Online reputation management is a must for anyone involved with the Internet. It helps you to deal with what people see about you when they look further into you as a person, or your business if you have one. This can be hard to keep up with, especially with social media and search engine websites being so popular.
The problem with the Internet is that anyone can say anything they want about you. Even if you are a great person that has never done anything wrong to anyone in the business or personal world, people can still ruin your reputation. Websites exist that let people talk about businesses and there are blogs where people can talk about you. Without a way to either bury or address these types of things online, you may be at risk for people associating things that aren’t true with you.
Have you thought about what people have been saying in reviews but aren’t sure of how to get rid of bad ones? One thing you can get help with is to have a conversation with disgruntled customers, for instance, to see if you can resolve your issues. Any website where people can post to can have you show on it under a bad review of some kind that you wish to work out the problem. Then you may even have the person update what they said with a resolution so it shows you fulfilled your promises.
Sometimes you just can’t get someone to work with you and they are showing up in search engine results when someone searches for you or your company. One tactic is to utilize SEO to bury these results. With search engine optimization you will not have to deal with the person that wrote the content, you effectively will bury them under results that are more positive. A good thing about a reputation management company for online purposes is that they will have the connections that allow for them to get things out of the way like review websites that contain false information.
What about the fact that some content can be construed as libelous that you need to take on legally? A good way to make someone take down information about you that isn’t true is to take legal action, but only after you approach them with a request to remove the offending material. If you are able to be ethical in your approach and do have the money for legal representation, you may have a great case on your hands. Sometimes if you can prove the offending material has lost you business, some of those losses can be recouped.
Before you try to get a job you may want to make sure that you do all you can to get rid of your social media material that could be bad for your reputation. Even if you have photographs of you drinking or doing something bad set to private, a friend on your list may be affiliated with the company. Also, most of the things you post online can be found even though you think they are private. Sometimes the best approach is to go through and fix up the way your profiles represent you, or you can hire a company to do so for you. Employers in a lot of fields will look for you online, and the last thing you want is a picture of you on spring break to come up!
Anyone can benefit from online reputation management that has been online for any reason. It benefits people that are looking for work, and those that have established a company. Whether you want to deal with it yourself, or pay another company to, eventually you have to get involved with this so you don’t risk your reputation getting sullied.
