Social media presents a unique opportunity
for anyone to develop a personal or business reputation to further their
careers or boost sales and profits. The key is understanding how to be
successful in leveraging the tools of the social Web to effectively
build your online reputation so you’re appropriately positioned to meet
your goals.
Following are 10 ways you can be
successful in developing your own online reputation, so you can achieve
your short and long term objectives rather than waste time:
1. Be aware.
Continually listen to conversations
happening across the Web related to your career or business and learn
from the content you read, listen to, or view online. Social media
success depends as much on listening as it does on publishing.
2. Be focused.
Define your niche and focus the majority of
your social media participation on conversations and content related to
that area of focus. A focused brand is more powerful than a broad
brand.
Read The Power of Owning a Word to better understand the concept of brand contraction. Always
lead with your strengths on the social Web and be consistent in your content and conversations in order to successfully build your online reputation.
3. Be authentic.
Your social media participation is useless
if your content and conversations read like corporate rhetoric or a
promotional brochure. Instead, be real and be human. Imagine you’re
speaking with your audience in person rather than online and adjust your
content and tone to match your target audience’s needs and expectations
for you based on
your brand promise.
4. Be trustworthy.
Honesty
is an essential part of building your online reputation using the tools
of the social Web. Transparency isn’t just a buzz word, it’s a
strategic imperative, which should apply to your social media
participation as well as all other aspects of your career or business.
The content you publish on the social Web
must be useful and meaningful to your target audience or there is no
reason for them to read it or start a dialogue with you about it.
Furthermore, if your content doesn’t add value to your audience’s lives,
they won’t talk about it and share it with their own audiences. In
other words, there will be little opportunity for your content to spread
across the Web, and the growth of your online reputation will be
limited.
6. Be “non-self-promotional.”
No one will want to read your content or
interact with you on the social Web if your content and conversations
read like a marketing pitch. Follow the 80-20 rule of marketing and
spend 80% or more of your time in social media activities that are
not
self-promotional and only 20% or less on activities that are
self-promotional. When you do want to directly try to get more exposure
to build your online reputation, you can do so without annoying other
people. For some ideas, read
5 Steps to Generate Blogger Buzz about You or Your Business.
7. Be accessible and responsive.
An important part of building your online
reputation via social media participation is understanding that it’s not
all about you. Instead, you need to spend a great deal of time
acknowledging other people on the social Web in order to build a
relationship with them. In other words, they need to understand that you
care about them, too. You need to respond to questions, comments on
your blog, tweets, and so on.
8. Be reciprocating.
You can’t expect people to reach out to you
and share your content on the social Web and not return the favor. If
someone engages with you on your
blog, Twitter, Facebook or another social Web destination, then you can’t ignore that person —
just as you wouldn’t ignore someone in a face-to-face situation. For
example, you also need to leave comments on other people’s blogs, share
their content on Twitter and Facebook, and more. You can’t operate in a
silo on the social Web and expect to be successful. You can read
12 Tips to Get the Most out of LinkedIn for some ideas to get you started.
9. Be uncontrolling.
The thought of giving up control and
letting your content, conversations and name spread across the Web can
be frightening. However, without the sharing of content and interactive
dialogue that happens on the social Web, your online reputation cannot
develop. You have to be willing to give up control and let people share
and talk about you and your content in order for your online reputation
to grow. Don’t worry about negative buzz about you, your brand, or your
business. There is always a way to react to
negativity on the social Web.
