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I can’t think of another time in history when your reputation was so important. Especially if your success relies on your reputation, as so many businesses and organizations do.

With the explosion of content on the web and then enhanced by social media, your reputation can spread quicker than ever. And the web isn’t necessarily fair – your reputation can spread for good or bad and what’s actually true isn’t a concern.

If your success relies on your reputation, then it’s important that you manage your online reputation with great care.

Be in the know

You should actively monitor your online reputation. Regularly search for your name or business name to see what context it’s being mentioned within. Set up tools and alerts to notify you when your name is mentioned and keep an eye on those at least every few days. For more tools to help you build and monitor your reputation, see Andrea Richeson’s article.

Join the conversation

If you do notice your name mentioned, make your best effort to join the conversation. If someone wrote a bad review about your business, address the review promptly and in the most professional way possible. Never get in an online argument with a customer – it will only hurt your reputation. If someone says something nice about you, make sure you acknowledge the comment. If your name is mentioned in a blog post, comment on the article – it will let people know you’re listening and you care.

Encourage online feedback

If you’re like most professionals, you come in contact with many people on a daily basis, both offline and on. Encourage those that you interact with to mention you online – especially if you’ve provided them with a great experience. Ask clients for reviews, encourage readers to comment on your blog posts, and politely ask for a re-tweet or a Facebook share every now and then (most people say it helps if you don’t overdo it).

Mind your search engine optimization (SEO)

If people are searching for your product or service, chances are they will go to search engines first. This is where your online reputation can really help or hurt your business. If you don’t practice good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) on your website, then the comments of other people will show up first. Chances are, you’d rather let potential customers hear what you have to say before they read the comments of others. Follow SEO best practices so your own content isn’t lost in all the noise.

The conclusion to managing your online reputation is to stay involved. Actively monitor mentions of your brand and join in when others talk about you. Improving your online reputation will help your business grow and you’ll have more connections (and potentially more customers) before you know it

It’s easy to look at a complex problem like online reputation management, get intimidated, and put off addressing it until later. My advice: just jump in and realize that you will probably need to fail some, in order to grow. Once you take the initial leap, you’ll find that there are many small tactical issues you can address, as well as larger strategic efforts, both of which have great benefit in the long run.  The real secret to success in managing your online reputation is to above all things, listen to your audience. Then, try out new ways to continue the conversation, learn quickly from your mistakes, and make adjustments based on your experience.

Step Two: Take an Inventory, Set Realistic Goals, & Make a Plan

Take an inventory of what social media efforts you have going on, the resources devoted to them, and then set realistic goals about managing content and conversations.   There’s no need to take on every social media platform at first. Before you decide what direction to go, check out  Carly Smith’s previous Stylesheet article to see examples of effective Social Media Efforts & resources.

After you’ve inventoried your social media efforts, make goals that are practical and match your business objectives. Ask yourself:

• Where are your key customers active online and how many of those social media channels can you feasibly address?
• What’s the timeline for fully participating in these channels?
• How often are the channels monitored and how often is the content updated?

After setting some reasonable goals, it’s time to figure out how to get there. Leonard Bernstein said, “To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.”  We all have limited time, so a plan is a way to give some structure to the chaos. Note that the plan shouldn’t ever be considered complete. A good plan is flexible; it keeps up with changes in resources, knowledge, and available staff time and toolset. The plan should include some very clear policies about:

• What the expectations are regarding acceptable tone, language, and topic, both for in-house staff and for the audience.
• Who in your organization is in charge of conversations with your audience.  Social media efforts should be managed with as much care as traditional avenues of communication. The speed with which social media can spread good and bad feedback is shockingly fast. Be sure to place your social media efforts with  people who are well-versed in customer care.
• How to address both positive and negative feedback. Both positive and negative feedback offer an important way to communicate with your audience and let them know you’re listening. This piece of the policy should address not just the approach one takes with language and customer care, but also the speed with which questions and complaints will be addressed.

Step Three: Monitor Your Efforts

There are a lot of complex tools available to monitor your social media efforts, but at first it’s probably best to keep it simple.  See the examples below for free, easy-to-use tools that will get you started:

• Google Alerts – http://www.google.com/alerts
  It’s free and easy to use. Simply enter sets of search terms, tweak a few settings, and use a RSS reader like iGoogle to monitor the RSS feeds. You can have the results emailed to you, but managing your inbox might get tricky fast.
• Also, use iGoogle to view the RSSfeeds from your social media channels, and those of your competitors.
• Twitter advanced search – https://twitter.com/#!/search-advanced
  After completing a simple search on Twitter, you’ll see the link for advanced search. The advanced search tool allows you to set up complex searches and save them.
• Facebook Insights – http://www.facebook.com/help/search/?q=insights
  A free metrics dashboard from Facebook that helps you analyze trends within user growth and demographics, use of content, and creation of content.

Step Four:  Learn & Iterate

Everyone can benefit from a little survey of best practices, a little research into what other organizations are doing and what lessons they’ve learned.  I’ve included below a few of the places I go for inspiration.

Resources for Further Reading:

• Jeff Levy of the EPA is a smart, funny, down-to-earth leader in the federal government’s social media efforts. Check out his twitter feed, @levyj413, and the EPA’s social media policies at: http://www.epa.gov/epahome/socialmedia.html
• HowTo.gov – http://www.howto.gov/social-media
  Advice and overviews from social media experts in the federal government
• Whole Foods Market, Inc. has very successful global and also store-level social media efforts. They are a great example of using social media channels to provide excellent customer service. See how the engage their audiences; check out their twitter and facebook accounts at: http://wholefoodsmarket.com/twitter and http://wholefoodsmarket.com/facebook/
• Social Media Examiner is a one-stop shop for current, thoughtful information: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com
• The Harvard Business Review Blog Network – http://blogs.hbr.org/samuel/2011/11/social-media-fail-airline-style.html
  The HBR Blog Network offers several short, smart, birds-eye views in to social media best practices, with several excellent examples of organizations doing it well, and some spectacular failures. Search for “social media” on this site to see several though-provoking articles.

The Takeaway

Everyone is learning about social media on the fly. The tools and the approaches are in rapid flux. To succeed in building great conversations with your audience, you’ll need to keep an eye on your primary business goals and key audiences, and remain flexible and adaptable in your approaches.