This means including background information on your company, uploading engaging content that is not divisive and uploading content that appeals to your customers or audience. Preserving your online reputation in most circumstances means that what you are posting should not divide people. If you and your company support a movement, and you want to speak out on a topic, that is your choice. However, be aware that discussing polarizing topics online with your name or your company's name attached to it can lose customers and create divides.

Of course, if you have a platform that people listen to, you should use it for good and show your support for movements that either appeal to your audience or the moral compass of the company. Just as this tactic can drive away some customers or viewers, it can also bring in new ones who like the fact that you support particular movements. The appearance of your website should promote the good things about your company and showcase good reviews, to convince people that your company has merit and a good reputation. This is especially important to get new customers and clients to work with you or purchase your products.

Online Publications
(Blogging and Guest Blogging)

When starting a blog or adding a blog onto your personalized website, try to think about what your audience wants to know about you and your company. Hire a writer to create content for your blog if that is out of your depth, and make sure that all the information and content they are creating is the right image for you and your company.

Checking the information and all the content the writer creates is very important because what they might think is best for your company's reputation might not be the image and reputation you want to put out into the internet. This same policy should be applied to guest bloggers who write a post or two for your blog. Always check that their words and the image they are putting out in connection with your company are in line with the morals and ethics of your company.

One bad blog post can ruin an otherwise great reputation with just one or two off-handed sentences that do not seem important at that moment. Make sure that your blog posts are not polarizing, or using shock value for click-bait. Click-bait is essentially exaggerating the topic of your post in the description or the advertisement to get people to click the link. Using click-bait is a fast way to get people to visit your website, but click-bait can ruin your reputation as a reputable source of information. This tactic causes people to feel duped when they realize that the real story is not what was advertised to them.

It will make people assume that your blog is over-dramatized and hyped just to get online traffic, not to share information or promote your company. Stick to the facts and do not twist the truth. Twisting the truth or exaggerating can damage your reputation severely.

Becoming an Expert
and
Building an Online Presence

If you become an expert on a topic, or you already are, and you want to share what you know but do not know how to start, hiring an online reputation management service could be beneficial to you. Because the world of online reputations and online services is constantly in a state of change, it can be hard to know what you need to do to create a reputation online for the first time. Creating a reputation is no easy task, and hiring a service to support you and help educate you on how to grow and manage your online presence is important.

You could make a website on your own, but these services can help you maximize how people perceive your website and your knowledge or product. This is crucial for people who have no other online presence or any knowledge on how to create a reputation. Creating a reputation takes time, skill, and patience. Most people have time and patience, but many do not possess the marketing and planning skills to create a successful image and reputation online.

Making a reputation requires the ability to gather viewers, customers, or simply an audience in general. Once you gain a small audience, you need to gather feedback, monitor what your audience likes and dislikes, and create an algorithm to maximize the type of information and content that you are uploading. That is a lot of things to do and most average people do not have the skill set to do all these factors successfully. There are some things you can do, like giving a background on how you are an expert on whatever topic. For example, writing an "about me" section where you explain how you grew into this expertise and why you want to share it.

Doing this makes your audience feel reassured that you are knowledgeable and credible, which reinforces your online reputation. Online reputation managers can then take care of the other factors that are beyond your span of knowledge. Overall, be highly aware of what is being posted or uploaded in connection to your name or company, whether it is from you and your people, or others. Bad reviews can damage your image, as can impostor web pages. An online reputation service can help monitor, preserve, and reinforce your online reputation.