If you work online in any way, you will have built up some sort of online reputation. Maintaining some degree of control over it is desirable to say the least. This requires three core skills.

Copywriting

Although the advent of super-fast broadband has made the internet much more multimedia-centric, it is still primarily comprised of words. That means that you have to know how to write.

If there is any online aspect to your work or your business, chances are you’re pumping out copy on a daily basis. Bad writing will reflect badly on you. Although the quality threshold is generally lower on the web, people still look damningly on typos, spelling errors and incomprehensible sentences.

Equally, good writing reflects positively on you. The ability to write authoritative, entertaining copy immediately puts you ahead of the pack.

Social media

The first thing anyone scoping you out online will look for is your social media presence. This means that your social media skills have to be top notch.

You have to know exactly how you want to portray yourself, and make sure that’s how you come across. That means trimming any excess and keeping it strictly professional. It means talking to the right people and saying the right things.

Knowing how to listen on social media is just as important. With the right tools, you can keep track of anything and everything people are saying about you, as well as giving you a direct route to response.

SEO

Google is the portal to the rest of the world. As such, you have to be just as vigilant about what appears when people google your name as you are on social media.

‘Reputation management’ is a controversial area of SEO, but a growing one. It is the art of pushing negative comments, stories, forum threads and so on down in favour of more positive ones. This doesn’t have to mean fabricating positive press, just accentuating it in the SERPs.

A damaging story at the top of Google could easily ruin potential business or networking opportunities.

On a more benign level, you also need to make sure your professional website (or LinkedIn profile at least) shows up on the first page when people search for your name. Otherwise they may get bored looking and lose interest in you altogether.

If you liked this post, you may also want to read: 10 online reputation management tips

Image Credit: stevekrh19

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 24th, 2011 at 8:07 am and is filed under Online Reputation Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.