Five Things You Should Do Every Day to Protect Your Online Reputation
What steps can you take to protect your online reputation? Our Reputation Team breaks down five everyday things you can do to restore your digital image and take control of your online brand.
Your online reputation constantly in flux, the sum of the positive and negative information that is available about you on the Internet.
In this search-happy age, someone is going to Google you sooner or later. To maintain the best possible online reputation, you should have a daily to-do list, so you can stay one step ahead of anything negative that is posted about you.
1. Google Yourself
One of the best ways to protect your online reputation is to search your name each day. The first page of search results is by far the most important, but you want to be thorough, so skim through the first three pages, and make sure that you don’t see anything there you don’t like. That means no:
- Nasty blog posts from former coworkers
- Intimate photographs you didn’t mean to share with the world
- Ripoff reports
- Mugshots
- Lawsuit records
If you see any of these, others will, too. To keep you great reputation, you’ll need to keep those search results clean.
2. Check All Of Your Social Media Profiles
Most of us go on a social media site at one time or another. The Pew Research Center says seventy-four percent of adults who go online use at least one social networking site. You might share intimate hopes and dreams with your friends. But these are also the spaces where your enemies might attack you.
Every day, take a spin through each site where you have a profile. Look for:
- Negative comments
- Photographs where you’ve been “tagged”
- Intimate stories that include your name
- Details about your private behavior that you’d rather keep private
Even if your profile is secure, delete anything negative, just to be absolutely sure your reputation is secure.
3. Zip Through Your Review Sites
If you run a business of any sort, you’ve probably got a listing on a review site like Google My Business. Research from BrightLocal suggests that seventy-three percent of consumers trust businesses more when they have positive business reviews.
In other words, if customers say good things online, it’s good for business. The reverse is probably true, too. Don’t have time to check your reviews every day? Review management software can monitor all them for you. So, as part of your checkup, take a pass through all of these review sites and make sure you’re happy with the reviews you see. If you aren’t, take immediate action to stop the negative before it gains traction.
4. Write Some Content
One of the best ways to protect your online reputation and cultivate a positive image is to be the primary source of good information about you. The content you control is your first line of defense against an attack based on your faults or mistakes.
But it’s essential that you supply regular, fresh content, such as:
- Blog posts
- LinkedIn articles
- Updating Facebook status
- Sending out a tweet
- Pinning a photograph on Pinterest
These little snippets of content should tell the world about your good deeds and your excellent skills. And you should be creating them every single day.
Research suggests that good news is shared on social media sites more often than bad news. So go ahead: share the good stuff!
5. Do Something Nice For Someone Else
The Boy Scouts have a motto: do a good turn daily. What a great idea! Spend time every day doing something nice for someone else. Walk a neighbor’s dog, donate your time to a nonprofit, or give a few dollars to a worthy cause. You just might build a reputation as a great member of your community. And that could help you a lot, if you come under attack online.
If you would like expert assistance, InternetReputation.com is here to help. They could help you handle most of these steps in a snap, with no extra work required.
