Nowadays there’s a lot of personal information publicly available on the web. We all have an “online persona” which is directly related to the way people see and judge us as individuals.
Unfortunately managing your online reputation is everything but an easy task.
There are many social media channels where people can spread unbiased opinions about others, tag inappropriate photos, and otherwise mess with your reputation. As a blogger, your name stands for the quality and authenticity of your posts, apart from your personal and professional interest in having a “clean and positive” online reputation.
As Google says: “Your online identity is determined not only by what you post, but also by what others post about you – whether it is a mention in a blog post, a photo tag or a reply to a public status update.”
If you want to influence the way people see you online, it’s important to understand that there are two basic techniques for managing your online reputation.
- Constantly monitor what people are saying about you and respond instantly when necessary.
- Actively develop your reputation by creating “positive” content. Create a hub such as a personal landing page where people can easily find everything about you in a simple and compact format. Hiring a solid digital performance agency would be helpful here.
With those two techniques in mind, here are six simple, yet effective tools that might help you along the way to monitor what people are saying about you as well as actively develop and influence your online reputation.
1. Google Alerts
Google Alerts let you get notified whenever your name or email address gets mentioned publicly on the web. To use Me On The Web, just log into your Google dashboard and click “Set up search alerts for your data” – it’s as easy as that!
It is also a good idea to use a SERP tracker to monitor your branded search results.
2. SocialMention
As Inform Buki rightfully states, social media is the branding powerhouse, so it is only natural that you need to monitor your brand on social media.
Another brilliant tool to track your name across the web is Social Mention. It’s a social media search engine that searches blogs, comments, bookmarks, events, news, videos and micro-blogging services. You can select the sources you want to search and employ email alerts or a personalized RSS feed to stay up-to-date.
But don’t take it from me. Here’s their official description.
“SocialMention allows you to easily track and measure what people are saying about you across the web’s social media landscape in real-time. Social Mention monitors 100+ social media properties directly including: Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Google etc.”
3. WiseStamp
Easily create a HTML email signature and automatically add it to your outgoing email with WiseStamp. Email signatures are effective tools when it comes to building your personal brand and an ideal starting point for influencing your online reputation with anyone you contact via email.
Having a professional email signature is very important – it should at least contain your full name, basic contact info, and a link to your main website or personal landing page. To see it in action, here’s a detailed tutorial in how to add an email signature in Outlook.
Cloud PBX is a useful tool to set up as well as it will let you be more in control of your contacts.
4. Linktree
Take advantage of a clean and simple app for building awesome personal landing pages in minutes with Linktree.
Linktree sites are free, customizable, and help you manage your information all in one place like your bio, social networks links, your blog, and contact details. Once created, you can provide one simple link where people can find out everything about you and follow you around the web.
5. Knowem
Knowem helps you to secure your personal name or username on over 590 social media services and websites.
You’ll hardly use any of the services you sign up to via Knowem, but assuring that your name or pseudonym will not be related to any undesirable content on those websites is worth the effort.
I hope these tools will definitely help you to maintain your online reputation. But if you would like to grow your online reputation then here is a great resource with some proven social media marketing strategies that will help you to grow your online reputation.
Are there any reputation management tools I have missed? Please share!