David’s post reminds us that we should always take the opportunity to explain a little about ourselves. When you sign up for a Twitter account, you get 160 characters to say a little about yourself. Use it! I know it’s easy to be excited and think “I’ll do that later…” But sometimes that doesn’t happen. Yes, it has to be brief, but don’t let your bio & about spaces be unused real estate with great potential.

Make sure your blog has an about page, make sure people know who they’re following, and use your online profiles to say a little about yourself and build your online reputation. After all, I couldn’t say it better — it is about you.

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!