Online reputations today are almost entirely built using social media. Just a few years ago, a simple website and maybe a newsletter were all that was required. Today? It’s all about social media outreach and management and this is the emphasis of our book “DIY Reputation Management.”

The good news is that it’s even easier for just about anyone to harness their good online reputation to build a successful business or career.

The bad news is that it’s easy to get caught up in details and waste a lot of time rather than stay focused on your goals for your reputation management.

The following six steps will give you a framework for building a successful social media reputation, no matter your goals for doing so.

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More and more of our lives are on the Internet and so more and more of our reputations hinge on having a solid online presence. In the experience of Craig Agranoff and I, these are five habits that everyone who cares about their online reputation should have. Read more…

After writing our book Do It Yourself Online Reputation Management, Herb Tabin and I received dozens of emails and phone calls from people claiming to be in the online reputation management business. Most of them were offering the same basic services: using spam-like SEO strategies to push bad online posts deeper into Google or other search engine results. This makes the first two or three pages of search results look good for the person.

There are some drawbacks to this approach, of course. First, if your in business online in any way, this will make it obvious to those who might search you that you’re gaming the system. Especially reporters. When they see two pages of Google search results that all say the same basic thing, they get suspicious and start delving deeper into those results, getting to page four or five where your dirt lies.

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