Managing Online Reputation

March 9, 2008 on 10:57 am | In Uncategorized |

If you’ve been hiding under a pile of brick and mortar for years, you may not have noticed how much the world has changed.

Online publishing has become easy, fast, inexpensive or even free, and that’s not to mention newsgroups, forums, social networking, rating sites, and and mainstream media sites, all of which can be decreasingly distinct from each other.

Reputation and news reporting, formal or informal, is no longer local, offline, or restricted to the largest companies or most prominent individuals.

Yesterday’s news no longer lines today’s bird cage. Online transcends time and location, with content staying there as good as forever, often cached or duplicated even if the originator has removed or stopped maintaining a copy he controls.

It can be hard to grasp or counterintuitive that if you play whack-a-mole with something online you don’t like, you simply draw attention to it. Large companies and big names, seemingly comfortable with the online world, have fallen for this and become laughingstocks, looked guilty of something that was nothing, or lost business and public relations opportunities.

There are ways to respond - which can include not responding at all - that will minimize or counter the impact of something opined or reported about you, or even leave people with a more positive impression than before.

Mind you, it’s seldom about outright lies or even mistaken facts, but about presentation, spin, or the potential for others to see the same words but misconstrue them in odd ways. You can’t control the truly crazy or semi-literate, but as such they will only be taken seriously for so far.

So what do you do about managing your online reputation?

Sometimes the best action is no action, though you may want to be aware of what’s out there. Then again, being aware of what’s there means having to not take it too personally. This is harder if, like most, this will be little more than a one-time thing. At the same time, if you can assume it will be rare at best, it’s harder to have a plan ready.

Just remember, reacting too strongly can and usually will make matters worse. Legal recourse almost never makes things better, even for you. Nobody likes a bully. Legal threats without substance or against what is true but negatively spun have ruinous potential for backlash. Misuse of tools like DMCA notices can get the issuer in trouble.

Bloggers and commenters online may buy their virtual ink by the proverbial free or cheap barrel, but so can you. Do you have a web presence of any kind? A blog? Would you know how to set one up rapidly and promote it? Do you know about commenting right back in response to what people say? Do you grab your identity everywhere you can, before someone can appear to be you?

They got their message out. Now get your message out. Better, get your message out there before it’s an issue. Build a positive presence. Build the ability to respond. Build awareness. Be way up there in searches, so things you can’t control aren’t alone in the results when people go looking.

It may seem unpleasant to have to deal with what seems like a million small town gossip rags with global reach, but it’s out there and it’s not going to change.

We can help you with these matters.