Tips For Proactively Managing Your Online Reputation
The digital world is a volatile landscape for any business owner, freelancer, or brand.
While digital tools such as social media can be great for gaining exposure or generating new leads, they also have the potential to be equally as damaging.
One day you’re a social superstar, and the next, you can find yourself on the receiving end of social scrutiny faster than you can say ‘Ctrl, Alt, DELETE’.
When it comes to marketing yourself online, it's difficult to know how to avoid bad press, negative reviews and comments, or worse, a viral public relations disaster — all of which have the power to completely debilitate your reputation and life’s work, sometimes in as little as a matter of minutes.
You don’t have to look much further than the latest news headlines, or Twitter’s trending topics, to see how damaging and detrimental online vitriol can be.
A sour online image translates to fewer customers, and ultimately equates to financial loss. Not only does reputational damage affect your bottom line, but for many, it leads to psychological strain and other hardships that affect well-being and mental health.
That’s why it’s best to get out ahead of things by establishing a strong online presence, and setting up digital safeguards to mitigate risk.
At TIEJA Inc. Communications, we’re on a mission to empower each and every person to proactively manage their digital footprint, and support them in sharing their own unique story online by giving them the tools, knowledge and platform to have their voice heard.
We believe meaningful brand stories inspire positive conversations, and in order to have those stories heard, we need to create the space to do so by laying a strong foundation.
The first step in building an impenetrable digital fortress, is taking a rigorous and proactive approach to branding and online reputation management.
Whether you're a solopreneur, small start-up, or large-scale organization with international reach, one of the best investments you can make, is in protecting the business you've built.
Here are five things you can start doing right now, to protect your online reputation:
1. Purchase your name domain
Purchasing your name domain is the easiest way to establish online authority. Your name domain is www.YourName.com, and can be purchased through a provider such as Namecheap or GoDaddy. Because your name domain is an exact match of your name, or your business name, if optimized properly it will rank high on Google’s search engine results page. Purchasing your name domain also ensures other third parties won't claim the domain first and hold it hostage, or try to resell it back to you at a mark-up.
2. Set up authoritative social accounts
There are nine spots on the first page of Google, and ideally you want all nine of those spots to yield positive content under a search for your name. In addition to your domain, you can also set up other authoritative social accounts. Google My Business, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Medium are trusted by search engines, meaning they rank higher, and faster, than other websites. This ensures you have maximum control over the type of content people see when they search for you. Be sure to use the same spelling of your name on each site, as opposed to abbreviations or short forms, so that Google can match the keywords.
3. Be consistent
Algorithms — the set of rules that determine what ranks first on Google and other search engines — love consistency. Therefore it’s important to appeal to those algorithms by posting with some degree of regularity. If you can't commit to consistent posts, you can pre-schedule them using a social media management platform such as Hootsuite. Don't feel pressured into thinking you have to create original content every single day to stay on the good side of the internet bots. On days that you may not be feeling creative, you can opt to just engage with other accounts instead. You can also set an auto-responder if you need time to respond to messages.
4. Try social listening
The best defence is a good offence. By monitoring the online conversation about your brand, you’ll be able to identify threats before they become problems or crises. As an added bonus, these insights also offer valuable business feedback. There are an abundance of paid social listening tools, but there are also a couple of freebies that are just as handy. Google Alerts is a free service offered by Google that detects online mentions for specified keywords. You are notified by email when new results populate, such as mentions on a website or in the press.
5. Schedule regular audits
Just like taking out the trash, mowing the lawn, or cleaning the house, every plot of digital real estate requires regular maintenance too. Scheduling audits gives you the opportunity to delete old out-dated content, clean up what isn't relevant, or catch something you might regret later. This is a good time to check-in on the security of your accounts as well. Try setting a reminder notification in your calendar for at least one audit per quarter.
Remember, be diligent and take ownership of your online reputation and brand presence. This will allow you to put your best foot forward in the digital world, and ensure anyone searching for you online is finding the best, and most relevant, information.
If you found this article helpful, you can find more practical tips and advice on our website, or follow us on Instagram.
