Don’t be sorry – you need to know what comes up so DO GOOGLE YOURSELF!

When I travel to San Francisco to teach Web Marketing Classes for Berkeley Extension (I do workshops on their San Fran campuses) I always stay at the Hotel Triton. 

Hotel Triton is part of the Kimpton eco-friendly hotel chain (WMT loves supporting eco-friendly and socially responsible companies!!)

The hotel’s decor, theme and staff has a rocking sense of humor.  During my last stay, my door hanger that usually says “Privacy Please” was replaced with the door hanger to the right.  HA!

Emilia did a great post called Have You Googled Yourself Lately? that started our Google giddiness.  When hotel chains are changing their door hangers to share the Google love, I say it’s time to face the fact that our personal and professional brands are impacted by Google….would you agree?

Right now, I am dealing with the unfortunate fact that there is another Lorrie Thomas who is messing up my searches for my name!  She has been on trial for murder and the news has been all over it, and so has Google

What are people saying about you online?

In the past, we’ve recommended web marketing must haves for monitoring your brand, including free tools like Google alerts. This recent article in MarketingProfs gives us Six Free Tools for Online Reputation Management! Yes, SIX great tools- and they’re all FREE.

This is perfect for those of us with control issues. You can learn how to leverage sites like backtype.com, boardtracker.com, and Friend Feed to connect with your target audience and take your marketing strategy to a whole new level!

As Dan Schawbel points out: Part of your brand is in the hands of others, so it’s critical that you monitor it before a flame becomes a forest fire.

So get busy employing these great web tool in your online reputation management program.

Thanks for the great tips, Dan. I’m looking forward to your Spring release

Additionally, we also like to employ a little tool we call - Go Google Yourself!

It’s always good to know what’s coming up on your search engine results pages (SERPs). The question that most people come to me with is: What if I see something undesirable in the search results?

There are several things you can do. You can join in the conversation with the goal of educating consumers and clarifying your business services and/or products. You can also contact certain sites and ask that any defamatory statements about your company be completely removed. It’s been my experience that ethical consumer advocacy sites will take down false and libelous statements.

What if you are unable to shake an online blemish? The good news is that if you are already engaged in web marketing best practices, you can make sure your online reputation won’t be permanently impacted by continuing to create quality content that outranks any online imperfections in the SERPs. That’s the beauty of publishing content that you can control yourself via your web site, blog, social marketing platforms, online press releases, etc.  By using these tools to control and fill your SERPs, you can preserve your online reputation and make sure that any negative associations with your brand never see the light of day!