How to Manage Your Company’s Online Reputation?
Managing negative information about you and your company online (especially what a Google search reveals) is increasingly important in business. Online reputation management companies can repair your image but they are in most cases, expensive. A 6 to 12 month campaign to suppress or remove negative postings online could cost $15 000 and up.
There are several online management techniques you can adopt to manage and monitor your online reputation without spending thousands of dollars, according to several industry experts in online reputation management, not all of them are free but the cost is minimal to implement.
1. Use free online tools: Experts recommend a variety of free online tools and information sites to manage your online reputation, like Google Webmaster Central Blog, Blog Patrol and Technorati, which let you know what people are saying about your business and who is reading your blog content.
2. Put your company name on Google regularly: Type in your company name periodically on Google search engine, know the result of an online search and determine whether or not measures need to be taken to counter attach negative information that could be showing up.
3. Set a Google Alert: This will notify you when a negative blog is posted on an online forum or media pertaining to your business. This is a proactive way in managing your online reputation.
4. Create a profile of their interests and expertise: You can create your profiles using tools of social bookmarking and news aggregators like del.icio.us and Newsvine. Also contribute to online forums, write articles for a knowledge based online network that are generated by users, such as Squidoo.
Another idea is to do a product review on Amazon.com to show that you are an authority in a particular subject or field. Create a free blog on Blogger. Once everything is active, make a link from one to another. This will suppress negative information online that has been posted about your business. Also, explore the thousands of social media sites. It is suggested that you create fresh content on YouTube, Facebook and MySpace often to expand positive online content about your business.
6. Buy links to your online content: You can pay to have keywords linked to your page on MySpace or LinkedIn, which helps improve your online ranking in search results. When someone does a search on your business or a subject to which you are closely associated this new content will improve your business reputation online.
7. Be aware of online content that has been created: Be pro-active, know what has been written about your business and/or what negative information has been posted about your business. You certainly do not want someone searching your business and up pops negative information about your business for the world to see. If you do not want certain information posted on a highway billboard for the world to see, do not post it on the social networks.
Remember if your online reputation that is being attacked, you must take action quickly to protect your online reputation and restore you business reputation, image and good name.
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