DiD YoU hear the one aboUt YoU?

Ten steps to protecting your reputation online

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By Ted Janusz

o you know what your potential customers are learning about you online? Just because you dont hear it doesnt mean that people arent talking about you and your parking facility on the Internet. Those bits and pieces of information can sway others opinions of your company and facilities, which can then affect your business, even if whats being said is untrue! Follow these 10 steps to protect your reputation online and control whats out there about you.

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Step 1: Dont Do Anything Foolish online

An employee of a large, well-respected public relations firm was flying to Memphis, Tenn., to discuss (of all things) social media with FedEx, one of the firms largest clients. Unfortunately, this employee, who, as a social media expert should have known better, decided to Tweet his disdain for Memphis just as he exited the citys airport. Twenty minutes later, as he was entering the FedEx headquarters, all hell broke loose. A number of FedEx employees who followed this gentleman on Twitter saw his Tweet about Memphis and, as proud residents of said city, took offense. Within days, the story had spread around the globe, embarrassing the employee and the PR agency, and bringing into question FedExs wisdom for hiring a social media expert who assumed nobody was reading his tweets, say Jamie Turner and Reshma Shah, authors of How to Make Money With Social Media.

That article was then automatically distributed by the Bloomberg newswire to hundreds of websites. Once a (false) story about the new United bankruptcy rumor appeared on hundreds of sites, the Google newsbot mistook the storys popularity as confirmation of its importance and made the story even more prominent on the Google News site. The cycle continued. Stock traders immediately reacted, sending UAL stock into a tailspin that ended with a 76 percent drop in the companys value before trading was automatically halted. By that afternoon, United was able to deny the rumor, but UAL stock still closed down 10 percent on the day. Of course, all parties involved claimed that somebody else was responsible for the error. So you may ask, How can I find out what others may be saying about me online?

Step 3: Begin by Conducting a Google Search

Do what more than 1 billion people do each day: conduct a Google search. Start by searching your own name. When I recently searched Google using my name, on the first page of the results, I found links to: z My Google profile. z My website. z My LinkedIn account. z Articles I have written. z My Facebook account. z My Twitter account. z A speakers bureau to which I belong. z eBay University, for which I taught. What results do you get for a Google search on your name? What results do you get when you conduct a search for your parking operation?
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Step 2: Find out What others are Saying About You online
You might claim, But Id never do anything so foolish online! What can be said about you by others on the Internet can also have an immediate and drastic effect on your business. Consider this next example, shared by Michael Fertik and David Thompson, authors of Wild West 2.0: One morning in late 2008, a software glitch occurred, and an outdated article about United Airlines 2002 bankruptcy filing appeared in the Google News system as if it were new. The sudden appearance of a new-seeming article led a writer at the Income Securities Advisor newsletter to mention the possibility of a bankruptcy in his own article.
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Step 4: Create a Google Profile

Next, to insert the information that you want others to read about you in what is likely to be that first valuable piece of online real estate, create a free Google Profile, at profiles. google.com. For now, this applies to individuals only, but Google says businesses will be able to establish profiles in the near future. According to Google, your Profile is the way you present yourself on Google and across the Web. With your Profile, you can manage the informationsuch as your bio, contact details, and links to other sites about you or created by youthat people will see. At a minimum, your first name, last name, and photo will be public on the Internet. You can then provide a variety of additional information about yourself in your profile. You can also allow people to contact you without displaying your contact information.

Step 6: Sign up for Social Media Accounts

Why should you do this? Google will consistently rank these sites high, since they are some of the most popular sites on the Internet. If you dont already have them, sign up for LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Myspace accounts. For LinkedIn, Facebook, and Myspace, you can even create a URL that contains your name. For Twitter and YouTube, choose a username as close to your real name as possible.

Step 7: Create Your own Website

Another defensive posture you can take is to purchase a domain with your name, even if you dont have a current need for a website. If you discover online content with which you dont want to be associated, says Kristin Burnham, of CIO.com, you can use this site to build additional pages, all of which will rank high on a Google search of you, since they contain your name in the URL. But what should you do if someone does try to sully your reputation or that of your parking operation online?

Step 8: Play Great Defense Step 5: Set up a Google Alert

To stay continually up-to-date on what people are saying about you online, sign up for another free Google service called Google Alerts, at www.google.com/alerts. This is similar to the oldfashioned clipping services that would send you copies of articles from newspapers and magazines on topics of your choice. Google will do the same for you for the Internet, but for free. You determine how often you would like to be notified by e-mail when an article containing your chosen keywords appears on the Web. Sign up for Google Alerts for your organization, competitors, customers, and vendors to keep abreast of what is happening with your entire world online. Monitoring the Web wont prevent an online attack, says Jon Bernstein of BNET.com. If you fall victim, dont panic: Think before you respond. If a blogger has their facts wrong, correct himmost will quickly amend their posts. If the criticism is true, apologize using the same medium as the message. Your willingness to engage is likely to win over the skeptics. If it is an isolated incident and no one has replied, says Andy Beal, co-author of Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online, you might consider letting sleeping dogs lie. But if it is a serious attack, follow the lead of J. Patrick Doyle, president of the Dominos pizza chain. After two disgruntled employees caused an immediate uproar by posting a disgusting video supposedly exposing operations at their Dominos restaurant on YouTube, Doyle created and posted his own video on the site to tell his side of the story. Doyles video has received nearly 31,000 views. In most cases, people will remove the offending item from the blog or forum, says

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Bernstein. But if they dont, you can consider a more public approach. Be open, constructive, conciliatory, and willing to engage. Try something along these lines: Jim, Ive already spoken to you about this, and you know, what you are saying about me is inaccurate. I would like you to remove it. Meanwhile, if anyone out there reading this has any questions, this is how to reach me. We discussed the possibility of others posting malicious, untrue information about you or your parking facility on the Web during our session on social media at the 2011 IPI Conference & Expo. One attendee responded by saying, You may be surprised at the number of your fans who will also come to your rescue online to help you set the record straight.

Offer to blog and write articles about your specialist subjects for online publications that hit your current and future business associates. Earn a reputation as a player in your field. Get your name out there. A site you may want to consider to post your articles on the Internet is Scribd, at www.scribd.com. It costs nothing to share your articles there across the Web and is easy to do, simply by clicking the Upload button on the site. In fact, the articles that I have uploaded to the Scribd site have been accessed and read more than 21,000 times.

Step 10: Remember that the Internet is Not Your Grandfathers Newspaper
Finally, keep in mind that the media of today is quite different than it was in the time of Babe Ruth. According to Jeff Klinkenberg, writer for the St. Petersburg Times, Sports writers of his era usually hid character flaws from the public. In one spring training story told now, but not then, Babe Ruth ran naked through a railroad car while being chased by a woman with a butchers knife. Not only was the event not captured by a video camera for instant upload onto the Internet for the entire world to view, but one writer who observed the event even reportedly remarked, Theres another story were not going to cover. What is the new reality? According to Erik Qualman, author of Socialnomics, What happens in Vegas, stays on YouTube.
ted JAnusz is a professional speaker on the topic of Social Media for Baby Boomers, author, and marketing consultant. He is the author of the Social Media Marketing Guide for Parking Professionals, which is a free publication for IPI members and can be downloaded from www.parking.org. He can be reached at ted@ januspresentations.com or 614.440.7487.

Step 9: Play Good offense

The best way to manage your online reputation, says Amanda Berlin of Forbes.com, is to continue to generate positive search results that will rank as highly as possible in a Google search, to edge out anything negative that may appear on the list of search results. The goal is to get the negative results from appearing in the top 20 hits, says George Brown, Internet marketing architect. People rarely look that far down when they search for you. Crowd out anything negative that has been said about you online with as much positive information as you can, especially with content on popular, highly-ranked sites. In writing this article, I am attempting to follow some additional advice from Jon Bernstein: Be proactive.
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