Managing your reputation online

helen goss www.wayoutmedia.com 2012

Helpful advice on how to manage your identity and/or your organisations identity online.

Based on Antony Mayfields book

'Me and my web shadow’http://meandmywebshadow.com

Originally written for a UK based audience based in business marketing. Adapted for Young People in Europe.

1 Google yourself

Your online persona does not live in another world, it works along side your physical life, it is a reflection of you.

Pay attention to what you are publishing and what people are publishing about you

What information is stored about things you have been involved in, in the past?

If there is a site that you own that you don’t want to appear in the Google search results anymore you can request to remove it;https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals

Written about you

Sites/blogs/accounts you own

(Try combinations of words to search and use misspellings)

Make a note of the things that you find and make a plan to promote the ones you favour and to do something about the ones you dont!

Have you? . . .

Tried searching for yourself using 123people.co.uk ?(pick your country from the drop down list, or search for someone you know has a low profile on the Internet to test is effectiveness)

Look for old sites you may be mentioned on which have been removed, on the wayback machine?

www.archive.org/web/web.php

2 Track what people are saying about you/your brand

There are many analytics companies out there who will charge you money to safeguard your reputation. They can then analyse whether what is being said about you/your brand is favourable

However it is possible to do these things yourself and for free

TechnoratiThis has been around for a long time you can use it to search blogs and specific postshttp://technorati.com

Google blog searchFind your mentions in feed enabled blogshttp://www.google.com/blogsearch

Twitter searchUse this search for mentions in Twitter. When you get to the page be sure to click the ‘operators’ link to find out all the best tips to refine your search. It used to be summize.com before twitter bought it.https://twitter.com/search

Google AlertFind your mentions on the net in general, although you can tailor it to look in specific places ie news, blogs, videos, discussion or books . . . this is also good for researching opinion on topics eg islamaphobia, arab spring etchttp://www.google.com/alerts

3 Ensure you move up the ranks of Search Engine results (SEO)

Be specific in the title of your pages and your blog post titles (search engines scan titles)

Describe the content of your post/page in the first paragraph (search engines read first paragraphs)

Make your site/posts shareable, the more traffic/users you can get going through your site, the more interaction you can generate, the higher up the results you will get

Use SEO plugins in your siteFor example you can insert an SEO plugin to you Wordpress site/blog that will allow you to title the page (different and longer than the one you may have used without changing it) and add a description of the page (the one that appears in the google list that is usually a random except from your site) and put in keywords that are used to find you when people search for information in your field

Use an analytics program To analyse the way your users are using your site, you can adapt your site from this very useful information;

Google analytics: looks at the traffic coming to and through your site, you can see where they come from, what pages they visit, which pages are the popular and the level of engagement that they participated in.http://www.google.com/analytics/

Facebook page insights: use insights to record your ‘likers’ activity, here is a great article on the way it works http://mashable.com/2011/03/08/facebook-insights-real-time-analytics/

Google webmaster tools: it provides you with detailed reports about your pages visibility on Google. To get started, simply add and verify your site and you'll start to see information right away. You can also use this to find out Google's view of your site and diagnose problems.See how Google crawls and indexes your site and learn about specific problems they may have having accessing it.

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools

4 Understand your networksWhere are your colleagues, peers and competitors, the people who are regularly against your opinion, what are they talking about, where are they having their conversations?

What type of conversations are being had about your specialism?

Take the time to read and listen to conversations before jumping in with opinions.

Heres an exercise to help you build your knowledge about how people in your field are conducting themselves so you can feel confident to start being a commentator if you are not already.

Find 3 people you really admire in your profession Bookmark their websites

Make a mental note of all the ways they get their voice out there, by looking at their sites and see how they publish/promote themselves.

Make a list of the ways that could be relevant to you. Where are they regularly having conversations outside of their site eg Forums, TED, other communities etc which ones can you get involved in?

5 Be present in your networksWorking in your own personal network to connect to others is highly rewarding, you don’t need to have a profile everywhere but it is advisable to;

Have a profile on Linkedin and facebook or your countries most popular social network (a page or a group or both, whichever is appropriate)

Have a personal home page or blog, it will provide a focal point for your online identity and its likely to rank first for you in search engines above appearing on someone else’s site.

Own your own web domain

Grab a hashtag in twitter and use it, or just post regularly using a hashtag you find engaging

6 Be active and useful in your networks

Become the expert in your field, comment regularly on it, repost interesting and relevant information – credit people with information you pass on, start up conversations with people you admire. Your online presence needs constant attention, so;

Update oftenKeep information currentGet your users to trust your information by its relevance to them, they will keep coming back to youReposting will help your reputationAsk your ‘listeners’ questions, get them interacting with youExplore the groups and conversations in Linkedin, if they are relevant to your field, let people in your network know what is being saidIf people have problems, offer adviceStart conversations, subgroups in forums etc

This video is about how to increase traffic to your Facebook page (Edgeranking algorithm) It has some great tips for engaging your audience (3.58mins)

http://youtu.be/m1Te29Wcvj4

7 Public and Private identities

It is integral that you keep a separate life online for your business and social personas. Some people have to have crossovers and in those cases it is important to be vigilant in your postings and publications. You should set yourself boundaries according to your audience and stick to them rigidly. This gives you a discipline that safeguards you in general and is good to apply to your online activity anyway, especially if your work involves young people.

Where ever possible create separate accounts for public and private personas from now on

8 What if you don’t want to be found!

If you or any young person you work with, needs to be less visible on the Internet the following article has some very useful tips at the bottom.

http://www.wikihow.com/Ungoogle-Yourself

9 Dealing with negative commenters

When you put yourself ‘out there’ and start expressing opinions about issues, you are putting yourself in a position where there maybe a backlash against you at some stage. You will have to learn to not take it personally, to not let it effect you emotionally, to respond with intelligent, considered remarks, remarks that try to change opinion in positive ways.

Just wait and see what happensSometimes in situations where people ‘attack’, other readers/commenters are motivated to respond and will ‘fight your side’ for you . . . so if there is a bad comment, just wait and see what happens, the community may deal with it itself.

Dont Delete commentsTry hard to make one of your rules be to ‘not delete comments’. We are trying to respect the opinion of everyone and we are all for freedom of speech.

Warn people if you have to deleteFreedom of speech belongs on their own page, not yours! Feel free to filter out – block or ban – those who do not share the value systems of your community

Persistent abuseIf there is a lot of abuse and you are using a social network not hosted by yourself, you can use the reporting system. If it is on your own network, you should build into your policy a pre-determined response to deal with certain breeches of your code of conduct

This article has quite a corporate based approach but the advice is definitely transferable.

http://laurelpapworth.com/8-ways-to-deal-with-negative-comments-on-blogs-and-social-media/

CONGRATULATIONS

You have now earned your good reputation kit!

All presentations will be put onto www.wayoutmedia.com