Online Reputation Management For Dummies

Publishing Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

People can say just about whatever they want online. Unless somebody is willing to dig deep to research what you are saying, odds are good that you may get away with inaccuracies now and then (not to say that I advise such behavior: read on!).

I worry about people who stretch the truth, however, though it is a faceplanting favorite that likely will always stand the test of time. Here’s where it becomes a faceplant for your online reputation. If you’ve ever watched reruns of any of those police shows, you’ve seen someone getting interrogated. That process involves asking the same questions again and again, watching to see if the answers change or stay the same.

The tricky thing about online communication is that it requires publishing lots of status updates, blog posts, pictures, and tweets. It would be enormously difficult to keep up a lie consistently over so many communications and not contradict the story.

The easiest way to faceplant your online reputation is to break trust with your followers. The easiest way to build a strong reputation online is to be authentic, share what you’re honestly good at, and contribute to your community. It’s the kind of investment that gets paid back with interest. Build demonstrable integrity into your brand by

Providing (actual) client testimonial videos.

Provide (on request) a link to that person’s ...