Companies, Clients and Colleges Are Googling You. Now What?

Let’s face it: how you’re perceived can have a major impact on your life -- from business meetings and interviews to social gatherings and first dates. There’s a reason Dale Carnegie’s 1936 classic "How to Win Friends and Influence People" became an instant best-seller and pioneered a trend of chart-topping self-help books. Cultivating a positive personality and reputation can be a major advantage, and it’s become even more essential in the digital age.

It wasn’t always like that. Over 100 years ago, perception still mattered but the audience was different. People lived in farms or small towns and did business with people they had interacted with their whole lives. How they treated family members and neighbors was the ultimate reputation litmus test. But as people flocked to cities, they suddenly faced the challenge of doing business with complete strangers. The dawn of corporate America called for a new kind of employee -- one who thrived in social interactions with a ready smile and a confident handshake. Companies wanted likeable salespeople with winning personalities who could represent the company in external meetings, bring in new business and help drive sales.

Your Reputation Today

Today’s model employee not only has a likeable personality, but also looks great online. With a professional online presence, you lend credibility to the organization you work for and can even broaden the company’s external sales funnel through your online network. Imagine if you’re a hiring department -- all else being equal, wouldn’t you rather hire someone with an impressive digital presence over someone with no presence at all?

It’s not all great news though. Employees with a tendency to badmouth or post questionable things online are seen as huge liabilities. You never know when an employee’s dumb tweet or angry tirade can turn into a PR nightmare. Remember the woman who lost her job over the AIDS tweet? What about the woman who lost her pizza job before she even started? That’s why 75 percent of hiring departments are required to look applicants up online and 70 percent say they have rejected applicants based on what they’ve found. It’s just too risky to hire the person with a questionable or negative online presence.

Even colleges and universities are taking this seriously. With scholarships and top-tier acceptance rates as competitive as they are, admissions officers and coaches are looking for any reason to drop a prospective student. Students are losing scholarships over dumb tweets and getting rejected based on what admissions officers find online.

What Can You Do?

If companies, clients, and colleges care so much about your online presence, what can you do to ensure yours portrays you in the best light? Sure, you can delete your questionable content and watch what you say online. You can fix your privacy settings and try to disappear. But is that really the answer? That’s like learning that people care about what you say and deciding to keep quiet to avoid saying anything bad.

Your online presence is one of the best ways to build identity capital and invest in your future. Don’t throw that opportunity away by avoiding the digital sphere. Instead, focus on maintaining an active, positive online reflection of your personal brand.

There is no quick and easy way to build a strong personal brand. The first step is laying the groundwork for success. Be clear about your personal brand. Determine your goals, define your values, and flesh out an effective strategy. Put in a little extra thought now so you can cruise efficiently later.

Think about your target audience. What value can you provide them online? Can you distill your expertise into digestible digital content like articles, videos, or slideshows? Do a little research on others in your industry and see how you can improve upon their online offerings. Armed with an effective and adaptable content marketing strategy, you’ll have the right tools to accelerate the process.

Once you have a tangible brand and a content strategy, you can choose the right online properties to publish that content and grow your audience. A personal website and an arsenal of social profiles will give you a nice start but make sure you’re optimizing everything for maximum SEO value.

Finally, make an effort to stay consistent. Anything of value takes time but growing your personal brand doesn’t have to be a full time job. There are several tools you can use to help you along the way, but the best advice I can give is to schedule time into your calendar. Just as gym sessions and diets don’t happen by themselves, your personal brand won’t develop if you don’t make it happen. If you think you’d benefit from a gentle kick in the pants, try my 28 Day Online Reputation Challenge.

Your digital footprint is a valuable asset. Don’t let the opportunity slip by -- your online presence could be the difference between getting that job, earning new business, and landing that first date.

A version of this article appeared originally on Entrepreneur.com. Image credit: Hero Images | Getty Images

4 Tips to Supercharge Your Company’s Online Presence

These days, a business’s online brand is just as important as what happens offline.

Your company’s digital presence can be a deal maker or a deal breaker. An uncared-for brand turns consumers away in frustration. But an all-star brand can attract leads, expand your reach, increase brand awareness, and ultimately boost sales.

Even if you get referrals through word-of-mouth, you can bet those folks are going to search your business online and interact with it digitally.

Most companies don’t handle these interactions effectively. And even fewer do so in a way that promotes the company’s brand positively and improves the customer experience. That means that a stellar online brand and active digital presence can be a huge competitive advantage.

Let’s explore four ways to supercharge your company’s online brand.

Look Beyond Facebook

Sure, Facebook is still the global giant when it comes to social networks, but it’s not the most effective way to expand your reach. Growing your audience organically is an iterative process. It requires testing on other social channels, which means you have to actually be on other social channels. To learn more about this, sign up for the upcoming Score workshop.

LinkedIn and Twitter are obvious choices. If you haven’t done so already, go ahead and create a company page. If kept active, this will help you build brand credibility and connect with potential investors. There are loads of social channels out there so be discriminating as you choose which ones to tackle. Your business doesn’t need to be on every one, but it does need to be on more than one.

Start a Blog

There’s a reason content marketing has exploded over the last several years. B2B marketers that use blogs receive 67% more leads than those that do not. And marketers who have prioritised blogging are 13x more likely to enjoy positive ROI.

Think about it — popular content is a terrific way to attract customers. If someone Googles a question about your industry and your awesome content comes up, that’s a valuable entry point. Offer consumers high quality content on a regular basis, and they’ll come to trust you as an authoritative source of information in your industry. That association is worth its weight in gold.

Respond to Feedback, Both Positive and Negative

Negative feedback can be scary. But responding to negative feedback is all about taking responsibility. If someone complains about your business on social media, that’s bad. But left ignored, that complaint can be even worse.With a quick response, you can diffuse the situation, give context to the complaint, and even win a customer back. Remember to remain polite and see if you can explain how you’re going to remedy the situation in the future.

Don’t be afraid to respond selectively to positive feedback to. You don’t want to be seen as overly eager or arrogant, but the right comment can solidify the loyalty a customer feels with your brand. If a customer loves a particular aspect of your company, you can use that as an opportunity to generate excitement about something new in the pipeline.

Improve Online Presence for Management

People are going to look up your business and they’re also going to look YOU up. Consumers want to know the entrepreneur behind the curtain, and a quick Google search is the easiest way to do that. If your online brand doesn’t match your business, you’ll reduce the impact of your brand message. Take steps to improve your own online presence and ensure that your digital footprint helps to promote your company, rather than detract from it. Even if your search results aren’t particularly negative, there are some convincing reasons to build up your presence proactively.

Closing Note:

At the end of the day, your potential customers are just regular people and so are you. Appeal to their humanity, be personable, and show that you’re human too.

A version of this article appeared originally on Score New York City.

7 Essential Tools for Easily Building Your Personal Brand Online

If you’re like the average business owner, your online presence doesn’t reflect the hard-earned reputation you’ve built in real life. There may even be a dramatic difference between your business’s digital footprint and your own.

“I can’t worry about all that,” you say. “I have a business to run.”

But your customers aren’t solely interested in your business. They want to know the people that run it. When potential customers look you up online, are they earning your trust or turning away in frustration? Is your online brand gaining you business or losing it?

Personal branding doesn’t have to be a full time job. Here are 7 tools that make it easy to monitor and improve your online brand.

1. Google Alerts.

You cannot afford to miss out on conversations about your brand.

It’s nice to know when you get a shout out, and proactive monitoring could mean the difference between effectively handling a crisis and completely dropping the ball.

The bottom line is you need to be the first to know when you’re mentioned online.

Craft a Google alert alert to stay on top of your mentions or those of your competition. Decide how often you want to receive the updates and the rest will handle itself.

2. Canva

Canva makes digital designing a cinch. Want to build a custom Twitter header or a high quality slideshow? Maybe a bespoke Pinterest pin or a beautiful Infographic?

The sky's the limit with Canva and you don’t need any design skills. With so many awesome templates, you can strategize visual elements and colors without stressing about the quality of the result.

Once you’re happy with a template, you can use it again and again to deliver visual content that your audience can come to expect and enjoy.

Canva is free with the opportunity to buy some templates and features for $1 each. I’ve spent a few dollars here and there but you can develop amazing designs without spending a cent.

3. BrandYourself.

If you’re looking to improve your chances of getting hired or getting leads, then you’ll want to keep an eye on your online presence. And BrandYourself’s DIY tool is the one you’ll need.

With BrandYourself’s tool, you can track the movement of your search results over time. You’ll be notified when things change, get tips on how to improve your online properties to be SEO-friendly, and learn what to do to help things rise in search results over time.

The free DIY tool lets you track three online profiles while the $99 per year subscription gives you unlimited ability to track and improve your search results.

If you’re going to spend any money improving your online brand, BrandYourself’s DIY tool is the way to go.

4. LinkedIn & Twitter Notifications

LinkedIn and Twitter are powerful networks with huge opportunities to grow your organic audience and get more eyeballs on your content.

Don’t let those opportunities slip through the cracks. Take a few minutes each day to keep tabs on your notifications.

In five minutes, you can quickly respond to questions, thank people for sharing your content and follow up on potential leads.

Make a special effort to engage with people who like your content. If they took the time to read or comment on your article, you owe them a response. And who knows -- an innocent conversation today could lead to more business tomorrow.

5. Track Twitter mentions.

Staying current with your notifications is good, but consistently tracking your Twitter mentions takes it to the next level. With this kind of data, you can revisit your list at any time to see who mentions you the most and interact with the users that deserve your attention.

I like to keep track of this info using IFTTT, an internet service that lets you automate actions relating to your online properties.

The service works like an input/output machine. If X happens, then do Y.

I made my own IFTTT recipe (feel free to use it!) that adds a row to a Google Spreadsheet every time I’m mentioned on Twitter.

Use it to find the people who consistently mention you so you can interact with them from time to time. You’ll be pouring fuel on an already crackling fire.

6. Comment alerts.

If you publish blog content on your website, then you should keep tabs on your comments.

People might be asking you follow-up questions or giving you great feedback, but you’d never know if you don’t receive notifications.

A commenter who gets a response is much more likely to interact with your content again in the future. It makes sense, right? Getting ignored sucks and getting a response feels great.

It’s incredibly easy to get comment alerts. If you’re using Squarespace, then you’ll automatically get notifications about new comments via email.

If you’re using WordPress, go into Settings —> Discussion, and check off “Email me whenever anyone posts a comment.”

7. Google Analytics.

Have a website? Then go ahead and install Google analytics right now. With just a few clicks, you can track the most important growth metrics and compare them to previous months. Find out how many people are viewing your content, and determine which pages are the most popular. 

See what social profiles refer the most traffic, find out where in the world your users come from, and learn what pages are causing people to bounce.

The amount of insight is incredible. The challenge is to take that data, figure out the key takeaways, and determine how you can improve the user experience.

Originally published on Entrepreneur.com 

Find Your Social Media Influencers & Make the Most of Them

Social networks are a wild and noisy place. With 350,000 tweets sent every minute, it can be difficult to break through all that noise. Social media influencers can help.

The influencers are the power users. They are the experts and thought leaders with huge followings and trusted opinions.

These people are sharing content likes yours every single day. There’s no reason why your content should go unnoticed. Let’s take advantage of these influencers’ audiences and make them work to our benefit.

Define Your Influencers

Image credit: yourstory.com

First, we’ll need to define our influencers.

One obvious way to define influencers is by the size of their audience, but we all know how deceiving that can be. Instead, I prefer to choose influencers who are consistently active, have a high level of engagement for niche topics, and have a dedicated and growing group of followers.

Sound difficult? Luckily we don’t need to reinvent the wheel here.  

Find Your Influencers

Image credit: apollotarget.com

I like using RightRelevance to find my influencers because it makes this process incredibly easy. RR uses a pagerank-like algorithm that assigns a rank/score to influencers based on topical contribution and expertise. Just plug and play.

Open up RightRelevance and type in a category that’s related to your industry or niche.

For me, I’ll try 'personal branding.'

Add it as a saved channel so you can refer back to it later.

Then click the influencers tab and decide whether you want to filter by people or organizations. I want to target individuals, so I’ve clicked the “Person” option.

Finally, decide if you want to tailor it even further by location. Then scroll down and find the influencers that interest you. Make a list so you can revisit it later.

Don’t forget to switch to a new category and repeat the process. I’ve already used “personal branding,” but I could also try “reputation management” and “content marketing.

PS: If you’ve been active on Twitter for a while, check out your analytics page and find the top mention over the last few months. You might find an interesting trend.

Engage With Your Influencers

Image credit: dyanmiccloudsrv.com

Influencers want the same thing you do -- engagement.

So give it to them!

Interact with their content and participate in the conversations they start online. Share their articles, retweet their posts, and comment on their blog posts. The goal should be to become a genuine part of that person’s community.

The point is to get yourself noticed. With a little luck, the influencers you target will interact with you, retweet your content, and might even link back to you in an upcoming article.

Get Influencers to Share Your Posts

Remember, these influencers are already sharing content just like yours. The key is to get them to notice your content over someone else’s.

Reach out to them -- via email, Twitter, etc. -- and share your recent article.

Make it short and sweet. Link to your article, explain why they might be interested and thank them. Get in and get out. The shorter the better.

When I shared 12 Twitter Tools to Take Control of Your Online Reputation, I emailed and/or tweeted people from every single company on that list. I got retweets from Canva, Buffer, RiteTag and a handful of others. Their enthusiasm completely catapulted my article without much of my own additional effort. Totally worth the 10-15 minutes.

Maintain Relationships with Your Influencers

Now that you have a list of influencers, make a point to revisit it. Reach out and interact with these people from time to time. Stay on top of their latest blog posts using a tool like Hootsuite Syndicator or Google Alerts.

These simple gestures are a great way to stay on their radar and show the value you place on the relationship. With enough social media influencers on your side, you’ll be well on your way to becoming an influencer in your own right.

3 Ways to Get Influencers To Share Your Content

Wouldn’t it be great if you could get other bloggers, industry influencers, and relevant companies to share your articles for you?

It’s not as hard as you think.

The key is providing a compelling reason to share your content.

And I’d argue that the easiest way to do this is using flattery. Everybody loves compliments, right? If someone wrote an awesome article about you, wouldn’t you want to share it around? I know I would.

With that in mind, here are three ways you can craft your content to encourage others to share it for you. As you write your next article, try one of the following strategies:

 

Quote Experts In Your Field

This is a no-brainer. Email a ton of the best people in your industry and ask them the same question. For example, I might ask, “What are your favorite non-traditional social profiles for SEO and branding purposes?” My article could then be something like 11 Experts Share Their Favorite Non-Traditional Social Profiles.

Make sure to explain the kind of article you’re pulling together in your email and make it clear the kind of names you’d be featuring. Don’t be bashful if you already have someone big onboard -- it’s more likely to convince others to submit their answers too.

The genius of this strategy is that everyone you quote has some skin in the game. Every time one of those experts shares the article, you’re expanding your organic reach and earning industry credibility along the way. Just remember to follow up after you’ve published to alert them to the finished product.

Loz James at WordTracker has a great example where he quotes 33 SEO experts on their link building tactics.

NOTE: If you’re not getting any bites on your emails, you can literally just dig through the blog posts of experts in your field and find the quotes that tell your story.

Highlight Awesome People or Organizations

Everyone loves to be complemented. Find some people or companies worth shouting out and give them some space in your article. Explain what makes them stand out and link to their website (everyone loves backlinks).

The benefits here are fairly obvious. Companies are likely to return the favor with a retweet or a share.

When I shared 12 Twitter Tools to Take Control of Your Online Reputation, I emailed and/or tweeted people from every single company on that list. I got retweets from Canva, Buffer, RiteTag and a handful of others. Their enthusiasm completely catapulted my article without much of my own additional effort.

Piggyback Off Someone Famous

This is a fun way to shout out someone famous and piggyback off their existing success.

I might write something like 11 Ways Canva Has Completely Changed My Career. I can expect a bit more traffic thanks primarily to the name recognition, but more importantly, it might convince Canva to share my content. They’d love to have a glowing article like that shared around.

The best part about this tactic is that the person or company you shout out doesn’t have to be directly involved in your industry. In fact, you might intrigue even more people if they aren’t related. Wouldn’t you be interested in 7 Tips From Geico’s Gecko on Improving Your Online Reputation? 

(Hmm... maybe I'll write that next.)

No, Geico’s Gecko hasn’t written anything about fixing online reputations -- don’t quote me on that -- but he has plenty of fun quotes out there from ads and whatnot. By pulling insights from those commercials and relating them back to online reputation, I can make a fun article that still gives readers important lessons about online reputation management. No guarantees on getting the lizard to share your content though…

Closing Note:

When seeking extra attention for your articles, it can be tempting to use crazy titles and even crazier content. But remember, it’s important to keep your blog in line with your brand. It would be pretty disappointing if your next article blew up but didn’t quote portray you the way you wanted. Get creative but don’t forget that you’re building your online reputation along the way.

How to Increase Blog Traffic

Sure, an active blog can increase your website’s authority, but we don’t publish written content in a vacuum. We want other people to read our work, like it, share it, and link back to it again and again. These social signals and backlinks are a critical part of improving search results and the way we’re perceived online.

So how do we drive more traffic back to our content?

Here are some of my favorite strategies:

Social Sharing

Perhaps the most obvious way to get people to see your content is to share it on social media. Post it on Twitter with a couple of popular hashtags. Share it with your connections on LinkedIn. Give it a chance to shine on Google+ and Facebook.

I suggest that you share a combination of your own articles along with those of peers in your industry. That way, you don’t come across as wholly self-promotional and people come to respect you as a source of interesting aggregated information.

My other suggestion is to set up an automated direct message on Twitter using Crowdfire. My direct message thanks new followers for following me and then points them in the direction of my most recent article or latest project It’s a good way to get traffic from people who have already shown an interest in your content.

Repurpose Your Content

I give an in-depth look at repurposing content on Day 17 of this challenge. To reiterate briefly, the idea is to take all your hard work and repackage it for another audience on another platform.

You can turn your article into a slideshow, use the content to answer questions on Quora, or republish on another publishing platform like LinkedIn Pulse or Medium. As you explore these options, try to remember to link back to your original article. You’ll direct more traffic back to your website and encourage people to read/learn more.

Comment on Blog Posts

Bloggers see a lot of comments, but the truly illuminating and remarkable ones are few and far between. If you can keep your comments consistently high quality, you’ll get the attention of the author and other viewers as well. This is an easy way to increase your visibility and start the networking process for guest posts in the future.

Your comments on industry blogs can also impact your reputation in a negative way. Be careful not to link to your articles too much -- the last thing you want is to become known as spammy and self-promotional.

Share in Communities

Sharing your article in communities is different than just sharing it on social media. Have you ever explored those LinkedIn Groups? What about Google+ Communities? If not, you’re missing out on a big opportunity to get your content in front of an engaged audience in your industry.

The nature and style of your conversations are going to depend on 1) the specifics of your online brand and 2) the social norms of the social network.

For specific examples of starting conversations within social media communities, read Day 24 of this challenge.

Paid Promotion

Paid promotions can be an incredibly useful supplement to a solid ORM campaign. You can earn engagement on Twitter, grow a wider audience of followers on Facebook, and send more traffic to your articles thanks to Stumbleupon or Outbrain. For an in-depth look at paid promotional campaigns, check out Day 25.

Bonus: Explore Your Own Ideas!

Have you thought about sending out a regular newsletter to your email contacts? 

What about sending direct messages to your connections on LinkedIn? 

How about this one...

When’s the last time you took a good look at your email signature? Chances are, it’s been a while.

Most people send out dozens of emails every day. Your email signature can be a terrific way to unobtrusively get important information to people who matter in your professional and personal lives.

Consider adding a line that encourages people to visit your blog or connect with you on social media. For reference, I’ve included what mine looks like here. I’ve recently added Bitly links on each hyperlink so I can keep track of how many clicks I’m earning. 

Have some other fun ideas for driving traffic? Let me know in the comments :)