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Manage Your Social Media Reputation

As you become more involved in managing your reputation via social media sites, you may find yourself overwhelmed by the sheer amount of time spent going from site to site every time you want to make an update. It is in your best interest to have the highest visibility you can by being present on as many sites as possible, but with each one adding another few minutes of update time, that might not seem viable. You may find yourself wondering how so many successful internet businesspeople are able to post updates to fifty or a hundred sites every few hours. The answer is simple: ping.fm.

Ping is a tool that allows you to send a single update to dozens of sites where you want to establish an online presence. This includes major sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Flickr, Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, and Delicious, as well as lesser-known presences like Koornk, Diigo, Ning, FriendFeed, Brightkite, Posterous, hi5, and Xanga. To use Ping, you simply make a free account, and go through and add each service you want to be updated through Ping. It takes less than a minute to add each site, and you’ll only need to do it once.

Once you have the sites added, you’ll have a dashboard that allows you to update your various profiles all at once. And this isn’t good only for status updates – you can add pictures, songs, and links as well. You can choose which sites you want updated, or can just update them all at once. Ping also allows you to make updates via virtually any mode of transport you can image, from your cell phone to email to various IM clients to Skype. With a robust application development community, Ping is always adding new features and plugins as well, all designed to make it easier for you to manage your online identity in whatever ways the new web demands.

The Google Buzz Backlash - How to Make Sure Your Backlash Isn't Larger Than Your Buzz

Last week when Google released its new social networking feature, Google Buzz, to compete with other popular social networking and micro-blogging services like Twitter and Facebook, the media giant set up their new social network to automatically enroll tens of millions of Gmail users. While having millions of new users instantly is a competitive advantage the only online giants like Google can enjoy, the company's unilateral actions have resulted in a large and vocal Google Buzz backlash.

As angry users have noted online, automatically opting-in people and intimately connecting them with their email contacts oversteps the social boundaries that many users have worked to create online. Today people have multiple identities online that they manage through distinct avenues--they know that they must carefully craft each of their online reputations depending on what social network or online community they are a part of. For example, many people use facebook to connect with their friends and LinkedIn for establish relationships with professional contacts. When Google Buzz stepped in and suddenly, without much of a pre-buzz, intimately connected users with their distant and disorganized email contacts, users responded by giving Google buzz a reputation management problem that they’ve been scrambling to correct ever since.

What’s to be Learned from Google’s Buzz Backlash?

As internet companies continue to provide powerful technology and communication solutions for businesses and individuals, they must keep a balance between meeting their users needs and their needs. It’s also very important, as Google’s users noted, to understand the social distinctions between different types of media--social bookmarks are clearly less intimate than social networks, and social networks far less intimate than email. Each type of media has different social norms that companies must recognize and attempt to blend slowly. Coercing millions upon millions of users to allow their private information to be used by a new technology that breaks the current online social norms is bound to result in a backlash bigger than your new products buzz.

How To Prevent Buzz Backlash

If you want to prevent buzz backlash or are looking to manage your own online crisis, LookupPage can be one of the best places to find highly effective online reputation management strategies, brand reputation tips and crisis management tools.

How To Manage Your Google CV

As nearly everyone knows by now, Google is one of the most powerful search engines and providers of online tools. When people are interested to know about you or your business, one of the first things they do is search Google. That’s right, your Google CV is the first impression people have of you, so it’s important to know how to manage your reputation in Google effectively. Here are a few tips to get you started:

Know What’s Crawled Before You Sign Up 

Every day dozens of websites ask visitors to register with their names, create a username, and establish identities in online communities. While it’s illegal to share your email with third parties, many websites and social networks have no problem sharing your name or username with Google and you can be sure that many of these websites will be some of the first results on your Google CV.

Before you sign up to a website, check to see if the website is crawled on Google. See what kind of content is showing up and then determine if you should register to the site and what information you can list there.

Keep Track of Where You’re Registered

As people register to more and more websites everyday, it can get challenging to keep track of all the separate accounts and identities that you or your business may have online. If you have a Google Account you can easily sign up for Google Docs and use a spreadsheet to keep track of all your usernames and passwords. This is a highly effective way to make sure that as you establish more online identities, that you’ll be able to update them with you or your businesses’ information easily and not leave any old information on your Google CV.

Register to Websites that Improve Your Google CV

Most people and businesses have an idea of the image they would like to portray online or an image that they’d like customers to associate with their brand. The best way to craft your Google CV is to register to high ranking websites that will improve your online image. Today there are thousands of niche social networks that rank high on Google and can improve your online identity. Some social networks, like LookupPage, rank especially high on Google and are built for helping users create a positive image online. 

Take a Pen Name

While in some social networks, like Facebook and LinkedIn, is it expected that you will use your real name, many websites give you the option to use a nick name or pen name. You should only register your real name to social networks and websites that improve your online image and brand. For other websites, take a pen name or nickname so that you don’t risk having the website connected to you or your company’s Goolge CV. 

Sign Up for Google Alerts

If you have an account with Google, you can register for Google Alerts and get an email every time Google indexes a new page with your name or your business. Setting up Google Alerts is easy, and helps you to know immediately as your reputation is being built online. One tip: Make sure that you place quotations around your name when you are searching or setting up your Google Alert, this way you’ll get very targeted results.

Online Reputation Management - What Can You Do With a Negative Review?

In mid December Google was ready to pay $500 Million for the user review website Yelp.com. The site has been around since 2004 and it is based on user-generated content in the form of online reviews of different services such as restaurants and mechanics located across the US and the United Kingdom. Yelp is also a social network; it allows users to interact with one another.

Yelp along with TripAdvisor.com and Ripoff Report are just three (out of many) examples of sites that have become extremely successful because of how valuable dynamic content (i.e. the user reviews) have become. The fact that both services allow readers to follow and rank previous reviews of every commentator adds an additional element of credibility to each review. Search engines have noted this credibility as well, reviews of a hotel that were submitted to TripAdvisor often rank highly within the Google Resume of that hotel. 

Option 1 – Respond to the Negative Review

Now that it is easier to establish that specific users within these social network / review sites are somewhat “experienced” critics and do not have a specific vendetta against a specific establishment  we can discuss  the consequences of replying to a bad review online.

There is certainly an upside to monitoring what is being said about you online. Feedback of this kind should be taken into consideration, as customers do not always express their dissatisfaction with a product or a service immediately. The above mentioned review websites allow the business that is being reviewed to respond.  A general rule that we believe to be true is that most customers who feel that they have been wronged, are primarily looking to vent their anger.  

The fact that a business takes the time to respond to a negative review online is something that is looked upon favorably in the eyes of potential customers. Simply showing concern that a customer was dissatisfied is already a step in the right direction.

Reaching out to such a customer and apologizing could often mean the difference between a negative review online and a neural one. It is also important to remember that the same customer could always post a follow up comment to his or her review and state that he or she tried the service again and were satisfied.

Option 2 – Try to push down the ranking of the negative review

Search engines are in constant competition with each other for presenting the most up to date and relevant content on the web for every query.  Creating additional positive results for a business name could essentially burry a negative review of that business. Google has a history of preferring diverse and unique content.This means that creating a Youtube video, a profile on a social network and uploading a PowerPoint presentation to Slidshare all for a single business name, may reach better web visibility than creating three new results of the same kind. 

While it is imperative for a business to try to keep clients happy and be responsive to comments and reviews, unhappy customers or negative reviews are bound to emerge at some point. A mix of new and positive results along with positive reviews by clients who are happy with the service should be able to overcome negative results that may emerge.  

Building a Brand Using Free Social Media Tools

Traditional online email accounts are getting less traffic than in previous years. The reason for that is simple, people are emailing their friends directly from their social networks so they do not need to enter Gmail as often as they used to. Social networks are becoming stronger and are no longer used by a specific age group. 

Although there is an argument among different search engines on what is the most searched word of 2009, we feel that the most explosive and important word for 2009 is Twitter. Apparently, we are not the only ones who think this way. Only recently, Google unveiled its real time search option that will incorporate status updates from popular social networks among other real time results.

If you need any further proof on how seriously Google is taking twitter accounts create a fictitious account on twitter and conduct a Google search for that name 48 hours later. Odds are that this none - existing person will rank on the first page of Google thanks to that twitter account. Because of the fact that social media profiles usually receive indexation by Google and other search engines, creating a brand using free social media tools is certainly achievable.

Facebook

companies such as Coca Cola, Pizza Hut and U.S based restaurant Chain  T.G.I Friday’s have achieved considerable success by creating a Facebook Fan page. This can be achieved on a smaller scale by getting your friends and clients to become fans of your service. 

A solid Facebook fan page needs to be able to provide information about the business and possibly provide an added value to the fans of the brand. The Pizza Hut fan page is currently offering a 20% discount on all orders made with the Pizza Hut iPhone application as well as other coupons. 

Twitter

As written above, Twitter is currently enjoying the respect of major search engines. Although getting a large following on twitter takes time and effort, it is certainly achievable. Ranking well on Google for a twitter account is certainly easier if the account is active and tweets on a regular basis. The CEO of Zappos , an online shoe retailer  is using Twitter in order to engage and be reachable by Zappos customers. By being readily available, he is strengthening the brand of his company as being attentive to what the customer wants    

LookupPage.com - while it is not a social network, creating a LookupPage for a business or a professional can have tremendous return on investment (ROI). LookupPage enjoys excellent indexation by Google and creating a profile can help you establish additional positive results that often rank extremely well and contribute greatly to one’s Google Resume.  For example, you can check out Oxford Car Service which created a LookupPage for their business and their LookupPage is ranking extremely high on organic search. 

Celebrity Twitter of the Month – Lance Armstrong

 Seven time Tour De France winner Lance Armstrong is a unique athlete. Not only is he the only person to win the Tour De France more than five times, he is the only person to have won the tour seven consecutive times after recovering from advanced stage cancer. When Armstrong was 26 years old, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer that at that point had already spread to his lungs, abdomen and brain. He underwent several operations and opted for alternative form of Chemotherapy and that led to the remission of the cancer in his body.

By 1998 Armstrong was already deep into a training regiment that would spark his return to the Tour De France, The fact that Armstrong won seven tours in a row starting in 1999 and participated in yet another race in 2009 marks him as one of the greatest athletes of our time.

Lance Armstrong describes himself in the short Twitter Bio as “7-time Tour de France winner, full time cancer fighter “. Armstrong is tweeting on a regular basis about his daily life, travel, cycling and of course, the Lance Armstrong foundation, LiveStrong, a non profit organization which strives to inspire and empower those who have been affected by cancer. Armstrong has over 2.3 million followers on Twitter. He is using Twitter to engage his fans about topics that are important to him and to promote his organization via the micro blog.    

Lance Armstrong is an exceptional athlete that could get the attention of the world media in many ways. The Fact that he chose to have an ongoing relationship with his followers via Twitter is a complement to the technology and the recognition of how ground breaking it really is. Businesses and professionals are choosing to use Twitter as a part of their marketing effort because it is currently enjoying solid web visibility from search engines, meaning that a Twitter account could often rank highly within the Google CV of a professional or a business. Please Follow LookupPage on Twitter to learn more about online visibility social media optimization and online reputation management.