This is a guest post by Per Schmitz.
Nowadays there’s a lot of personal information publicly available on the web. We all have an “online persona” which is directly related to the way people see and judge us as individuals.
Unfortunately managing your online reputation is everything but an easy task.
There are many social media channels where people can spread unbased opinions about others, tag inappropiate photos, and otherwise mess with your reputation. As a blogger, your name stands for the quality and authenticity of your posts, apart from your personal and professional interest in having a “clean and positive” online reputation.
As Google says: “Your online identity is determined not only by what you post, but also by what others post about you – whether it is a mention in a blog post, a photo tag or a reply to a public status update.”
If you want to influence the way people see you online, it’s important to understand that there are two basic techniques for managing your online reputation.
- Constantly monitor what people are saying about you and respond instantly when necessary.
- Actively develop your reputation by creating “positive” content. Create a hub such as a personal landing page where people can easily find everything about you in a simple and compact format.
With those two techniques in mind, here are six simple, yet effective tools that might help you along the way to monitor what people are saying about you as well as actively develop and influence your online reputation.
Me On The Web
Me On The Web is a personalized Google Alert that can be accessed directly from your Google dashboard when logged into your Google account. Get notified whenever your name or email address get mentioned publicly on the web. To use Me On The Web, just log into your Google dashboard and click “Set up search alerts for your data” – it’s as easy as that!
SocialMention
Another brilliant tool to track your name across the web is Social Mention. It’s a social media search engine that searches blogs, comments, bookmarks, events, news, videos and micro-blogging services. You can select the sources you want to search and employ email alerts or a personalized RSS feed to stay up-to-date.
But don’t take it from me. Here’s their official description.
“SocialMention allows you to easily track and measure what people are saying about you across the web’s social media landscape in real-time. Social Mention monitors 100+ social media properties directly including: Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Google etc.”
Twitter Search RSS Feeds
Twitter is one of the most popular tools when it comes to conversation and as such, it deserves some special attention. Monitoring what people are saying about you on Twitter should be a basic task when it comes to managing your online reputation. There’s no need to manually search it regularly when you can create a Twitter-search RSS feed that will update each time your name gets mentioned.
To set up this RSS feed, you can use the following URL – http://search.twitter.com/search.rss?q=your+name – or use this handy little tool to easily create Twitter search RSS feeds. Then add the RSS feed to your favorite RSS reader like Google Reader.
DooID
Take advantage of a clean and simple app for building awesome personal landing pages in minutes with DooID.
DooID sites are free, customizable, and help you to manage your information all in one place like your bio, social networks links, your blog, and contact details. Once created, you can provide one simple link where people can find out everything about you, ideally using a personal domain name like yourname.com.
WiseStamp
Easily create a HTML email signature and automatically add it to your outgoing email with WiseStamp (aff link). Email signatures are effective tools when it comes to building your personal brand and an ideal starting point for influencing your online reputation with anyone you contact via email. Having a professional email signature is very important – it should at least contain your full name, basic contact info, and a link to your main website or personal landing page. Like DooID, Wisestamp is a free service that’s quick to set up and almost maintenance free.
Knowem
Knowem helps you to secure your personal name or username on over 590 social media services and websites. You’ll hardly use any of the services you sign up to via Knowem, but assuring that your name or pseudonym will not be related to any undesirable content on those websites is worth the effort.
These are just a few of many different services out there. Which ones do you use and how do you use them for online reputation management?
About Per
Kikolani covers blog marketing and blogging tips for personal, professional, and business bloggers to succeed in search and social media marketing. Kristi Hines is a 
Great tools Per!
I had never heard about most of them earlier and need to check them out now, as they do seem to be helpful tools for bloggers who want to create a mark for themselves or make their own online reputation.
Thanks for sharing
Harleena Singh@Freelance Writer recently posted How to Not Fear Failure?
I use AboutMe for my page of links to my networks etc which is similar to DooID, love Knowem though, that is really going to come in handy, I’ll certainly be checking my options on that one
Karen @ Blazing Minds recently posted Titanic 3D – Blazing Minds Film Review #ApolloRhylFilmReviewer
Per,
Very good stuff. I currently use Wisestamp for my Gmail account. What I love is I can easily change between Insurance Business emails and Marketing Business email with the signature and no one the wiser.
That way the two groups don’t get confused.
Thanks!!
Ryan H.
Ryan Hanley recently posted Why Blogging is a Cold Callers Best Friend [Video]
Thanks!
Yep, having different email signatures for different areas is a winner …
Great resources. I have not seen most of these either. I just use the Google notifications for certain search terms and I get an email anytime something that matches gets indexed. It’s also important to know what to do if you ever find something negative that a competitor or something posted about you online. In short, bury it!
Chris @ Austin Owner Finance recently posted How Much Down Payment For Owner Financed Homes? – VIDEO
Your perfectly right, Chris!
Online reputation management is a complex field. A deeper insight in “how-to-react” techniques sounds like a good idea for a follow-up post
Just signed up for Social Mention and found out people have been sharing my articles I didn’t know about! Thanks!
Brent Pittman recently posted Just How Bad Can Inflation Get?
A year ago I wouldn’t care for this topic but oh how things have changed.
I’ve been getting deeper into freelancing which means that I need to use my real name. On one end, I have a lot of great stuff out there but I also have “so-so” content that I need to monitor.
I knew of a few of these tools but I’m definitely going to be adding them to my toolbox. This will also work great now that I’m landing some work where I’m doing the social media work for the businesses – these little opportunities to shine looks great to the clients – give em more leads!
Murray Lunn recently posted PROBLEMS, SOLUTIONS, and IDEAS: The Plight of the Entrepreneur
Great set of tools Per. I’ve been using Google alerts for a little while now but had no idea about the other tools you mention.
KnowEm is pretty cool too but so expensive though.
Thanks, Anita
Anita Dismore recently posted Vendre sa maison rapidement : Guide et conseils
I haven’t heard about SocialMention before, but it seems to be really a nice and useful tool for bloggers. I think it’s time to give it a try!
Julie recently posted veneers
Great tools! Most of the ones you put up here are really new to me. Will be trying them out. Thanks!
Nick Lawless recently posted How to get an affiliate army to drive loads of traffic to your site
Just set up a Google Alerts for your brand to be notified every time it’s mentioned anywhere. It’s a really nice way to go join communities where you’re brought up so you can talk directly with potential customers.
Techie @ w3techie recently posted iPhone vs Android: An Editorial
The world wide web has been a game changer in the way that we communicate, though its vastness brings about the issues of monitoring what is being said. Fortunately, as this post points out, technology can come to the rescue, solving the problem that it creates.
In the past I have used Google Alerts to monitor mentions of my name, or my brand. It is time that I step up my game and start implementing some of these other tools. After all, there is no reason to rely on only one method when using multiple tools is a better way to ensure complete monitoring.
Marshall Davis@Talking Small Biz recently posted Talking Small Biz with Yellow Leaf Hammocks
I think it is so important to know where u stand on the web now a days. If one bad thing is leaked about you or your company you can guarantee just about everyone will know thanks to social media. You have mentioned many tools that i have not heard of until now but look promising.
Sarah recently posted 8 Rules of Social Media for Customer Service
i know zero of them, thanks for introducing such a great tools to use and see some good results in terms of productivity. maintaining online reputation is quite an hard task these days.
Cheers.
Robin.
Robin@Remove Flashback Trojan recently posted HOW TO: Remove Flashback Trojan from Mac ?
Thank you guys a lot for the mention of KnowEm – we work hard on making a great product and keeping our site database as up to date as possible.
Michael recently posted KnowEm Introduces the “Essential Package”
How does the saying go “It takes a lifetime to build a reputation, and only seconds to tear one down” Something like that.
Elena Anne recently posted Vitamin D And Depression
Something I have been thinking about for a while and I’m not using any of these tools to monitor what people are saying about me online so I will follow your recommendation and give them a look.
Matt Kinsella recently posted How To Start A New Life
These tools are fine, and I can understand why one would use them. I am going to bookmark this article, and…if I should see funny things happening with my numbers, I will employ one of these tools.
Of course, the best tool is consistent integrity. Put out quality work, and check it for unintended double meanings.
David Sneen recently posted How to Get a Lifetime’s Worth of Raises in 4 Years
Thank you for this. I am going to have to check out Wisestamp and Knowem especially, as I’ve never tried them. I like the accessibility Meontheweb offers as a google feature.
Steven Papas recently posted Webhosting Plans
Nice Tools Per,
I like this post, it was nice, Social Media is compulsory to build reputation for any on-line business, it is the way to stay connected with social audience.
thanks for sharing useful topic..
Brainpulse recently posted Natural Linking is a Way to Long Term Ranking
This will help newbies who are into internet marketing to know the importance of building a good reputation online so that they can generate more income.
AnneMo recently posted SEO Link Building Tutorial Module 4 – Link Building Tools, Software & Services
Great post! Thanks for mentioning the tools. Will be sure to check some of them out and do a bit more research. Thanks for the great images – made for a great read.
Anton Koekemoer recently posted What makes a good social media strategy?
Internet makes or breaks our personal reputation, which can greatly reflect in our offline life too. It’s such a fortune that there are some good tools out there to manage your image. I recently signed up to Reputation.com. However, I think NO tool can create your personal image for you if you don’t try. Each one of us personally is in charge to search and destroy every piece of negativeness around his image by creating great positive content to compensate. And in this spirit, I find DooID a great app for anyone who wishes to present his image proactively and in a good light.
Laura recently posted White Label Forms & Surveys
Me on the web and Socialmention are two key tools that perfectly suit my needs. Knowing what people say about you and your business could be the key to understanding what must be improved on your website. You got a nice collection of tools that will come in handy for any blogger. Thanks for sharing the info.
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