Recently in an article placed on Forbes Magazine titled “5 Reasons Why Your Online Presence Will Replace Your Resume in 10 years” a movement is occurring with companies looking at how you present yourself while you are off the clock. Companies want to know more than just who you are while you are there but can you carry forth their image outside of work.

The Social Media Breakdown:

1. The use of social networking sites is growing exponentially while the use of email is plummeting. Why is this important? Think about it. With the increased use of social media companies will use this as a way to communicate with you.
2. Traditional search options for jobs are just fading out. In order for people to remain a force to be considered in the world it is necessary that you have a way to draw people to you! What makes you stand apart or what accomplishments do you have that you can broadcast to the world that would make you different? Think outside the box and let others see it.
3. People aren’t sticking with the same job their entire life. It is important to treat your job as a springboard into something bigger and better. No one stays at the same company their whole life anymore. Job security is next to nothing and it has become second place for people to be laid off. So with that being said, brand yourself, stand out and use your social media to help do that.
4. Resume generators are the new cookie cutters. If you just google the phrase “Resume Generator” there are so many tools out there now that can spit out a hip, interesting, 2D piece of paper. There is nothing that it can say that can make you stand apart. I agree with this because I would rather show people my passion and experience rather than just tell them and you can do it – through a social media outlet.
5. Passion is everything to headhunters. What is your driving force? What makes you happy? What is helping you to achieve the next big thing? Think about it. No one wants a stick in the mud but people who are passionate about whatever and whoever. So make it happen. Be passionate and help yourself stand out on your facebook, twitter, or blog.

Overall, the article was great. If you are ahead of the ball and have already been doing these things and considering your online presence, kudos to you. But you haven’t yet – which is more often than not what the case is – take some time to invest in your internet presence. Just think of the nice cushy job that you could land right?

This is a great idea for several reasons. First of all it’s a pretty big win for the White House that they are utilizing social media to reach out to the people.

Only a small amount of people will get to actively participate in the digital hang out, but everyone is welcome to view it. All you have to do is find the White House’s google+ or youtube page and you’re in. Sounds simple enough, right?

A Big Plus For Google+

This is also a pretty big deal for Google itself. It’s not every day a social media platform gets invited into the Presidents home. As a matter of fact, it will be the first ever completely digital interview from the White House.

So often it feels like political figures are trying to shy away from social media. It’s pretty cool to see our current President trying to embrace it.

The chat is scheduled to last for 45 minutes and starts at 5:30pm. Will you take advantage of this unique chance to hang with the President? What would you ask him?

Take Mark Zuckerberg for example. Founder of Facebook, blah blah blah, but he is a great example of this because he actively uses his own product, thus promoting continual growth. I mean really, who else gets 476,806 “likes” to their newest Facebook status? Who even has that many friends anyway?

In contrast, while Google+ emerged to compete with the Facebook way of social networking, their growth may have already passed that “honeymoon” phase as far back as late July. This could be caused by several factors, including a confusing user interface or simple apathy toward another social networking site. Or, users could be asking themselves this question: If the Google management doesn’t even use Google+, why should I?

This question becomes even more relevant given Michael DeGusta’s recent correlational study of Google management and the activity on their Google accounts. The graphic below demonstrates the lack of use by everyone in Google management from the CEO to the Board Members to a Co-Founder—what’s more is that the Executive Director of Google doesn’t even have a Google+ account!

And, what may or may not be a coincidence, Steve Yegges, a frustrated Google employee accidentally (or maybe not?) sent out a 5,000-word rant about Google+ to all his 2,000 followers. What was originally intended to be a bitter diatribe about the product’s inefficiency and lack of forethought turned into a great big public display of un-affection for the product. The most interesting paragraph to me was when Yegges states,  “Facebook is successful because… there are hundreds or maybe thousands of different high-quality time sinks available, so there’s something there for everyone,” while “Google+ is a knee-jerk reaction, a study in short-term thinking.”

I do not intend to portray Steve Yegges as a traitor to his beloved Google country, but rather to show that perhaps Google+ has some things it needs to fix before it can become the social media marketing powerhouse that was initially envisioned. Besides, Yegges did indirectly say that “[he] really [does] want Google to be successful.” So, despite all his observed weaknesses in Google’s system, maybe there will come a day when even they will “eat their own dogfood.”

After all, Yegges did post his original rant on his Google+ account.

It doesn’t matter how good the customer service at your business is, haters gotta hate. Its a fact of life. Online review sites like Google Places and Yelp seem to be a great outlet for those haters so its almost inevitable that your business will suffer from negative reviews at some point. So what are you going to do about it?

The first step is to claim your page if you haven’t already. Most review sites allow you as the business owner to take control of your business’ page and update it with the most current information. After you’ve claimed your page many of these sites have started to include a handy feature that allows the owner of the business to respond publicly to negative reviews. Yelp will let you send a private message to the reviewer or respond publicly.

The last thing you want to do is get angry back at the reviewer. That won’t help anyone. Even if your negative reviewer is beyond help, use your response as a chance to show off to other potential customers. You can turn the negative review into something very positive. People will gain respect for you if they see you’ve taken the time to publicly apologize and correct whatever went wrong.

You may want to give some kind of peace offering, such as a free meal if they come back in and talk to you. Careful doing that though because giving out free stuff could be considered asking for more negative reviews. Try doing that through a private message.

The other tactic in dealing with negative reviews is to overwhelm the one or two negative reviews with positive ones. Most people will not even pay attention to a negative review if it is the minority. Don’t go the route of spam reviews, however. Customers can also detect when reviews are fake and overly praising and that can hurt more than help.

The best route to go in getting positive reviews is through your current customer base. Encourage all of your customers to review you online. Offer some kind of incentive or discount if they bring in a print out of their review. If you have a newsletter include reminders as the people reading the newsletter are most likely your dedicated customers who would give you a good review. Include a link to your Google Places or Yelp page on your website.

Reviews are a great blessing and curse when it comes to Local Search Engine Optimization. So do everything you can to turn them into a tool to generate more business rather than hurt it.

• Web Design – Everyone, no matter what kind of business they are, should invest in Web Design. This should be the very first step. If you spend all the money in the world on SEO, PPC, and Social Media but you have a poorly designed website you’re just shooting yourself in the foot. You may be able to drive a lot of traffic to your site, but if its ugly or hard to navigate those potential customers are not going to stay around long.
• Search Engine Optimization – This is the process of making changes on your website and building links around the web to make your website appear on top of the search results. Its a good idea for almost every business because most people looking for a business or a product will do a quick search in Google to find what they need. However, if your business is part of a very small niche maybe you don’t need to spend as much money here as there won’t be very much competition.
• Local Search Engine Optimization – This is becoming increasingly important because Google now includes local search results at the top for most searches. The catch is, you have to be a business with a physical location. If you are running a web design business out of your basement then you’re not going to be able to list your business in Google Maps and it probably wouldn’t do you any good if you did. For example, no one is going to get on Google Maps looking for Amazon.com because the location of their headquarters doesn’t matter. They are an online business.
• Social Media – Social Media is a powerful tool. Its a way to interact with your current customer base and if you are smart about it, its a way to get your current customer base to recommend you to their friends. But as popular as social media has become, its not the end all solution for every business. It works much better for businesses that connect with the younger generation. Although that is starting to change as more people from older generations are logging on to Facebook and Twitter.
• Reputation Management – Maybe you are an already well established and popular business. Most people find your website by searching for your name rather than generic search terms. If this is the case you will want to invest in reputation management. You want to make sure that when people search for your name they find pages that you have control over. For instance, you don’t want your official page “example.com” appearing right next to a website called “why example.com sucks.”
• Pay Per Click Advertising – If you’re willing to invest the money this is generally a good idea for everyone. If you are a local business you can target your ads to only show to local users. However if it might not be a good idea for you to continue your PPC if you’re paying $10 a click, and you’re only earning $5 from every click. Try it out and see if it will work for you.

So there are a lot of options out there. Think about how someone is going to search for your type of business. Do your customers frequently use social media? Are you a local business with a physical address? Do people find you exclusively through Google searches? Odds are you will want some combination of all of these services, but some smart planning can let you know where to focus your efforts on the right types of internet marketing as you figure out what internet marketing solutions are right for you.

You can't control what they say, but how will you let it affect your reputation?

A general definition of reputation management entails highlighting the positive information about yourself or your company and suppressing any negative information that may appear.  In a sense, you literally are managing your own reputation.

To start a reputation management campaign for your company, be sure that you are monitoring everything that is being said about you.  Comments, blog posts, and especially reviews are good options.  But unfortunately, when people have had a negative experience with a company, oftentimes they want others to know about it.  Herein lies the problem: these negative review pages may rank on the first page of a Google search—sometimes even above your company’s site itself.  This negative publicity could damage your business prospects.  Fortunately, there is also an antidote: social media.

Social media and reputation management go hand in hand.  When you have created several different pages created for your company through social media efforts, you can then optimize these pages to push these negative reviews off the first page.  Thus, this strategy actually involves the efforts of social media and SEO combined.

Finally, social media can leverage these optimized pages for an even better result for your company.  These pages can serve as sites to create promotions and discounts for customers who are willing to contribute a positive review for the company, thus furthering their image.

No company can directly control what is being said about them online, but this social media and reputation management combination will make positivity more prominent in the eyes of potential customers everywhere.

Despite your answer, on the other end, it takes a lot of work to uphold a positive brand image.  Companies and brands take a risk every time they choose to endorse an athlete or an organization because of what they might do for their reputation and brand image.  In addition, the people within a company must be sure to not give their customers any reason to defer their loyalty.  Here we will discuss two prime examples of both cases.

The effects of hurting your reputation: definitely not the best golfer anymore

First, Tiger Woods.  Many people are familiar with the November 2009 scandal and his Pandora’s Box of secrets that was opened as a result.  Although Woods and his then-family were most directly affected, the Tiger Woods and Nike brand took a hit in the public relations department as many people questioned continued use of the brand because of who represented it.  In addition, sponsors such as Gatorade and AT&T decided post-scandal that Woods was no longer who they wanted to promote their product.  The social media scene was filled with people posting their opinions about the scandal.  While this event was then seen as damaging several brands’ reputations, the reputation that Woods hurt the most was his own.

On the other hand, social media was used this week to severely hurt the reputation of Bob Parsons, the CEO of GoDaddy.com.  He took a trip to Zimbabwe, and there shot an elephant.  Several elephants were supposedly damaging a farmer’s crops for several nights, so Parsons decided to take the matter into his own hands.  As if this act wasn’t enough itself, Parsons took the liberty of posting a 4-minute video of the proceedings on his blog for the world to see.  This video shows several graphic images of Parsons with the dead elephant, as well as the grotesque scene of the community feasting after wards.

The results of Parsons' action on his company are soon to be seen

Because of this series of events, several large organizations have closed their account with GoDaddy.com, and they are encouraging others to do the same.  A company with an untarnished reputation at this point,

NameCheap.com, has already jumped on this opportunity (probably faster than the villagers on fresh elephant meat) to take any business from transfer accounts.  Parsons’ reputation is again in question (this isn’t the first time something strange has happened with the company), and his company may suffer as a result.

Think about yourself as both a consumer and a company executive.  Your overall brand loyalty is an interesting thing; it takes time to gain, but can be lost in a second.  But everything is easier when you maintain a good reputation.

Social Media + SEO

Reason #1:  Quality, relevant, inbound links–Any successful social media campaign can result in a big increase in the traffic to your site.  Because of these original links that are not bought or reciprocated, your site’s ranking will improve as a result of these efforts.

Reason #2: Reputation Management–Having a Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and/or Digg account (among many others) gives people an opportunity to talk about you, your company, and your product or service.  And when potential customers see other people talking, they are more likely to act on their curiosity.

Also, many of these social media sites already rank well on the search engines.  This can be great for you if people are talking positively about you; however, this can also hurt you because this makes you more susceptible to negative comments being made about your brand image.  Just be careful with your moderation of these outlets, and they could work very well for you.

Reason #3: Social Media site ranking–If you are having trouble getting your new site to rank, try ranking it on a social media site instead.  Of course, this is not better than having your own site rank; however, it can be a good head start when you are thinking that it will take some time for your site to rank without social media.

If you have developed your site but have not spent time building up credibility and authority through back linking and directory submissions then that just means that it would be relatively easy for another person to come along with a negative site about you and optimize it so that it outranks your own.

Additionally, another reason to work on ranking your keywords is so that someone can’t come along and create back links “for you” that optimize your site for a negative keyword. If you sell cars you might choose the search term “local quality cars”. If the authority for that is low then it would be easy for another person to try and rank you for “worst local car dealer.” If that happens then you have become another victim of Negative SEO.

This all means just take care of this all upfront and protect your investment – and reputation – by SEOing or having someone do SEO for you. However, if this has happened to you, all is not lost. There are many SEO firms out there that can help you with the optimization of your site as well as launching a reputation management campaign.

What I mean by change your perspective is you have to realize that the internet is nothing but a popularity contest. If someone has said something defamatory about you or your company you simply have to become more popular than they are. I recommend three ways to focus your effort.

1. Optimize your site – This is probably the most important of any of the steps. You should look at your website and make sure that it is compliant with all the best practices for on-site SEO. Once you have done that you should spend sometime creating notoriety for your website – primarily from back-links to your website (however other SEO practices should be used as well).

This will have a double effect, it will help your site rank better – which is nice regardless of anything else- and you will eventually outrank the negative results which will nullify the slander.

2. Set up positive content sites – This one will take the most time, but is your ultimate solution. Essentially what you do here is you create several new websites or blogs that you populate with worthwhile content. In the midst of this content will be positive information on you or your company. Once you have the sites up and running you essentially repeat everything you did in the first step for each of these sites.

What you have done now is created a network of positive supporting sites that people will see when they search for you. Additionally it is likely that this mass of sites has now taken and pushed the slander way down in the search rankings (ideally off of the first page).

3. Use sites that are already popular – This one is the easiest but will have the shortest lasting impact. Remember how I said that the internet is a popularity contest? Well rather than spending time trying to make yourself cool, you can just utilize one of the kids who are already cool.

Find a high-traffic, high-credibility website and get your information on there. For instance you can put content on Facebook or YouTube for reputation management, because these site will automatically return results on the first page. Moving beyond the obvious, you can find a popular blog and offer to be a guest author for them. If you use your name and a link in your post then that blog has become part of your positive content network.

Obviously, this is a basic walk through, but this gives you a general idea what you would be looking at doing should you need to engage in your own reputation management campaign. Should you feel completely overwhelmed by all the work ahead of you (I would, after all, lets be honest, this is A LOT of work) then there are many internet marketing companies out there that can manage an online reputation management campaign for you… worry free.