Living through a time of monumental change in the age of the digital revolution has made entrepreneurs increasingly realise the vital role of online presence for their business. With the internet opening up a plethora of opportunities for everyone, entrepreneurs leveraging the online media can easily develop new business or customers. However, it requires committed effort in ensuring a robust online reputation for their business.
To do this, it all starts off with the
very simple question of “Have you checked your brand online lately? If you
haven’t, you are likely to be surprised with the amount of information that you
can find about your brand – simply because we now live in a tech savvy world
where information flows freely online. With most individuals now searching
online for products, the need to strengthen online reputation has been
reinforced, mainly to emphasise that your first impression really matters to
all of your customers. Moreover, the bottom-line of your business is generated
from the outcome of earning or losing customers, and that is more often than
not a result of how your brand, or company appears in the search results to
your prospective customers.
Recognising
that your online business reputation matters, and that there is possibility to
further expand through an enhanced online presence, the following article by
Ryan Erskine, Brand Strategist at BrandYourself shares with you how
entrepreneurs can explore some essential tips in setting up a strong online
presence and maximise every marketing possibilities with technology.
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Assess, and Do Some Spring Cleaning
The first step to improving
your online reputation is to assess your situation. Each person's online
presence is unique -- and you can't improve what you don't know.
Google yourself and see
what comes up in the first few pages. Do the same thing on Bing and Yahoo. Are
there many other people with the same name populating your search results, or
is it only you? Are there any positive web pages showing up about you, or is it
all irrelevant and negative information? Check the images as well and see what
kind of visual material shows up for your name.
To keep track of movement
in your search results moving forward, you'll want to sign up for a BrandYourself account. There, you'll mark
your search results as positive, negative or neutral. As you make changes to
your online reputation, you'll be able to easily track your progress and be
alerted to any red flags as soon as they show up.
Next, use BrandYourself's
Social Scanner to review your Facebook and Twitter history and flag any
potentially damaging or controversial updates. The tool uses machine learning
algorithms to scan for risky terms, phrases and keywords that tend to get
people fired. It allows you to approve tweets and updates that you're OK with
and delete the ones you don't like.
Buy Up Domains, and Reserve Social Properties
Once you've done a little
spring cleaning, it's time to get down to business. First, go to a domain
provider like GoDaddy, and buy up your domain with your full keyword/name in
it. Ideally you getYourName.com or whatever it is you go by professionally. If
the .com is already taken, then consider adding your middle initial in there or
adding a hyphen between your first and last name. If you have a few extra bucks
to spend, I recommend getting the other major top level domains (TLDs) -- the
.net, .org and .info. It's valuable online real estate, and you don't want
someone else scooping those up down the road.
The idea here is to have a
website that serves as a central hub of information about you when people
Google you. Chances are there's already plenty about you online, so this is
your chance to take control of that narrative and highlight the best side of
yourself.
Not sure what to put on a
site about yourself? Consider including a bio, your job experience, a blog, a
contact page, awards and honours, and a press page if you have any. And if
you're not sure how to go about building a website, you can read the website guides on my website.
Social media properties are
just as important. They are a great way to get in front of your audience, and
they're likely to rank well in your search results too.
Use the same strategy when
reserving your social media accounts. Aim to get as close to your name as
possible, and otherwise consider adding in some sort of punctuation (period,
hyphen, underscore) to get you a unique username. When you're done, don't
forget to optimise your social media profiles for maximum Search Engine Optimisation
(SEO) value.
Determine your Goals and Your Unique Value Proposition (UVP)
Your search results won't
change just because you bought a domain name and filled out a few social
properties. The two most important pieces to improving your online reputation
are consistent online activity and earning attention and engagement for that
activity. But how do you figure out what you should be doing online? How do you
know what will be most effective?
My suggestion is to first
determine your goals. Why are you trying to improve your online presence? Are
you looking to get a new job or perhaps shift the focus of your career path? Do
you want to bring in more business for yourself, or are you hoping to start
your own venture in a few years? Your answer to these questions will be
instrumental in guiding your decisions about content and social media.
Next, you'll want to figure
out your UVP. That's a fancy way of saying you need to determine what benefit
you offer people. Who specifically are you helping, what problem are you
solving for them, and what makes you different from everyone else trying to
solve the same problem?
If you're having trouble
answering these questions, I find it's useful to first determine why you're
passionate about what you do. From there, you'll be able to figure out what
audience you'd like to help the most and how you can do that better than anyone
else.
Develop a Content and Social Strategy
Once you've developed a
strategy to guide your activity online, it's time to put a real plan in place.
One way to do that is to answer the question, "How can I delight and impress
my audience while simultaneously pushing my personal brand?"
Another way to think about
this is, "What does my target audience know about me or my product right
now? And what should they know about me or my
product when they look me up online that will help me reach my goal?"
As an example, my target
audience is young professionals and entrepreneurs, either with aggressive
career goals or a desire to start their own ventures. In many cases, these
people know they should promote themselves online, but either they don't
understand the full value and importance and/or they don't know what the first
step would be.
So my content always comes
back to answering those questions for those people. If you figure out exactly
what your audience wants to know about you or your product, you'll be well on
your way to getting deserved attention and growing your following.
Create a Posting Calendar, and Stick to It
You've done all the hard
strategising work, and now it's time to make a plan and stick to it. You need
to establish how often you're going to publish content and how often you're
going to post to social media. It will never happen if you say "I'll get
to it when I get to it."
From experience, I can tell
you that this kind of activity needs to be a part of your schedule, same as
your important meetings and your gym sessions. So figure out how many times you
want to post per day or per week, and then keep at it, no excuses! At a bare
minimum, I recommend publishing original content at least once per month and
staying active on social media every week.
I also recommend using the
many tools at your disposal to monitor your online reputation, schedule your
content, and grow your following.
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Source: internetreputationrepair.co.uk
Chia Yi Jing | Bubbling with enthusiasm, bright ideas, and confidence, Yi Jing set foot in the PR world with Orchan Consulting, where she was offered permanent employment after a successful internship. She is determined to make her mark in the industry, and her bosses know that she will. 
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