Online reputation is precisely nothing but a credit report, which anyone can see and access through the web. Irrespective of the fact that whether you are a movie star or a successful investment banker, your online reputation decides how others will perceive you. Everyone can and should supervise their online reputation to corroborate their most canonical depiction.
We live in a modern world where before meeting any person for the first time or attending a job interview, we don’t go ahead without searching about them on Google beforehand.
The following measures can enable you to take control of your personal reputation.
SEARCH YOURSELF ON THE GOOGLE
The first step is steering your online reputation which means to look at what is already out there on the web. Do a Google search about yourself to know how others are evaluating you. You can also find out which content is getting top ranking on the web, and whether there is any fatalistic comment about you or not.
Negative comments and remarks are more usual than you think. In fact, 75% of US adults Google themselves, and half of them aren’t happy about the results. Take out time to check your search engine results, if you don’t like these results, then you can take steps to change and improve them.
After the thorough analysis of both positive and negative, you can use them as a key barometer for framing your personal reputation management plans later down the road.
Once the initial audit is complete, it is important to regularly stay up-to-date with search engine result. You can even set reminders through Google’s me on the web tool to check your name and email address in news, reports, etc.
ASSERT YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE
It is important to realize that the craze of social media sites is not fading anywhere soon. If you don’t have any social media account, then it is time to create an account on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin or any other social media site.
It does not matter whether you genuinely want to use them or not, you should claim your unique identity, fill out the necessary basic information. This will undoubtedly help in promptly securing your account and restrict others from becoming active in establishing a fictitious account in your name.
Depending upon your personal goals, you can also acquire your own domain if you want. You can create a website for yourself if you want to publish any content to build your online reputation and paint the desired picture for yourself and your brand name.
It is alright if you don’t want to design a full-fledged website, simply purchasing .net, .org, .com or “exact domain versions” of your name will refrain others from operating it in the future.
REMOVE NEGATIVE COMMENTS AND PHOTOS OR CREATE A PRIVATE ACCOUNT
You should remove your old school or college photos immediately, which are still circulating on the networking sites and are not serving any intended purpose. If you posted them in the past, then do write-off immediately.
If any website which has scrapped your personal information like Spokeo, ask them to remove that immediately.
If someone else posted anything negative about you, ask them to delete that. If a person does not want to delete it, then you can untag yourself and change the privacy settings to hide it from the public.
A reasonable person wants to comb carefully through the personal account to promptly remove anything which displays: reckless attitude, criminal behavior, bullying, abusing or offensive behavior. There are many people who use scrub political leanings for their web content to appear “politically purple” online.
BOOST THE POPULARITY OF THE PERSONAL BRAND
Once you have investigated your online presence and have blackout all negative comments, then it is time to focus on building your personal brand. Any information which is out there on the social media posts or blogs, make sure that the content is brand related.
It is better to publish unique content to get better and high-ranking on the search engine. Once your content will get high-ranking consistently, it will automatically reap benefits for your reputation and enable more control over it.
Therefore, it is vital to carefully audit what your brand indeed stands for, and frame plans accordingly to develop a voice online. We recommend you to weekly upload new content about your brand. Perform this on various platforms every time, never on the same platform. For example, publish it on Twitter, Facebook on any other site.
More you will publish the unique content, harder it will be for the other contents to get top ranking in the search engine. This is one of the best tenets for suppressing online content of your competitors.
SUPERVISE THE INFORMATION POSTED ABOUT YOU, BY OTHER PEOPLE
Although you can put so many endeavors to create and fabricate your distinctive identity, there is not a 100% bulletproof plan to suppress the information posted about you by an outside third-party.
It is imperative to search about yourself and set up the alerts so that you are acutely aware of uncomplimentary or harsh information published about you. Swiftly remove all the negative slurs before they inflict any major harm to your online reputation.
If possible untag yourself and try to contact the social site account owner to drop your post, photo or anything which frames you in the negative light.
A person or brand’s online reputation is his best asset and he should make sure it is the best possible portrayal of him or his brand. It would not be wrong to say that there is no single person who does not reap rewards from rebuilding their online reputation.
The way anybody perceives your online identity can instantly make a humongous difference such as getting your dream job or any other bigger opportunity. With a bad reputation name, you will wrestle to create a name for yourself in this fast-paced world.
Fortunately, you can undertake punitive measures to control your online reputation. But if you need extra guidance, please reach out to us for further help. We will be extremely happy to generously help you.