Online Reputation Management For Dummies

What Is Online Reputation Management?

Online reputation management is the process of ensuring that the right information appears when people look you (or the name of your brand) up in search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo!, or on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. The idea is to minimize negative content and to promote flattering content.

To achieve this goal, you must monitor search engines and social network and do what you can to mitigate negative comments. When you find negative content, you decrease its visibility by creating enough positive content so that the negative content appears to go away. Or sometimes you can get the relevant webmaster to remove offensive content.

But the best way to eliminate negative content is to make sure it never appears in the first place. In fact, in this book I present a system of online reputation management that focuses on building a positive and proactive fan base before a crisis ever happens.

Effective online reputation management means getting involved with social networks, monitoring those networks closely (rather than just depending on automated monitoring systems like Google Alerts), and responding as quickly as possible in the event of great breaking news or a crisis.

Being proactive

Once upon a time online, before social media networks became mainstream, brands could address negative comments by tracking links and performing damage control. Today, if a crisis isn’t handled correctly, a brand’s image can be ...