In the past year, I’ve become increasingly interested in the world of online reputation management and helping executives and other professionals to counteract negative articles, blog posts, and other troubling web content. A couple of things have caught my attention. The first is that almost everyone I speak with has a story (often a horror story) about how a friend or colleague felt victimized by negative online content. Negative reviews impacted business, social media missteps hurt an applicant’s chances of getting a job, and online stories (true or otherwise) injured people personally and professionally. The prevalence of this has surprised me.
The second thing that caught my attention was the fact that so many professional people have no control of their online reputation—on purpose.Read More