With websites like Reputation.com cropping up, many companies are looking at how they can monitor their online presence. Here are three things you can do:

The Problem: False and Negative Content

Empowered consumers can now go online and report every experience they have with you or your business. This is great if they had a good experience, but it can be very harmful if something went wrong and they were unhappy. Even a company with mostly positive reviews can be harmed by a bad review if it comes up first in Google search results. Not only are consumers reporting their experience, scam sites and your competition may be outright lying about your products and services in hopes of damaging your reputation. To combat this, people like author Michael Fertik (founder of Reputation.com) are offering advice and tools to monitor and control your online reputation.

1. Awareness: Knowing What’s Being Said

One of the biggest problems a company or professional may face is ignorance when something negative is going around about their product. That’s why something like Google’s Me on the Web tool is so beneficial. Mashable explains how you can set up this tool so that it sends you an email notification whenever someone mentions you or your company in a blog post, review, or status update. Many online reputation management companies will alert you of these mentions as well.

2. Acknowledgement: Responding to the Negative

One of the first things you can do when wanting to change your online image is to address any negative feedback currently online. If your company has a negative review, comment on that review as soon as possible. By responding quickly to negative feedback, you turn to conversation back to the positives of your company and how you want every client and customer to be happy. After reviewing and responding to negative feedback, take a long look at your company to recognize and address any shortcomings the feedback highlighted.

3. Action: Creating the Positive

Next, you need to create positive content that will push negative feedback and comments out of the top search results. ReadWrite reports that writing this type of positive content can reduce negative content from 80 percent of top search results down to 30 percent. Wondering what this content should say? Think about the image you want to have and what message you want people to read about you or your company. By creating quality content that is optimized, you can begin to put your message first when a person researches your company.
You don’t have to feel powerless when discovering a poor online reputation. By being aware of the problem and responding accordingly, you can take back the conversation and establish a good online reputation.

Resources:

http://mashable.com/2011/06/16/google-me-on-the-web/
http://www.crunchbase.com/person/michael-fertik
http://www.zdnet.com/book-review-wild-west-2-0-4010017873/