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How to Protect your Reputation online
1. How to Save Your Online Reputation
By Jon Bernstein
published on BNET.com 10/06/2009
David Brown, a former security services executive working in education, had no idea how many
enemies he had until a magazine Web site published a review of his book in 2006. Seeing the
review, a former employee whom Brown had fired seized the opportunity to start a bitter smear
campaign. Vitriolic comments began to appear after Brown’s book review, calling him a liar, a cheat,
questioning his work ethic, and accusing the married father of three of an affair.
Men and women claiming to know Brown (not his real name), either from previous work or
personally, started to weigh in with nasty comments. Some said he had ruined their life; others
accused him of lack of integrity. All anonymously, of course. “It then became open season for anyone
with the tiniest grudge,” says Brown.
Even when the magazine publisher erased the forum from its site, anyone who Googled Brown’s
name or his book would be presented with an ever-expanding list of comments that damaged his
professional and personal reputation, as well as sales of his book. Ultimately, Brown had to approach
Google HQ directly to erase the offending section from its server.
Brown’s story is far from isolated. Author Alain de Botton’s personal attack on The New York Times
reviewer Caleb Crain is a reminder of how easily the personal and professional can collide online.
Jimmy Wales, a co-founder of online encyclopedia Wikipedia, used an entry on his site to effectively
break up with his girlfriend. She retaliated by (literally) selling his dirty laundry on eBay. Their spat
became a spectator sport throughout the blogosphere.
Like it or not, social networking sites and blogs are making the private all the more public. You
may have a smaller digital footprint than Jimmy Wales, but negative comments can spread quickly
beyond your personal network to damage your life and your career. It’s your reputation. Better to be
in control.
Things you will need:
• Money: $500 - $1,200+ a day if you’re hiring someone to track or repair a dent to your reputation.
• Time: Half a day to two days for an initial audit of what’s out there about you; 20 minutes a week to keep
track of your evolving digital footprint; two to five days to deal with any attack on your reputation.
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2. Keep Track of Your Online Reputation
Goal: Make tracking part of your everyday routine.
Start by identifying the most likely places online for your name to come up. Google
dominates the search engine market, and it’s also where the media looks first, according to ad
firm Universal McCann.
Identify blogs and forums within your professional circle, as well as popular social networking
sites that you, colleagues, or competitors use. Then there are networking sites # LinkedIn and
Facebook are frequently used to check character references, and Facebook tends to rank
high on Google, too.
Emerging social sites such as Twitter are increasingly important because of their viral
potential. Twitter “makes it easy for people to quickly express their inner monologue. And it is
very easy for others to spread it around,” says Andy Beal, co-author of Radically Transparent:
Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online.
Last, ensure the biography on your corporate Web site is accurate and fair. Check corporate
sites of places you’ve worked; it’s unhelpful to have outdated information online.
Once you’ve identified the sites you want to monitor, set up alerts. You can set up
a Google alert at google.com/alerts for your full name. Subscribe with your full name to
Technorati.com, a blog search engine, and BackType, a blog comment search engine, to
reach blogs that Google alerts may not cover. Twitter tools abound: Tweetdeck, Thwirl, or
TweetGrid are a few. Most have — or are building — clients that work on smartphones such
as the Apple iPhone and the BlackBerry, and all let you tailor your searches so you can follow
mentions of you in real time.
Another tool worth considering is Twinbox, which lets you track what’s being said on Twitter
via Microsoft Outlook. Dan Schawbel, a personal brand specialist and author of Me 2.0:Build
a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success, recommends Tweetbeat.com, which gives you
notifications through e-mail when people talk about you on Twitter.
Checklist
What to Track
• Search engines: Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft’s
• Bing Blogosphere: Known blogs in your professional arena, or use blog search
engines such as Technorati or Google Blog Search
• Forums: Known discussion threads in your professional arena
• Social networking sites: Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn
• Microblogging sites: Twitter, Jaikuand Plurk, Social Mention
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3. • Personal rating sites: PersonRatings.com
• Corporate Web sites: Your company, former places of work
Repair Your Online Reputation
Goal: Identify the nature of the attack and act accordingly.
Monitoring the Web won’t prevent an online attack. If you fall victim, don’t panic: Think before
you respond. “If it’s an isolated incident, and no one has replied, you might consider letting
sleeping dogs lie,” says Andy Beal. Likewise, Schawbel cautions against rising to the bait: “If
someone is deliberately attacking you for fun, or ‘trolling,’ then leave it alone. They only want
the attention,” he says.
Analyze what’s been said about you. If a blogger has their facts wrong, correct them # most
will quickly amend their post. If the criticism’s true, apologize using the same medium as
the message. Give people a platform to complain to you where the original complaint was
posted or on your own blog. Your willingness to engage is likely to win over the sceptics. It
also reflects well on your own management style.
If the attack on you is a calculated campaign # a post on a blog with a follow-up on
Twitter # then take action. If you’re being attacked professionally, you should alert the
following:corporate stakeholders, including your boss; the company press officer; and the legal
department.
Deal with the matter informally first. If you know the identity of your detractor, approach
directly, offline. “You don’t want to do this in the public domain,” advises Beal.
In most cases people will remove the offending item from the blog or forum, but if they don’t,
you can consider a more public approach. Be open, constructive, conciliatory, and willing
to engage.Try something along these lines: Jim, I’ve already spoken to you about this, and
as you know, what you are saying about me is inaccurate. I would like you to remove it.
Meanwhile, if anyone out there reading this has any questions, this is how to reach me.
If this approach fails and comments against you are defamatory, you may need to speak to a
lawyer.
One more thing: think before you fire off a salvo to a co-worker online. If you need an
example, consider this fairly innocuous Facebook exchange between “Yvonne” and her
manager, “Cheryl.” It takes on a new and unflattering life on Lamebook, a site that highlights
“lame and funny” extracts from social networking sites for others to comment on.
Hot Tip
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4. Don't Mix Business and Leisure Online
Use separate social networking options for work and play # Facebook for your friends and
LinkedIn for professional contacts, for example. That way, a personal spat is less likely to
spill over into your professional life. “Post a short explanation, saying: ‘I use this site for
X or Y,’” suggests Tiger Two’s Nancy Williams. And, obvious as it may sound, you don’t
have to accept everyone’s invitation to join your network.
Protect Your Online Reputation
Goal: Insulate yourself against attacks and build a brand that reflects the
professional you.
So we've discussed the cure, what about prevention? The answer lies in building and
maintaining your online brand. That way, any negative commentary is not the only news about
you. “If those negative associations occur,” says John Purkiss, co-author of Brand You. “You
want people to think, “‘Well, that’s absolutely out of character.’” You’ll put the burden of proof
on your attackers.
The first step is to effectively “buy up” all the online property in your name. Whether or not
you’re active on Twitter, LinkedIn, or have plans to set up a Wordpress or Typepad blog, it is
worth setting up accounts in each.
It is a defensive maneuver that, at the very least, stops someone else owning and abusing
linkedin.com/joepublic, twitter.com/joepublic, joepublic.wordpress.com, and so on.
Next, identify advocates and encourage them to point to you online. That may mean writing a
LinkedIn recommendation, a mention on their blog, or simply a link.
The more relevant the people with whom you’re linked, the stronger your “link equity” #
and the more likely you’ll appear on the first page of a Google search. Plus “it’s a lot easier
to respond if you have a community to rally around you,” says Nancy Williams, founder of
U.K.-based online reputation specialists Tiger Two.
Be proactive. Offer to blog and write articles about your specialist subjects for online
publications that hit your current and future business associates. Earn a reputation as a
“player” in your field. Get your name out there.
Essential Ingredients
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