Do It Yourself or Hire Someone

People wonder when they really need to get someone else to run their reputation online and when they can do it themselves.

Just everyday folks can run it themselves, it will take a little bit of time to do it, but most people just need to be aware of what they are doing and saying online to handle it.

But, it seems that those who are a little more out there, have become successful either in business or even promoting their favorite charity, start getting attacked. Most of these people should invest in some form of reputation management.

I tell people that if they really want to do this themselves they should invest one to two hours a day to managing their reputation. This includes the time to update their blog and/or social networks.

On top of this, they will need to invest time in learning what they need to do by getting trained on the best ways to do this.

If you don't have that kind of time and it is better to be spending that time working on whatever your activity is, then you need to hire someone.

Social Media Experience for Jobs

Quick note:

I have definitely heard more and more that people looking for someone to hire want them to have experience on Facebook, Myspace and more. They want to know that the people could do activities on the Internet if needed.

This also means that they go and look on the Internet for the people they are about to hire. They read the information that you have up there to see what you have done.

What are they going to find? When they read your updates and your notes to others is this what you want an employer to see.

While the Internet is where we can have fun and enjoy our lives, you must think of it as also a place that is basically putting all your actions and thoughts up in a newspaper for everyone to read.

Companies Must Watch Their Reputation

It is important that companies monitor what is said about them on the Internet.

There are two things they have to be aware of:

1) What customers are saying, including any possible upset customers
2) What employees are saying

For the first, it is important to be on the social networks so that you can respond to anyone who has had a bad experience with you or your product. You can offer to fix the problem or some other discount and this will ultimately be great for your reputation.

For the latter, you should make sure that your employees aren't giving away any secrets as well as monitor any disgruntle employees. These can be handled internally within your company, but your policy and handling must include the fact that social networking exists and people are allowed to say what they want.

It is a fine line and hard to work out, but we can help recommend policies to put in place (which should be reviewed by a lawyer as well).

Supporting a Charity

There are so many awesome charities out there to support that you really just have to pick one.

When you do, make sure that you make it widely known that you are. Some things you can do (which will help with your standing):

Create an account on the website of the charity

Find a related blog and offer to do a post about the charity for them (with a by line for yourself)

Publicize the charity on any charity social networks (if they are already there, join in the fun). Some sample charity hubs: http://www.change.org/ and http://www.causecast.org/

In other words, really support the charity and help them reach their mission, don't just give $5 and walk away.

This will help you but more importantly, help them.