In our various businesses we work with various sized companies – some huge ones and others tiny.
As we have grown from 2 people to 12 over the past 5 years, I am constantly aware of the potential pitfalls of growing too big. At 2 people we could make any change to our websites or strategies immediately – at 12 people we need to talk to various people in the group to make sure our changes match their plans, don’t ruffle any feathers, etc.
Big companies take a lot longer to get things done. This is something we need to avoid in the Reputation Management business. Time is everything. But sometimes it’s just inexcusable. Exxon’s oil spill in Alaska happened in 1989 but yet when you Google “Exxon” you still see, prominently displayed, negative results!
I can’t believe Exxon doesn’t care. Either they don’t know that you can use Reputation Management to promote your online reputation and cause these results to drop lower – or they know this, but they can’t get their act together.
So, if you’re listening Exxon Mobil … contact us and we’ll do the first month free! What we charge is chump change for you anyway!
This past Sunday afternoon Barry Schwartz hosted a mini-SMX in Jerusalem, Israel. Vanessa Fox joined him from the US as well. A short, relaxed version of SMX. Nice event – loved that it was so close to our office! It was good seeing my friends and colleagues from various places in Israel who made their way through the mountains to Jerusalem on what turned out to be a beautiful springlike day!
I spoke about Reputation Management Pitfalls and I will share the main points.
Note: when I say reputation management I mean getting negative results for your keyword out of the top 10 in Google.
1) Understand what your client really wants – it’s not always what they tell you at first. Dig deeper.
2) The goal is to “own” the top ten in Google and other search engines by working with Google – create and promote sites full of relevant content and get authoritative and/or topic-relevant links.
3) Don’t confuse Rep Management with SEO – it’s not a good idea to overdo the linking process – you will end up making your job more difficult – you will need to compete with yourself to move more sites into the top ten.
I will post the presentation on Slideshare soon.
I just read a blog post about Reputation Pruning (originally published in May this year). This is the practice of removing social media comments, picture tags etc. that can reflect negatively on your reputation. The author, Tyler Hayes, presents a point of view which I think is ridiculous.
In Tyler’s view social media is meant to be an extension of who you really are – and so altering any part of it is somehow dishonest.
My response is that people should put themselves in the best light.
- If you discover that your delicious lunch has left some food stuck between your teeth – take it out. I don’t care if it’s natural to have it there!
- If you start to grow hair on your ears – shave it off!
- If the kitchen at work has a terrible picture of you from the company picnic – take it down!
There is no moral obligation to let other people or situations show anything negative about you.