Your online reputation (which is how others see you whenever they search for you online) is greatly determined by your overall digital footprint. Your digital footprint is the impression you leave behind whenever you use and post via the Internet. Dependent on the things you’ve left behind, you will inherently have a positive or negative impact on your personal online reputation.
Your online reputation can also be influenced by the content about you that exists online, whether it’s news articles, blog posts, audiovisual media, social media, reviews, results on “people search” sites, Wikipedia articles, public records and more.
Whether it’s you who is generating the content or someone else, the content will be generated. Unless you take charge of the situation, you’ll end up giving others the power to shape your online reputation—and this can negatively impact your personal and professional life.
The Importance of Managing Your Online Reputation
In our increasingly wired world, a healthy online reputation has become a vital asset. Whether you’re starting or leading a business, searching for a new job or professional connection, climbing up the corporate ladder, or simply establishing your authority in your industry, a positive online reputation is critical to personal and professional success.
Unfortunately, many people choose not to proactively manage their personal online reputations and take action only when embarrassing or potentially damaging content about them surfaces online. When this happens, fixing the problem can prove to be very expensive. Many “online reputation management (ORM) companies that focus on cleaning up negative online reputations charge up to $5,000 a year or more for their services.
While there are companies that charge people as low as $400 dollars a year, did you know that by personally managing your online reputation, you can identify and solve minor crises before they become too difficult (and expensive) to manage on your own?
Pointers to Help You Manage Your Online Reputation
Consider using the following checklist to help you maintain a healthy online reputation:
1. Closely Monitor Your Online Identity
You need to check your online identity by running various searches for your name on major search engines (Google, Bing, and Yahoo!), as well as popular social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.). If you’re using Google Search, consider running an image search for your name as well.
You should also set up a Google Alert for your name. Other alerts you can set up include your company or brand name, as well as any common misspellings of our company or brand name. Google Alerts also allows you to specify exact search queries (with operators), language, result type, region, frequency, and means of delivery (email or feed). These precautions will enable you to keep track of new search results that can affect your online reputation.
You can also use ORM sites that collect data about people from all over the Web to help you manage your online reputation. Some of these sites present aggregated data in Wikipedia-style entries, making it easy for you to track personal data and its sources.
Some of these ORM sites also allow you to remove unwanted personal information from the source sites, as well as request positive reviews and recommendations from those you trust.
2. Closely Monitor Your Social Media Accounts
You should closely monitor your social media accounts to ensure content that can damage your online reputation is either deleted or restricted. Facebook and Twitter allows users to delete sensitive posts and photos. Meanwhile, users who simply want to restrict the audience that are able to view confidential posts and photos can adjust their privacy settings.
If the offending content was uploaded by someone else on Facebook, you may contact the person and request to have the content taken down. Facebook allows users to remove tags from photos and posts they’re tagged in. However, even if tags are removed, these photos and posts will still be visible to the audience they’re shared with. To completely remove the photo or post, you will have to contact the person who shared the photo or post.
Twitter also offers various features that allow users to control what others see about them. In short, you need to familiarize yourself with the privacy and security features of all your social media accounts so that unwanted or sensitive content is either deleted or restricted from public access.
3. Think Before You Post
The most effective personal ORM is proactive rather than reactive. A lot of damaging repercussions can be avoided if you think carefully before you post something on social media—whether it’s a rant about your boss, wild photos from last night’s party, or an opinion that many would find offensive.
This same rule applies to other forms of online engagement, such as comments left on forums and articles that can be traced back to you. Would you be comfortable if a family member, boss, colleague, or client came across a particularly incriminating opinion? If your post may damage your online reputation, then refrain from posting it. Many people have lost jobs or had their reputations ruined due to controversial Facebook posts, tweets, or forum comments.
4. Deactivate or Delete Unused Social Media Accounts and Other Web Properties
Once you’ve stopped using social media accounts, blogs, or websites, it’s best to deactivate or delete these unused web properties. Deleting old web properties means they’ll no longer be live and will no longer be searchable online. If unused and outdated web properties still show up in the search engine results pages, it could communicate outdated information to other people.
In a worst-case scenario, it will send out a negative message to people who are searching for information about you, as it gives them the impression that you’re not active in your profession or industry. An added bonus of deleting old web properties is that it also prevents them from being hacked and misused without your knowledge.
5. Focus on Leaving a Positive Digital Footprint
If negative content about you shows up on the search engine results pages, the best way to counter this is to produce positive and informative content about yourself. If this content is successfully indexed and ranked in the search results, it could push back negative content to the second or third pages of Google, where it is less likely to receive traffic and clicks.
Creating a positive digital footprint will greatly enhance your online reputation. You could create a blog and focus on demonstrating your subject matter expertise, which in turn will help you build a strong reputation in your industry. You could also consider creating informative videos and uploading them to your YouTube account, or use LinkedIn to publish articles and connect with others in your industry.
The possibilities on the Internet and social media to make a good name for yourself and your brand are limitless. It’s all about being smart about your digital footprint, getting creative, and looking for new and dynamic avenues that will help you build a positive online reputation.
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