In today’s digital world, information spreads at lightning speed. This includes information about you. What people read about you online—whether it’s accurate or not—affects your reputation and potentially all aspects of your life. You want the things people read about you to be true.
But keeping track of everything that appears online is time-consuming. It may even be impossible to do it yourself. This is where automated tools come in. Once you set them up, they do the tracking work for you.
I use these tools to stay on top of my online reputation. You should too. I’m going to show you how to do just that.
Step 1: Create your official channels
Start with the basics: Google Search.
The top results when searching for your name should show information that you control.
If you google my name, Lars Lofgren, you’ll see what I mean. I used the strategies explained below to create my online persona. As a result, I directly control five of the top ten search results for my name. This is a big check on my personal reputation.
How did I make this happen? Taking control of my name in as many ways as possible. Your name is your online currency. Protect it at all costs.
The first step is to buy the .com domain for your name. Whether you currently plan to do anything with this domain is irrelevant. What matters is owning it. You control what you own. It is so simple.
You also never know what the future will bring. You might become famous. Maybe write a best-selling novel. Maybe you’re on your way to top podcaster status.
The point is, your name is the foundation of your personal brand. Owning the domain for your name is a smart move, no matter what. Plus, when you own it, you guarantee that no one else can steal it.
Then be sure to create social media profiles for yourself on every hot social media network. It’s not about becoming an influencer, although if that’s your goal, then by all means go for it.
The point of creating social media accounts is to retain your right to do something with those accounts now or eventually.
The last thing you want to do is ignore a popular social media channel and find out someone else has created an account in your name. Fixing this is a huge challenge, if it’s even possible. Better to be proactive than reactive.
After setting up the accounts, you can choose to add content or leave the accounts blank. It is completely up to you.
The overall goal is to control the social media narrative about you — at least on the official accounts you have. Others may create impersonator accounts (it happens all the time to celebrities), but no one can take away your personal and verifiable account.
Step 2: Separate public vs. private information
Once your public personas are in place, it’s time to remove your private self from the equation. Creating this barrier is really important. It protects your private self in case your public self gets dragged into an argument.
And that’s the thing about controversies – you never know when they’re going to pop up.
We’ve all seen what happens when someone’s name starts to get popular on the internet. Keyboard warriors are quick to find personal information that they never hesitate to share with the world. The more private information you can protect from prying eyes, the better.
So how can you best protect your personal information? Here are some easy strategies to follow.
- Add WHOIS privacy to any domains you register, especially your personal website. Domain registration information is public record. It only takes a quick search to find out who owns any domain. WHOIS hides your name, address and phone number from public view.
- Use Google Voice or another service for your public phone number. If you’re not a fan of ever answering phone calls from random strangers with unknown intent, you want to treat your personal number like it’s sacred information. Only share a generic number when asked by anyone you don’t know and trust personally.
- Sign up for a mail forwarding service, virtual mailbox, or post office box to avoid ever giving out your home address to anyone. You absolutely do not want someone showing up on your doorstep unannounced, regardless of their intentions. The best way to do this is to keep your home address as private as possible.
If you’re lucky, this will all be purely preventative.
But if you fall victim to a harassment campaign—whether online or in real life—you’ll be glad you kept your personal information confidential.
Step 3: Create positive content on your channels
Okay, I know I said earlier that you can leave all those social media accounts you create blank if you want. And you certainly can. But I advise you not to.
These channels can be leveraged to boost your reputation. You can use them to create and publish content that represents your personal brand in the way you want others to see you. This strategy allows you to control the narrative, which is really important.
Use your domain name to share professional information about yourself. Advertise your professional achievements and share as much information as you feel comfortable. Create a blog and write about topics you know about. Sharing expertise is a great reputation booster.
Create social media profiles that reflect your brand’s personality and style. Your profile picture can be professionally done or a selfie that reflects you positively.
You don’t have to post to these channels every day (or even every week), but post something occasionally so they don’t seem inactive. Active social media accounts create the impression that you care about your brand and are willing to put in the work to maintain it.
Also, be sure to link and promote your website and social media accounts as often as possible. These are factors that help your content rank in Google search results.
Step 4: Automate Reputation Monitoring
You could spend time every day looking for yourself online to see what’s new. But who has time for that? Automated reputation monitoring takes this work out of your hands.
You can automate a little or a lot – it’s up to you. It really depends on how active you are with your brand.
For some people, setting up Google Notifications will be enough. It sounds complicated, but it’s actually quite easy. I have created one and recommend everyone to take this simple step.
When you set up an alert for your name, every time Google sees your name on a new page, you’ll receive a notification email. The email will contain a summary of the content and provide a link you can follow to view the full report. It doesn’t get any easier than that.
If you’re really active with your brand, you’ll probably need something more powerful than Google Alerts to stay on top of all your reporting, especially on social channels.
That’s when you should consider a reputation management tool. These services monitor everything online and flag negative reports immediately. This is very important if online chatting is starting to become a trend for you. You are much more effective in handling the situation when you can react and respond early.
Once the online mobs start talking about you, it can be difficult to reclaim the narrative and control how people see you. Reputation management tools can help you get ahead of the game—before momentum builds.
Reputation Management Rules Change for Public Figures
Everything I’ve mentioned so far applies to low-profile everyday people. But if you are (or become) a celebrity or public figure, the game changes.
Managing your reputation is quickly becoming a full-time job.
Reputation management companies exist to help people do two things – navigate the difficult waters of crisis management and stay on top of reputation on a daily basis. I hope it never happens, but if you find yourself in a reputation crisis, it’s time to go big.
While traditional marketing and PR agencies can help, you really want the added power of reputation management experts. They know all the tricks on how to bury bad press online. They are also capable of changing the narrative to help reconstruct audience perceptions.
Of course, in today’s age of influencers around every corner, anyone can find themselves in need of this kind of help. Anyone with any kind of social media presence can quickly become a public figure, sometimes without even trying.
If you’re an influencer today – or plan to become one in the future – having a reputation management company saved in your contact list is a very wise idea.