What To Do If Your On­line Rep­u­ta­tion Stinks

Ten or fif­teen years ago, it was con­sid­ered more than a lit­tle creepy if peo­ple knew that you “Googled” them to find out more information.

These days, it is stan­dard op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dure, and is expected.

In fact, if you have a job in­ter­view and you did not search for more in­for­ma­tion on the per­son in­ter­view­ing you, and on the com­pany you will be in­ter­view­ing at, you may be per­ceived as not re­ally in­ter­ested in the job.

The folks in­volved may think that you are uninformed.

In ad­di­tion, rest as­sured that when you ap­ply for a job, you will be Googled be­fore be­ing of­fered a job interview.

So if you find that you are not get­ting calls for a job in­ter­view, even though you have great work ex­pe­ri­ence that shows a pat­tern of suc­cess, it could be your on­line profile.

Some of the things that can con­tribute to a neg­a­tive on­line reputation

If you have an or­di­nary and com­mon name, like John Smith or Juan Mar­tinez or Lisa Jones, your on­line pro­file may be af­fected by what other peo­ple with your name do. Of course, in many cases, peo­ple Googling you might re­al­ize that there are many peo­ple with your name, and not jump to con­clu­sions be­cause they un­der­stand that.

Some peo­ple might think that the John Smith with the ar­rest record a mile long is you, which is why it is im­por­tant to have pos­i­tive things to show a good rep­u­ta­tion (we will ex­plain in a minute how to do that.)

Some of the things that can give you a neg­a­tive on­line pro­file include:

• Pic­tures on In­sta­gram, Face­book or Twit­ter of you drink­ing, smok­ing mar­i­juana, or mak­ing a fool of your­self. Be smart enough not to put them up, and if a friend does, make sure you are untagged.
• Racist, of­fen­sive, or just weird on­line com­ments on so­cial me­dia and web sites. Many web sites, like news­pa­per sites, can have you log in and make com­ments with your Face­book ac­count. That is not a good idea if you want to wade into con­tro­ver­sial top­ics. Look at how Paula Deen’s ca­reer was re­cently de­stroyed thanks to some­thing she said 25 years ago. You don’t want to have a pa­per trail on­line that makes the em­ployer think twice. These days, em­ploy­ers are so skit­tish about law­suits, they don’t want to take a chance if you look like a loose cannon.
• Get­ting into on­line fights and flame wars. It doesn’t mat­ter if you are 100% right. You will still look ar­gu­men­ta­tive, and could be a big turnoff.
• Hav­ing got­ten into real-life trou­ble, like be­ing ar­rested (even if you were not con­victed, the ar­rest record may still be online.)
• Be­ing the tar­get of an on­line vendetta by an ex-friend or ex-lover. Whether their com­plaints are le­git­i­mate or not, this could hurt you.

There are a va­ri­ety of things you can do to im­prove your on­line reputation:

One is to try to get as many neg­a­tive things re­moved as possible.

• Start with your own posts and com­ments, and see what you can do in or­der to get other lo­ca­tions to take down the information.
• Con­tact own­ers of sites where other users have gen­er­ated neg­a­tive con­tent about you, and ask them to delete it.

The sec­ond thing you can do is to cre­ate pos­i­tive things that will make you shine.

• You can set up a web­site about you that you want to im­press oth­ers with.
• Keep your own so­cial me­dia pro­files up­dated and ‘clean.’

The more pos­i­tive things are out there on you, the more the bad things will be moved down and off the first page of Google.

If you are not sure what to do, or want to get pro­fes­sional as­sis­tance, talk to a web mar­ket­ing com­pany with an SEO guar­an­tee that can help. To get a free con­sul­ta­tion and an SEO guar­an­tee, click here.

Lisa Swan writes for a va­ri­ety of SEO and com­put­ing sites. She lives in New York City.

[rms] Ralf Skir­r’s com­ment: This rep­u­ta­tion ar­ti­cle might seem out of place on an in­ter­net busi­ness blog, given that it talks about how a bad rep can be an ob­sta­cle when look­ing for a job.

But all the points men­tioned are right on spot when look­ing at rep­u­ta­tion man­age­ment for small busi­nesses.

Small busi­ness own­ers of­ten pro­mote their busi­ness via their Face­book pro­file. Their per­son­al­ity and their busi­ness aren’t as sep­a­rated as it is the case with huge com­pa­nies. If you’re a biz owner it’s cru­cial that you keep all points men­tioned above in mind. Check what’s ‘out there’ about you, and - if nec­es­sary - clean up the mess.

It’s also a good idea to pre­pare a sim­ple so­cial me­dia cri­sis plan about what to do if a rep­u­ta­tion night­mare would ever happen.