Post by Taylor Tomita

In a world that is becoming engulfed in technology, the relevancy of social media continues to skyrocket. We’ve seen businesses come to terms with the fact that they have to become more social to remain relevant.

But what about you? Just as companies are finding their voice and creating a social presence, you have your own opportunity to create a personal brand and burnish your online reputation. Whether you are a business owner, the host of a podcast or an independent agent, it’s important to hone your personal brand if you’re to establish yourself as a thought leader within your industry.

What’s the best way to achieve that? Here are four best practices in establishing your personal brand.

Revamp your social media presence

1An issue with many social media users in this day and age is that they set up their personal profiles, and that’s pretty much it. While getting on social media is a good starting point for your efforts, being able to actually use social media effectively is what you’ll need to succeed. Here are some ideas on how to do that:

Step 1: Don’t be the egg! When you first log into Twitter, the first thing you should do is change your avatar from the classic “egg” avatar. Changing your avatar to an actual picture of yourself is a great starting point to ensure your Twitter profile will gain traction within your community. After all, nobody wants to communicate with an individual who doesn’t care enough to show the world his or her face. After attaching your face to your personal brand, it’s important that you beef up your profile; interests, qualifications, education are all topics to consider when trying to set yourself apart from anyone else in the community.

Step 2: Test the waters. After you get your profile created and are confident that you will not be mistaken for a breakfast dish at first glance, the next step is to venture out into the world of your online community. Simply doing this will allow you to see what is being talked about within your industry and allow you to craft a plan on how you will present yourself to the community. This plan should incorporate who you are engaging with, what time of day is best to engage the community, as well as what type of content your community is looking for. Saying the right thing to the right person at the right time can skyrocket your success into the social media world.

Step 3: Dive in. Once you figure out what exactly it is that you are going to do, it’s time to dive in! One of the best tactics to getting yourself and your brand out into the world is participating in industry-related chats. Twitter chats are generally favored throughout all industries. Regardless of what communication platform you are using, it’s important that you engage the individuals in these chats by answering questions thoughtful and providing useful, preferably keyword-rich advice.

Tools to use

Thankfully there are a multitude of tools that can help you in executing a successful social media campaign. While each campaign is different and may call for different tools, here are a few to keep in mind to start you off on the right foot.

Klout: A fantastic social media tool, Klout allows you to find the thought leaders in your industry and will help you craft shareable content within that industry. Klout also offers a unique tracking feature – your Klout score – which shows you the impact of your social media campaign.

TakeOff: TakeOff is another great tool that will help you boost your success through the Instagram world. This tool analyzes the best time for you to post your content, schedule posts accordingly, and it will supply you with the most relevant hashtags to use when posting.

Tweet Reports: Tweet Reports is a tool that will help you boost your presence on Twitter. This tool offers a free Twitter chat schedule that will allow you to know exactly when your next chat is so you can prepare to impress the community. Tweet Reports also offers a plethora of other tools like brand monitoring and Twitter analytics.

Don’t get overly focused on the tools: The key to success in social media – much like elementary school P.E. class – is participation. Social media is a great, free route to personal branding and if done correctly can assist you in blasting off into the realm of personal branding.

Become your brand

2Time and time again we see individuals trying to create their personal brand but falling short of making an impression within their sector. Simply chiming in on a Twitter chat or the occasional +1 on Google Plus is not enough to establish yourself as a thought leader in your community.

No matter what industry you’re focused on, you must study that industry and become knowledgeable in the topic. Doing this will give you the ability to answer questions people may have, talk about relevant issues or topics, and become a respected authority in the community. Here are some tips and techniques to help you stay on top of the latest information in your area of focus.

Tools to use

Google Alerts: Google Alerts is a great tool to use to monitor the Web for your industry. All you need to set it up is a Gmail account and a few keywords that you want to monitor. Google does the rest by scanning new content on the Web and will email you any new content that arrives mentioning your inputted keywords. This will help you keep up with any changes or news within the industry.

Reddit: Reddit is a worldwide user forum. This website covers a wide range of topics and will more than likely have an established community for any industry you are looking for. These communities can be a great resource and news source — and it goes both ways, so make sure you share any insights or news you come across. Bonus: Reddit is also full of pictures of adorable animals.

MosaicHub: MosaicHub is a great resource for individuals and businesses alike. This website covers topics like social media, branding, and a variety of other topics. MosaicHub’s expert directory provides a networking hub for professionals in all of these categories. The site also allows you to share insightful resources with the community to help build the authority behind your personal brand.

The success of branding yourself within an industry on the Internet can lead opportunities outside of the Internet and social media. Much like a successful business, establishing yourself as a thought leader in an industry can lead to you regularly being asked to participate in webinars or attend conferences where you can share your knowledge out to a community – spreading your authority even further. While this is an incredible opportunity, you must ensure that you are armed with all of the information that will be discussed within the meeting – nobody wants to be stuck in an hourlong conference featuring a thoughtless space cadet.

Put your community before convenience

3While using social media tools and being an established individual in your industry is an important aspect of personal branding, an issue that is seen time and time again is a person’s inability to engage with a community. Have conversations! Remember the “social” in social media.

While using post-scheduling services or offering canned responses is convenient, these types of services can open opportunity windows that will end up hurting you or your brand in the long run. Part of a successful personal branding campaign is taking the time to respond to any feedback you are receiving — a simple “Thanks” or “I’m sorry” will not cut it. There are lots of tools to help you manage large-scale communication without removing your personality from the mix.

Tools to use

Dayviewer: Dayviewer is a free online tool that will allow you to create a schedule to follow on a day-to-day basis. Creating a schedule will allow you to set aside an hour per day to sit down and respond to emails that may have been set aside.

Checker Plus: Checker Plus is a Gmail extension that comes in handy when handling multiple email accounts. This tool includes a desktop notification feature that will give you a pop up in the corner of your screen to notify you when any of your email accounts receive a new email — regardless of what account is signed in.

Create shareable content

4Creating long-lasting content can be one of the main struggles on the road to personal branding success. While informing people is the main concern in content creation, it is just as important to ensure the information you are providing is laid out in an easy-to-read, sharable, and visually satisfactory fashion. Infographics, tutorials, and article writing are all great ways to provide tasteful information to your community, and if they are well thought out it opens the opportunity up for your content to be shared — expanding your personal brand to a new group of viewers.

Due to certain communities calling for certain types of content, it’s important to analyze your community to ensure you are providing what they want to read. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when creating content.

Be broad: Being broad is the key to content creation. No, that doesn’t mean to create something that is completely random and useless to your community. It means that when you are creating content it’s great to look at an entire demographic rather than one individual. Doing this will allow you to create content specific enough to actually be useful but will have potential to be shared throughout a large range of people.

Here are a few examples of some “broad” infographics that I’ve found work well:

Emedco’s GHS Infographic. While Emedco offers safety supplies to all types of industries, this infographic was created with the demographic of “chemical workers” in mind, outlining a very specific change in chemical handling laws. This infographic is broad enough to appeal to a very large community, while being specific enough to provide relevant information within that community.

Bay View Funding’s Thanks a Trucker Infographic. Bay View Funding geared this infographic towards a specific demographic that they serve – truckers. While this content is not entirely specific to the company’s services, it is an interesting read that can be shared throughout an industry. This is another great example of creating broad content.

Find out what your community wants: After you have decided on which demographic will be best to create a piece of content for, it is important that you analyze that demographic to find out what types of content are doing well within that community. For example, if you notice a lot of step-by-step tutorials being shared and discussed throughout your community, it may be a good idea to compress the information you provide into a step-by-step guide to fit in with the content they enjoy. Thankfully there are tools to help you accomplish this and we will talk about those in just one moment.

 Provide useful information: Now that you have chosen a demographic and researched that demographic for the perfect type of content, it is time to create. When creating your piece it is important to ensure it will be visually appealing, while also being easy to read. However, most importantly you must be positive that the information you are providing is actually going to be useful to a large majority of this targeted demographic. So do your research and take your time when building content. After all, nobody wants to read an article on something they already know everything about.

Venngage: a free tool for creating infographics.

Tools to use

Venngage: Venngage is a fantastic free infographic creation tool. This tool offers a great web-hosted resource to assist you in creating visually appealing infographics. Venngage also has a great community-based blog that has tips and tricks to help you create and share infographics.

Buzzsumo: Buzzsumo is a content creator’s best friend. This tool will allow you to search keywords throughout the Web. It show you content that “did well” within those keywords parameters. This will ultimately show you what types of content work in you industry or if there is a need for content within your industry.

The point here is that it is important to be creative when creating content to help spread your personal brand in a community. Research meaningful topics; express this information by creating content with your community’s interest in mind.

Overall, when it comes time to create a personal brand for yourself, there are lots of tactics you can use to succeed in running a successful personal branding campaign. Thankfully, there is a nearly endless supply of tools and techniques to help you accomplish this goal. Thank you for reading and please don’t hesitate to leave a reply with any suggestions you have on the topic!

The post 4 best practices to establish your personal brand appeared first on Inside Social Media.

Think about the kind of Twitter users you follow back

Post by Tristan Anwyn

Target audience: Marketing professionals, SEO specialists, PR pros, brand managers, businesses, nonprofits, educators, Web publishers, journalists.

When you were at school, there was a good chance that if you got caught hanging with the troublemakers, you were considered guilty by association.

Nowadays, the company you keep online can affect your brand’s reputation for good or ill. Just ask Republican politician Newt Gingrich, who ran into a mini-scandal during his 2012 presidential campaign when it came to light that 92% of his Twitter followers were fake accounts.

So how does the company you keep affect your brand?

Guilt by association

If your brand is built on being family friendly, would you endorse an adult film company in your advertising?

It sounds preposterous when it’s put like that. But, in fact, that’s what you’re doing every time you add an account to your followers: endorsing it. When you follow an account, visitors to your Twitter profile can see that you’ve followed it, and make assumptions about your brand based on whom you choose to follow and interact with.

Building a good Twitter following is undoubtedly important, but indiscriminately following accounts isn’t the way to go. Following accounts that don’t offer good value in line with your own company message can damage your reputation.

Before you add an account, ask yourself if you want to send the message that you like that account and are happy for your brand to be associated with it.

Consider your reputation

What happens on Twitter doesn’t stay on Twitter. Google can index your tweets, meaning that what happens on Twitter is out there on the Internet for your customers to find for years to come. No, Google doesn’t index who you follow, but it will index not only your own tweets, but your @replies to other accounts, and their replies to you.

In essence, this means that if you tweet @ your favorite beer company that you can’t wait to ditch the office and get the party started, Internet users can see that and draw their own conclusions. What can seem like a light-hearted comment or a personal tweet that isn’t related to your official capacity has an uncanny way of coming back to haunt you.

Be careful who you follow on Twitter – and be mindful of the conversations you engage in, too.

More isn’t more

When it comes to Twitter followers, too many companies take the attitude of “more must be better.” It’s easy to assume that following lots of accounts will make your brand look popular and active. However, if your follower list is mostly inactive or irrelevant accounts, your brand will seem unfocused and your Twitter will look random and unkempt.

Some people take the search for quantity to extremes by buying Twitter followers. These followers are often fake accounts, which can damage your reputation in more ways than one. Savvy internet users can use online tools to flag up fake follower counts, which as Newt Gingrich found out can make you look like a phony who is trying to buy popularity.

There’s more to it than that, though: Buying Twitter accounts can damage your reputation by damaging your followers. Fake accounts can contain malware. This means that your legitimate followers may find themselves on the receiving end of spam, or even become victims of hacking or phishing scams. Being associated with those kinds of accounts can do untold damage to your reputation.

Slow and steady is the route to brand success with social media

Building a good Twitter account can be a vital part of your brand’s online marketing presence, but stay aware that what you say and who you say it to can have a far-reaching impact on your reputation. It’s far better for your business in the long term if you build your Twitter reputation slowly, using real conversations with real people, maintaining a Twitter image that is honest, professional and authentic.

Whether your business offers advertising and marketing services, a wireless credit card machine to enhance sales with customers, or any other number of products and/or services, don’t underestimate the power of Twitter.

With that in mind, what steps are you taking to build a Twitter reputation that will boost your brand’s image?

Related

The post Do your Twitter followers matter to your brand? appeared first on Inside Social Media.

Before a crisis hits, get ahead of the problem by steeling your defenses

Target audience: Online reputation management experts, marketing professionals, SEO specialists, businesses, Web publishers.

When high-end online reputation management experts like me get together and kibitz about prospecting new business, we always talk about how much all our clients would have benefited from taking our calls well before their sundry crises struck.

Long story short: hire me or someone like me if you don’t have a big pile of time but do have a small pile of money. Otherwise, spend some of your own time, talent and treasure doing a serious domain name buy, setting up a comprehensive array of sites, blogs, and social media profiles, and keeping them fresh through updates and thoughtful maintenance.

Yes, this could well be a pretty big project that will probably require special budgeting, a little hiring, some additional managing, or some personal time-management for the additional items on your own plate, for sure.

However, spending thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours now will help inoculate you against the inevitable aggressive online reputation attack that may well come at some point in the future, be it from something really stupid, evil, or illegal that you and your company has done or for no good reason other than your competitor wants to claim all your clients or because a simple personal break-up, perceived slight, psychotic former employee, permanently displeased former client, or inconsolable patient has made you into his or her own personal cause or jihad.

Something will eventually give you a black eye online

Aside from being perfect, noble, generous, and awesome all the time while making sure that all of your employees, past and present, and all your products and service are above reproach, something’s going to eventually try to give you a black eye online. The question is, how prepared are you and how armored are you in the search results so that when someone does a cursory search for your name, your company, or your staff, the only thing that comes up on Google are positive results?

The only two other options besides search engine hegemony are 1) nothing at all or 2) stuff about you by others. Either way, reputation abhors a vacuum. The reason there’s stuff up there about you now even though all you have up online at the moment is a brochure website and a LinkedIn page is because Google is the most co-dependent, people-pleasing piece of software on the planet. I believe it feels pain if it cannot give its visitors lots and lots of compelling and delicious content that is at the very least germane to the search and, at best, a sensational laugh-riot of gossip, intrigue, speculation, and embarrassment.

Google’s not about judging the validity or gentility of the content returned but it is about delivery the hottest, freshest, most delicious donuts possible, and if you’re a sleepy little brand, there’s nothing that can jack your traffic and drive attention than a hoary case of crisis.

And, once the cycle begins, it’s virtually impossible to stop its acceleration — the more people who click through to defaming content, especially through Google properties, the more prevalent on Google the content will become and the more people will click through, thus starting a feedback loop that will quickly color and influence universal brand perception of your brand.

Sometimes it’s temporary and sort of like just weathering a storm. Other times, however, after the storm is past, there’s a lot of destruction left in the storm’s wake and you’ll need to mortgage that house, sell that plane, and contact someone like me who can start your online reputation rebuilding process.

Repairing negative search results will only become costlier over time

High-end, high-profile online reputation management campaigns often cost well north of half a million dollars a year, not including traditional crisis communications, and take upward of half a year of constant work, savvy upkeep, support, and engagement before the tides change and we’re able to take back all, most, or some of the hills ceded to the crisis, depending. (Yes, yes, I know, not every business can afford the full works.)

There have been times I have told prospects, incredulous as to how much fixing their search results would cost, that they should probably consider selling a house, a yacht, or getting a second mortgage on their house if they’re really serious about repairing the gaping hole that bad first page search results put into their business revenue and potential for still existing in one calendar year.

Even if you’re just a regular schmo with an angry ex, the repair bill will be proportionally equally steep for you.

Attacking you, your business, your profession, and even your partners and family is free. There’s no barrier to entry — all it takes is some time. It doesn’t even take any skill as single-minded obsession with destructive intent tends to be pretty resourceful. The thing about single-minded hateful obsessions — they tend to be irrational, fearless, and willing to not only endure lawyering but willing to trash the attacker’s own personal reputation in order to destroy yours.

And it gets worse: Do you own your own domain names? Yes, all your domains? And the domains of your colleagues, board of directors, executives, family members, products, services, intellectual properties, as well as all the top-level variants: .com, .net, .org, .us, .co, etc. As well as all the above separated by hyphens as well. Yes, this will cost you hundreds of dollars a year. However, this is 1/1000th of the investment you’ll need to make if your domains are scooped up, instead, by your competitors, your exes, or even less-honorable SEO and online reputation management (ORM) shops.

“But hey!” you say, “it’s illegal for people to misrepresent themselves as me, my brand, my company, my family, or to squat on any of my domains! I have trademarks and patents and global ownership. They’ll fail as I will legally defend my brand and myself and use every anti-squat law and return all of these properties back to my fold.”

Well, that’s fine and well within your right in theory. However, how much will this cost you in both time and lawyering? Additionally, siccing a lawyer on an online reputation assassin can have powerful blowback with devastating results. The wasp bites resulting from an unmolested hive are bad enough but you haven’t seen anything until you start poking and prodding an active wasp nest.

Being proactive can pay dividends over the long run

When I am engaged to repair an online reputation, the first thing I ask is whether the reputation assault is over. Am I doing the equivalent of putting on my Hazmat suit, donning my yellow gloves, cracking open a big jug of Clorox, and cleaning up an abandoned crime scene? Or am I strolling into an active online reputation rocket attack?

When all’s quiet on the Western front, sending out your attach lawyers will almost immediately result in a rekindled reputation rocket attack, including recording and transcriptions of lawyer phone calls and voice mails, scans and transcriptions of cease and desist letters, and other completely irrational but amazingly effective techniques that can, at time, feel like online reputation terrorism by online reputation suicide bombers.

Even so, I know for a fact that you still won’t do anything. Like I said at the beginning of this piece, very few brands, companies, and executives ever get ahead of the problem, building the same sort of crisis prep and response plan as well as the kind of reputation armoring and defending that can act as a bulwark against all of the casual attacks, most of the medium attacks, and will act as temporary sandbags and first- and second-hit armor to even against the most serious attacks, at least to slow down the assault until you can activate your crisis response plan and engage in an active defense and even a counter-attack.

If you would like to get onto a call to speak more about online reputation management — be it in preparation for the inevitable attack, be it in response to an ongoing active online attack of your reputation, or to get advice on cleaning up one or more negative results on Google, Bing, or Yahoo! — please send me an email or give me a call. I would be happy to point you in the right direction.

Related

• Win the online reputation land war
• Remove those regrettable online reputation tattoos
• Own your online reputation with help from your friends
• For online reputation, the best defense is a good offense
• How to wine, dine and marry into the Google Search Index
• How to take control of your online reputation

The post Why you must armor your online reputation appeared first on Inside Social Media.

Monitor and make strides to develop the reputation you want

Guest post by Debbie Allen

Through my own experience as an online marketer, content writer and blogger, I know that online reputations are very important. I also know that just a few years ago there was a very popular saying that was used by some of the so-called online gurus, and that was to “fake it until you make it.”

Unfortunately, faking it may have ruined many people long before they had any chance of making it. You can’t hide from a bad reputation.

The truth is the public is not stupid. They can see through the nonsense that some marketers put out there. People appreciate being treated with respect and dignity.

Practicing online reputation management

What can damage your reputation? Taking shortcuts, compromising your brand, Losing sight of your audience and their needs. Customers have to take top priority.

Every business has an online reputation. And the reality is that every business should practice regular online reputation management. One person’s reputation is another person’s online gossip. But the bottom line is that businesses need to deal with content about their brand regardless of the report’s veracity or legitimacy. Ignore just a few complaints and it can result in long-term problems for your business.

Here, then, are five tips on how to help repair your business’s damaged reputation:

Routine monitoring

1Routinely do searches for your name, business name, product names and related terms. Visit the pages to follow up with any reviews or comments. Remember to be professional and to present the business as caring and respectful.

Business blog

2Develop a business blog. This is an ideal place to add positive information about your business. You can update content often, which means it will help bury negative content more quickly from Google’s search engine results. Don’t leave it to just traditional media and outside bloggers to tell the story of your business.

Social media sites

3Set up profiles at social networking sites and create updates on Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter. Social networking offers great opportunities engage with your target audience and build up a community of goodwill. This is the ideal place to address any questions or concerns about your services or products.

Add more content

4Add more positive content about your business. Online reputation management is all about trying to manage how others perceive your business. One of the best ways to do that is to add more and more positive content about your business through a variety of channels. This can be in the form of press releases, new content at your website or other online content. One word of caution: Make sure the information is true.

Get more reviews

5Encourage customer reviews. If you provide great products and services – and I’m sure you do – then why not encourage customer reviews? Most of them are sure to be positive and you can address those that are not. Depending on your business sector, make sure you have an accurate listing on Yelp, Foursquare, Zagat and newer services like Raved.

Create a business you are proud of and a glowing reputation will develop – but you will have to nurture it.

Develop the reputation you want

It can take years to develop the online reputation you want, but without proper care it can come crashing down quickly. If your reputation is damaged and you feel the situation is hopeless, don’t give up, contact a company like Reputation.com. Even in the worst case scenarios, they can help.

If your reputation is untarnished, work to keep it that way. Develop the habit of monitoring what is being said about you and your business online. That gives you the opportunity to take action in some way. I believe that if you make customer care a priority, most other things will fall into place.

What do you think, and how do you address reputation issues?

The post 5 tips for repairing your damaged online reputation appeared first on Inside Social Media.

Maintain your social profiles for better search results

Guest post by Cara Aley

With your company focused on its business goals and set up on social channels, it’s critically important that your online business reputation be one that is polished and positive. As you’re likely to be in the market for new customers, clients, partners or investors, it’s important that when they run a Google search on your business or startup, not only are you properly search engine optimized but that meaningful and positive results appear.

Social media as a marketing strategy is an important method for ensuring that this happens, and should be prioritized as much as or more than any other marketing strategy. I’ll explain why.

Understand SEO

Social media profiles are critical for search engine optimization (SEO). You know what SEO is. (See Socialmedia.biz’s series on online reputation.) Now it’s time to start building those social media profiles in order to improve your SEO.

Because social media sites are highly search engine optimized, your profile on those sites will be as well — especially as you maintain your profile and have something to say. Join Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, and LinkedIn to start, and use them! Promote them on your website so that people can follow you on these different social media sites. And then make sure you’re adding content to them that is of interest to your demographic.

If you have any negative links about you that appear in search results, the links for your social media sites will likely supersede them and help to push them to the second page of search results. Given that 90 percent of people never make it past page 1 of search results, according to NeverShoutNever.com, that’s good news!

Note that my social media profiles are all at the top of my search results (of which there are many), because social media sites are so well optimized.

Facebook

Reach your target demographic by marketing on Facebook. When I ran my social impact apparel business, I marketed my products on Facebook and targeted women in the age range of 25 to 50 who were fans of Tom’s Shoes. With close to 2 million fans on Facebook, Tom’s Shoes is an audience I knew would be interested in my product, and indeed, this helped me to boost revenue. You can also market to investment or donor communities via Facebook.

One reason it’s important to advertise on Facebook is that it’s the quickest way to build your list of fans, to whom you can then continue to market your offering. Fans share with their friends what you are doing, adding more fans! And fans buy! According to a Forrester study, Facebook fans are much more likely to purchase, consider, and recommend the brands that they engage with on Facebook than non-fans. So do focus on marketing on this site – it’s reasonably priced and well worth the time.

Blog

Create a blog that has more in-depth content on it. Do you have a blog yet? If not, this is an important aspect of your social media marketing. Not only is it important from an SEO standpoint if you engage in the process properly, but it keeps your audience coming back for more.

Write on a consistent basis so that they know they can come to find juicy information on things like what your business is up to and how you are helping people (providing statistics is always very useful!). Use your social media icons within the blog so that people can share your blog posts. Leverage Pinterest to draw traffic to your blog by sharing your blog posts there, as well as across Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. In other words, get the word out about yourself! You also want to be sure that you are using your keywords in your blog posts and throughout your website, as this is critical for SEO.

Generate content people want to both share and keeping coming back for. On all of the social media sites and blogs on which you create content, focus on creating shareable content. Make sure your fans are excited to come back to your blog to read the latest installment. Did you find an article that relates to what you do that is shocking or interesting? Do you have an amazing profile about the work you have done and someone whom you’ve impacted positively? Did you just raise a major round of funding? Share this information with your community.

And don’t be afraid to ask them to share your posts with others. The more shares you get, the more likely potential new fans you will draw to your brand, and the best search engine optimized your post will be. Fans love to feel as though they are helping to spread the awareness of a business that is creating impact.

Consider guest blogging. Now that you have your own blog, request from other bloggers in your domain that you guest blog on their site. You can exchange opportunities with them. This does a few things – first, it allows you to share your message with a whole new readership and be seen as an expert in your sector. Then, in linking back to your own blog, it helps that new readership to find your blog and become fans. Finally, as those new fans share your blog posts, your blog and brand become even better search engine optimized.

Social media makes it so easy for your fans to tell others about the great work you are doing!

Any business or social enterprise that is not leveraging social media and the incredible viral effect it can have on an impact brand is missing a massive marketing opportunity. Don’t let the prospect of engaging in social media scare you or turn you off – it’s quite easy to get started on all of these sites, and every little bit you do counts. Your demographic is very likely on these sites, so don’t let them down by not being there and not allowing them to help you spread the good word about your brand and help you to improve your brand’s reputation.

Related on Socialmediabiz

• Win the online reputation land war

• Own your online reputation with help from your friends

• How to optimize your Facebook fan page SEO

• 15 ways to increase traffic to your blog

• How inbound marketing benefits businesses

The post Using social media to enhance your brand’s reputation appeared first on Inside Social Media.

Expensive? Don’t tell me how expensive that’ll be, because it’ll surely end up being a lot cheaper than options B, C, etc. — where option B is the thousands of dollars you’ll need to spend if someone else gets your domains first and is willing to sell them back to you and option C is when, instead of selling your domain name back to you, they create an attack site where mis-info is the special of the day.

One domain is good enough, right?

I have been in the online reputation management game for 10 years, sharing everything I know about it for five, and folks are still walking around like it’s 1993. Maybe my megaphone isn’t big or loud enough, but folks are still wandering around with maybe one domain name. Sometimes this domain name is their name; other times, it’s something cute or branded. Domains are so cheap that, generally speaking, you should own at least 25 — just you. Seriously. You should reserve as many as you can actually reserve, meaning you probably cannot cross too many country codes off your list as most countries require residency or citizenship. But do whatever you can, whatever you can afford, it’s not too late. (You can always put together a pretty good collection of domains made up of entirely of second- and third-tier domains.)

Waaah! All the good domains are already taken!

Are all the good domains taken? No they’re not. Not only are they not all taken, but you can get some pretty darned great ones if you’re less obsessed with Le Domain Juste — the perfect domain name — and think more about your online reputation. We’re not obsessing here about what you’re going to name your new LLC or what tattoo you’re going to get on your neck or even what that manuscript hidden in your side drawer is going to be named when it’s ultimately published, turning into the great American novel — it’s not such a big deal.

Why do you need all of these domain names? As you may well know, both online reputation management (ORM) and search engine optimization (SEO) eat keywords for breakfast. Usually, we think only of the keywords embedded in the copy, titles, headlines, URLs, and hyperlinked keyword phrases. You might even know that your search and reputation biosphere is a balance between the number and quality of links linking to your site, the textural links within your site, and the links you share with others.

However, you might not know that upward of a third of all your Google juice comes from the combination of your top-level-domain and the keywords in your domain name, though it’s generally closer to one-fifth, unless you posses a .gov domain, or have owned the domain name for years — age does count when it comes to domain names, so you should have done this years and years ago.

Would you want someone else to grab these?

So, this is what I would choose for myself — most of which, I think, I might own. Or maybe not. Anyway, here’s my list, both theoretical and practical — and I am only dealing with the dot-com domains:

• chrisabraham.com
• chris-abraham.com
• christopherabraham.com
• christopherjabraham.com
• chris-james-abraham.com
• cjabraham.com
• cabraham.com
• abrahamchris.com
• abraham-chris.com
• christopherjamesabraham.com
• chrissypooabraham.com
• chris–abraham.com

There are a whole host of other top-level domain names to choose from. For example, chrisabraham.info, chrisabraham.biz, chrisabraham.tv, chrisabraham.cc, chrisabraham.ws, chrisabraham.co, chrisabraham.la, in addition to your .net, .org, and .us. And there are even more than that, including .nu and many others, many of which are only $10-$20 or so if you use a registrar with competitive prices.

You’re also allowed to register certain other country domain names, if that makes any sense to you — .co.uk, for example.

And while your at it, why don’t you consider doing some or all of this for the members of your team, your principals, your board members, and key members of your staff — either secure them yourself, for safe keeping, or reach out to the members of your team, your principals, your board members, and key members of your staff to encourage them to register and reserve one or more of their own key domain names themselves — and tell them why.

What do I do with all of these blasted domain names?

What have I done with these names? For now, nothing. Just gloat about all the money you’re saving by not availing your name, your brand, or yourself to the whims of others, some of whom don’t have your best interests in mind. So, be happy that you’re one of the few people who is actually squatting your own domain names. Unless you know how to forward and redirect your domain names to all of your blogs, sites, social networks, platforms, and services, just sit on your laurels.

That said, if you’re willing to put some time in, there are some sites that already allow you to map your domain names onto them: Blogger, Tumblr, Posterous, Typepad, WordPress.com — and any and all of your hosted websites. So, go check that out.

The better idea is to just have those domains in your front pocket, ready to use when you need them — like Halloween candy-corn all sticky and stuck together but handy in your pocket. Either way, it doesn’t matter. Domain names are a long-term investment — maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll be able to make a little extra money down the road when your namesake reaches out to you when he or she realizes that you’re in possession of all of the domain names in every form imaginable of the name you share.

Related articles

• Why haven’t you secured a ton of domain names? (biznology.com)
• What Domain Names Are You Selling? (elliotsblog.com)
• Poll: Favorite Type of Keyword Domain Name (elliotsblog.com)
• Sedo changes domain listing process and adds “Big Data Pricer” (domainnamewire.com)

The post Why you need to buy all your domain names now appeared first on Inside Social Media.

While I concur with Vizzini, the Sicilian from the movie The Princess Bride, that one should “never get involved in a land war in Asia,” sometimes there’s no escape — and taking on Google’s search index, algorithmic prowess, and the natural results of organic search itself is, indeed, akin to getting involved in a land war in Asia. Most folks know only of the fierce fighting associated with organic search engine optimization (SEO), a process by which we write copy, optimize architecture, use keywords, add hyperlinks, and interlink sites in order to associate a keyword phrase with our particular brand, product, service, and site; another, larger battle is online reputation management, or ORM.

Online Reputation Management is the practice of monitoring a reputation on the Internet with a view to controlling perception of that reputation. ORM goes beyond SEO to control the entire contents of the first page or two of Web results for a given search. Internet reputation management is also the only known antidote to Iocane powder. And, like Iocane powder, one must build up one’s immunity to a negative online reputation on search over a period of time by introducing positive and supportive content about yourself and your brand in minute portions over a lifetime.

You think chess is hard? Try 10-dimensional chess!

SEO is about getting one site to the top of Google search results when you search for one or more keyword phrases. ORM is different. It’s about promoting upward of 20 other sites to the top of Google based on a keyword phrase — usually a full name or brand name — without having access to some or most of the content being promoted up. ORM tries to push a negative, uncomplimentary, or erroneous result down while allowing positive, neutral, and innocuous organic results to bubble up to reclaim the top spots of Google.

It is a phenomenally difficult and resource-intensive process for anyone, even my team at Reputation.com. It’s not about dumping energy and optimization into one keyword phrase onto one one property in order to get it preferred by Google (by virtue of its relevance, appeal, popularity, attention, social-mentions, and inter-connectedness) — which is already a tall order in today’s world of SEO acceptance and mastery in the industry, a world where most all competitors are highly competitive and are out for blood and will stop at nothing to acquire the top spot for their brand based on their own keyword portfolio.

No, taking back the first two pages of Google’s organic search results means dumping enough energy, in the form of producing a site with exceptional relevance and appeal, making certain it’s optimized for search, making sure it’s popular, evolving, and growing over time, attracting the sort of search attention, natural social-mentions on social media, and becoming a trustworthy, inter-connected member of valuable resources that Google taps every time someone looks up something on its search engine — and then doing that reliably twenty times for one search term.

In order to crowd out negative results, one needs to launch an SEO campaign for at least 10, often 20, other sites, many of which are often not even your own to noodle with and optimize. This is a herculean task, requiring a permanent investment of intense resources of both your talent and treasure — forever.

Reputation enhancement takes lots of resources — and patience

My company, Reputation.com, is built on a subscription model for three reasons:

First, the war on negative search results is akin to a land war in Asia, as I said before, so it needs full commitment over time, a reputation management campaign isn’t just like taking a hill, it’s like keeping a hill! Even more, it’s like taking and keeping upward of 20 hills — forever.

Second, an ORM campaign is heavily front-loaded, meaning that most of your resources (talents and treasure) will be spent in the beginning — upward of 80% of your energy will be dumped in in the first 2-3 months! So, the last nine months of a yearly campaign actually make it all worthwhile for us because every campaign we initiate loses us money until the mission levels out later in the year. In order to make sure our campaigns are affordable over time to our clients, we have amortized the intense front-loaded expense over the course of a yearly contract.

Finally, once an online reputation campaign is begun seriously and in earnest, it is dangerous to cease and desist the campaign and fatal to yank all of that new content and supporting interconnectedness.

Google abhors a vacuum

Why fatal? Well, dumping a lot of energy into Google search destabilizes the index and literally rebuilds Google’s search indices, over time, built heavily on your load-bearing content. Since Google relies completely on other people’s content, hosting, site speed, and linking, Google places a lot of trust upon the shoulders of your content. So, once Google finally lets you bear the weight and responsibility of proving good-and-relevant content — quite a load, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year — you’re there forever.

If you should ever yank your content or if anything breaks like your DNS, your hosting, or your domain name expires, everything will collapse, leaving a very dangerous vacuum that Google will need to fill immediately, making your reputation even more vulnerable than it was, quite possibly, than it was before you even started your ORM campaign.

ORM must to be a permanent line item in your yearly budget

I recommend that everyone take an interest in how their bottom looks in Google’s full-length mirror. I also recommend that everyone monitor this as best you can, with Google Alerts being an essential no-brainer; and, while the commitment-phobic among us might be reticent to initiate a strong online reputation defense to reclaim their good name on the first two pages of Google search using the online reputation management strategies and tactics I go over in the below-mentioned articles I have written over previous weeks, if you don’t like what’s being said about you online and in search, healing the symptoms on your reputation-reflection using ORM and also addressing why negative things are being said about you online and seeing what you may be able to do systematically about them is mandatory.

And, if you can manage to initiate, ramp-up, amplify, and then maintain such a land war forever by yourself, kudos and bravo; otherwise, feel free to give me a call, email me, or reach out directly to the gang at Reputation.com — we’re committed to repairing your online reputation and we’re set up and funded to be able to do this for you forever, indeed winning and keeping all those pesky hills.

Referenced articles

• Own your online reputation with help from your friends (Socialmedia.biz)
• For online reputation, the best defense is a good offense (Socialmedia.biz)
• How to wine, dine and marry into the Google Search Index (Socialmedia.biz)
• You can reclaim your reputation on Google search (marketingconversation.com)

(Disclosure: I am a former employee of Reputation.com and they continue to sponsor my work)

The post Win the online reputation land war appeared first on Inside Social Media.

You’re at the mercy of the Panopticon: networked cameras are almost ubiquitous

Your online reputation on Google Search is a culmination of all your separate, discrete (or indiscreet) choices — sort of like tattoos — and it’s always easier to not get inked in the first place than it is live with the consequences or go through the pain and expense of having all of your tribal, prison, lower-back, ankle, neck, and face tattoos removed.

Easier said than done

The way you want to be perceived really changes over time, from the feeling of abandon too many of us have in high school to the feeling of reckless abandon that too many people film and photograph over Spring Break in college, to the feeling a righteous indignation too many of us feel all through our 20s, to the feeling of abject panic and regret as all of this brave, courageous, fearless, stupid abandon comes to roost and haunt us on Google Images, YouTube, and Google Search.

Do we ever really know how stupid we are?

When my young friends were in their 20s, they were very happy to be live photo-blogged and I captured them shamelessly: at coffee, at parties, at dinner, and all over. Now that they’ve been through sundry Ivyesque graduate programs, they’ve become way more serious and have all come to me, asking me to curate and remove photos that their names bring up on Google Images. Of course I do — because I love them; but I probably wouldn’t do the same thing for you.

I, on the other hand, desired to become a US Senator since I was 16, so I limited the true idiocy of my choices — and, because I grew up Catholic, my natural guilt and self-loathing generally won every fight it had with my whimsical and devil-may-care self. I always told Mark that every bit of spontaneity I have ever exhibited has always been emulated and for effect since all of these spot-and-brave decisions have always been suffered over and considered for months. Sometimes you just gotta say WTF” has never become an essential part of any fiber of my being, though I would love people to think it’s essential to who I am. Nope.

I also came up pre-Internet and pre-social media, so embarrassing me would require way too much work for most people: digging up shameful photos, scanning them, uploading them, and whatnot; finally, my threshold for shame pain is massive because I fancy most slights online to be free publicity of my brand — so I am surely less delicate — more durable — than my tenderfoot friends.

So, what if it’s too late — I’ve already made myself a complete arse?

You can always email me or explore Reputation.com if you’re freaking out and don’t know what to do. But first, you should check to see if you know who controls any and all of those terrible “tattoos” that ink up your online reputation, be it unfortunate photos on Google Images. Can you un-tag or report images of you on Facebook and Google+ that you don’t want online? Do you know the folks? Do they like you enough to remove the photo, completely, from everywhere it exists online (because, you know, the Internet can now recognize your face so tagging, titling, and labeling is becoming less essential in the age of Big Data and real-time facial recognition and cross-referencing. You can untag until you’re blue in the face and it might not matter anymore).

So, reach out to your friends and quote the Bible at them: 1 Corinthians 13:11: “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” See if that helps. Who can resist the Word of God as spake by King James? If they don’t love you enough anymore and refuse to remove online things that pain you, consider it Karma — karmic feedback is a bitch (don’t worry, you still can always email me or explore Reputation.com).

Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle

Always remember, when you want folks to help you who don’t have to, being nice always works better than siccing a dog (or in your case, maybe your lawyer) at ’em.

What can I do if my friends resent me and won’t budge?

All you can do, really, is make sure you take it upon yourself to feed the hungry, toothy, maw of Google Search, including video, Picasa, Flickr, Google+, Tumblr, WordPress, WordPress.com, Facebook, Twitter, TwitPic, LinkedIn and your corporate, foundation, and business web pages.

And, if you already have pages populated online, you need to explore all your photo and image “container” platforms and you need to see if there are ways to either directly change the file name to reflect your name, chris-abraham.jpg, and then you need to explore to see if you’re allowed to intentionally tag each photo: you can do that on Flickr, Facebook, and Google+ for sure — and there might be others.

If you’re inserting photos into articles or posts that you control, you need to make sure file names reflect your name, preferably with dashes or underscores (as the Internet sometimes gets confused by spaces). And if your image insertion tool — or you — know how to add an ALT tag or a title tag to your photo, do so — but don’t just describe the photo, say something like “Portrait of Chris Abraham” or “Official Photo of Chris Abraham” — Google wants associative and descriptive contextual content — and you need to do a much better job than everyone else on Google Search in order to become the top results under your name — better, even, than the folks who are out to mock, embarrass, and shame you.

Google cares about most relevant, yes, but it also prefers the most recent, the most timely, and also the most interconnected and cross-referenced — as well as content that has the most descriptive and consistent “meta data:” the following photo is indeed a photo of Chris Abraham, most likely the American one, in his 40s, who lives most of his life in Arlington, VA. That’s all Google really wants and you can be the very best at that because you knows you like you do? Do it!

In conclusion

Most of you were either stupid, sort-sighted, immortal, young, or in different work and a different place when you got all your full-body Yakuza-style, online reputation tattoos. Don’t worry but it does suck. As they say, youth is wasted on the young.

It probably isn’t that bad, really

You’re probably too much of a control freak and you’re the only one who feels a little too powerless — you’ve been hurt before and are a little sensitive, now aren’t you? While I think you deserve to have your perfect reflection online– as well as everywhere else — the Internet really isn’t like that. One of the things you might want to do it work on your tolerance, your sense of humor, your level of “let go, let Google.” Are you really that ashamed of the photo of your bad mustache, your bad haircut, your bad goatee, or that fat period we all suffered through with you.

So, take a second, take a breath, and reconsider your place in the world

Let me really close by saying the thing that makes you the most beautiful are the scars of your life and of your living: your flaws and your humanity. Consider carefully how curated you need your life to be. Re-sculpting your life online could be time-consuming, resource-intensive, and expensive.

Good luck and Godspeed!

Related articles

• Own your online reputation with help from your friends (Socialmedia.biz)
• How to wine, dine and marry into the Google Search Index (Socialmedia.biz)
• For online reputation, the best defense is a good offense (Socialmedia.biz)
• You can reclaim your reputation on Google search (marketingconversation.com)
• Do you have a handle on your online reputation? (biznology.com)
• The Social Networks You Should Join For A Better Online Reputation (lifehacker.com.au)

(Disclosure: I am a former employee of Reputation.com and they continue to sponsor my work)

The post Remove those regrettable online reputation tattoos appeared first on Inside Social Media.

If you’re a serious business person whose business isn’t digital, you’re probably too busy making money to fool around on social media. Social media’s stupid, right? Just baby pictures, workout check-ins, adorable kittens and the self-indulgent ramblings of under-employed folks too far to either the left or the right to amount to much.

Just because you’re old-fashioned doesn’t mean what you’re doing isn’t working.

Big business has adopted many of the tools of the digital age, but it hasn’t gone native — because it doesn’t need to. Big money doesn’t need digital to do big business. It’s just cream — an additional channel for additional revenue.

There’s a lot of business being done and a lot of money being made using ’50s-era technology: phone calls, meetings, conference calls, lunches, dinners and hours at the club or the golf course. The Internet has not usurped the traditional, it has merely enriched it; however, there’s also no barrier to entry so this party isn’t exclusive but it’s super-saturated with powerful influencers and new media gods. So, please beware.

Yes, I know: you’re too busy for all of this rubbish. But the truth is, you cannot afford to let another day pass without sending in your social media and search insurance premium.

While I appreciate how valuable your time is, you’re playing a very dangerous game of Russian Roulette. The reason you’re so accomplished is because you are a shrewd judge of the landscape — and the landscape has changed and it includes not just what’s said by your communications team, your press releases, the New York Times, the Financial Times, or even MarketWatch.

Folks are already talking about you online — or soon will, gladly and badly.

The social media lunatics have taken over the Internet asylum, and unless your very own personal voice, face, story, narrative, history, resume, wins and losses are fed into the Googlesphere, you’re vulnerable to whatever anyone cares to say about you, no matter who. No doors, gates or private security will insulate you from attack, insult and slander.

A bulletproof vest won’t help if you’re not wearing pants

There is no armor available to protect you besides the active armor that is your own version of yourself online in the form of your biography, personal history and content, content and more content. You need to get in front of the storm that’s sure to come. You need to develop and populate your own personal Whitmanesque song of yourself onto the Internet, into search-optimized text, links, images and photos — and you need to do it well in advance of any problems you might potentially ever have, no matter how discrete and low-profile you might fancy yourself.

Back in the day, the Internet witch hunt was for politicians, then it became bankers, now it’s evolving toward anyone and everyone who’s thriving in free enterprise and pursuing the American dream, especially as it relates to what’s going on in Washington and the elections. There’s never been a worse time to take your ball and go home. So, it’s better to take some time, get together with your lawyer or business partner, and approve reams of text and start speaking for yourself, your life, your choices and your accomplishments instead of letting someone else speak for you (they’re never nearly as charming as you and your colleagues are, that’s for sure).

“But where?” you ask. Well, you first need to build out any sites you already have, including all your companies, foundations and boards. Next, you should become a blogger — or at least develop a process to produce blog content since Google adores blogs and seriously understands the architecture and framework of most blog platforms. Finally, you should start populating every social network service, social bookmarking site and social news site. Here’s an incomplete though comprehensive list for you to start on:

43 Things, Badoo, Bebo, Blog.com, Blogetry, Blogger, Blogster, CafeMom, Cyworld, delicious, deviantART, Diaspora, Digg , Diigo , douban, eToro, Facebook, Flickr, Flixster, folkd , Foursquare, Friendster, Google+, GovLoop, hi5, italki.com, iWiW, Jaiku, LinkedIn , LiveJournal, Meetup, mixi, Mubi, Myspace, Netlog, Newsvine , Ning, Open Diary, Orkut, Pinboard , Pinterest, Plaxo, Plurk, Posterous, Reddit , Squidoo , StumbleUpon, tribe.net, Tumblr, Twitter, TypePad, Virb, Vox, WordPress.com, Xanga, XING

Share more than you might want to

Do exactly the opposite of what you’d like: Reveal ’til it hurts.

You need to reveal yourself completely — as much as you, your spouse and lawyer agree to, anyway (forget your kids, they’ll be embarrassed, of course) — and you need to give ’til it hurts and well past your normal tendency toward discretion and your obsession with privacy. That Sea-Dweller on your wrist isn’t pretension, it’s because you’ve been a world class Submariner for yours — but you need to come up for air from now on, otherwise, you’re sure to be sunk.

Feel free to own the yacht but hire a crew if you’re not yet seaworthy. If you get my drift and want to adopt the yachting lifestyle yourself but either don’t have the mad sailing skills yourself, don’t yet posses a world-class crew, and don’t know yet where to go, then you should give me a call or reach out me by email — so I can help you pilot your vessel now, in the tranquil blue-green shallows of the Caribbean, as well as in the roughest seas and into — as well as out of — the storm.

Whichever way you go, please start. You can keep it simple and slow, but start today. You can task your Summer Intern (whatever times’ left), you can push it on your PR or communications team, or you can do it yourself — but do it.

It’s essential that you start feeding your best self online before you’re brought down by just about anyone with a device and a connection to the Internet — and you won’t be able to sue your way out of this one, I promise you.

(Disclosure: I am a former employee of Reputation.com and they continue to sponsor my work)

The post For online reputation, the best defense is a good offense appeared first on Inside Social Media.