Online Reputation Matters

Consistent with a previous post on the subject of managing your online reputation, Business Week points out the personal and professional ramifications  of profile-jacking, slanderous information, and other reputation risks on the Internet and new social media platforms.

Meet Barry:

When Barry Schwartz logged on to Twitter on Jan. 27, he had 20 messages waiting for him, all with unwelcome news: Someone was impersonating his company on the social network. Schwartz runs RustyBrick, a 15-employee, $2 million Web development company in Suffern, N.Y., and uses his company’s name as his Twitter handle. The impostor had set up a profile using a slight variation of his company’s name and started following Schwartz’s 4,000-plus contacts, which included clients. Those folks who in turn followed the impostor saw a Web link with a message reminiscent of spam: “Hey guys, you have to get this new Twitter Success Guide. It’s priceless.” Schwartz, who doesn’t use Twitter for sales promotion, was chagrined. “The last thing I want is to have people thinking that I’m following them and [that] I’m selling a Twitter Success Guide,” he says.

Tools for those of us who cannot afford to hire a fancy “reputation management firm.”:

A number of free tools also can help you scout the Web, social networks, and online forums for mentions of your company, brand, or products (chart). Google Alerts, for instance, will send an e-mail each time your name shows up in Google () searches. “One of the most important steps is to do an audit of what people are saying about your business,” says Andy Beal, a reputation management consultant at Marketing Pilgrim in Raleigh, N.C. He suggests doing a monthly Google search to see what shows up in the top 20 results, which might call up a customer’s comment or review on sites such as Yelp, CitySearch, or TripAdvisor. You might be dismayed to see unflattering results high in your Google search. “Google is ambivalent to the tone of the results—it doesn’t care if it’s positive or negative, only if it’s relevant,” Beal says. If you do see a negative comment, it’s best to respond as soon as you can, within the first 24-48 hours if possible. Use a nondefensive tone and ask for more information, offer to help resolve the problem, or offer your perspective or an apology if warranted. Then, to push those negative results further down in a search, create some new content.

Read the entire article from Business Week.

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