6 Ways To Avoid The Pain Of Bad Online Reputation Management

Clients who are billionaires— whose bank accounts have crazy levels of zeroes— come to me for help. “It’s like h***,” one said.  “Despite all of my success, I cannot walk into a banker meeting right now. They’ll Google me and see [insert here].”

Today, “insert here” can mean “The latest lawsuit I’m in; it happened to me 25 years ago and I’ve rehabbed; my ex-wife has been blogging about my blonde lover" — or more things that aren’t as intense, but you want to keep private.

Don’t want to find yourself in the same position? Punt the Clark Kent approach to your online reputation, commit to influence what people see online—and monitor. Kick yourself away from the halftime highlights and follow this digital playbook to make sure your profiles become a great modern-day business card.

Game Out Your Theater of Battle. Don’t say you have a digital strategy if you haven’t done a detailed analysis of where you are in the top search engines.—Google, Yahoo ! and Bing—and in the countries where you do business. Do you know what shows in social about you and your brand for the year? Have you mapped which natural allies and influencers support you? To win you’ve got to fly to your motivated base and build. If not, rivals can surge to the top and squash you alongside a bunch of inflammatory articles when you were 16 peddling a bike naked in the woods.

What Have You Done Lately? Look for two things in your analysis: Sentiment (sent) and temporality (temp). Sent is how much positive and negative data shows about you online. Temp is how long your positive or negative has been alive. What is the cycle? What are the actions that drive it? What has been the injection of new blood—meaning new content in the form of interviews, TV, radio, print, blogs online videos, Tweets, Facebook posts, or content marketing articles including you in which you have offered counsel and advice. Ramp up your quality content if your ratio is not running near perfection.

See Yourself On a Billboard In Times Square. Think you can throw money at social media to help yourself? Not if you don’t give your readers the same thrill as flying into space next to Richard Branson and Beyoncé. And, you don’t have to take it off to the Kim Kardashian level. What matters is substance and a good emotional charge.

Frame yourself in a way that inspires you so you can get others pumped, too. Ask: What is your vision for yourself? If your brand were a person and represented 10 things to people, what would they be? If you were able to get inside of someone else’s mind and describe yourself in the optimal way, what five or 10 key phrases would you use? Don’t worry about sounding egotistical, over-the-top or too perfect as you write them down. We’re talking about internal ideals, not how your final presentation might be.

Strategize like a Modern Day Sun Tzu. There are more than 50 strong digital assets that can rank well in the search engines — because they are credible. Twitter, Facebook, a LinkedIn account, and your own website with a blog are just a few. Which ones can you control or take hold of?

As you build your brand’s DNA and your fan base you can begin to send people to those assets. That will build traffic to them. The traffic gets recognized and rewarded and, in turn, build their authority within search results. You can also link to those assets, which provides value.

Consider that  half of marketers who invested at least a year in building their presence reported winning new partnerships, according to the 2014 Social Media Marketing Industry Report. To join them, it takes your commitment.

Make News Like A Guerrilla. To pump-up your pro profile without going flashy Vegas, discover niches where you are an expert, and comment there. You may only comment guerrilla style on second- and third-tier blogs in guest posts at first, or on specific articles people write, but if you begin to create credible comments that are liked, they will help you build your reputation. Once you show you can create interesting, thoughtful articles that bring traffic, you’ll prove you are valuable enough to write for first-tier blogs. Do it one great word at a time.

Pump Up Everyone’s Neurochemistry. Sixty-eight percent of marketers plan to use more blogging in their marketing, according to the latest Social Media Marketing Industry Report. To create posts that stimulate people’s hearts and minds to go viral, pay attention to writing you love. Be an archeologist of great prose and things that entertain, interest, and grab you like watching Oprah mud wrestle Gayle. Use these strategies to teach people incisive, efficient steps to master in the areas you know cold. Do it from a genuine place of giving, generosity and without any expectations and people will connect.

Don’t think you a good writer? Check out Stephen King’s On Writing or hire someone who can assist you. Put his techniques in action using your ideas in your own voice. What matters is to get started— and build.