Reputation Management Firms

I came across a new website that lists almost all Reputation Management Firms and allows users to post a review about the companies listed. The website features about 50 or so Reputation Management Companies and the list is surely to grow as the industry grows. It appears the site was just created over the holidays, most likely by a reputation management company. Either Way it is a good idea to have a review site for this industry, there is a lack of reviews online about Reputation Management Companies.

If you are in the reputation management industry or want to review a reputation management company, check out the site here: http://www.iReputationReviews.com

Yahoo! Inc might be pulling the plug on the “blogger” social networking service MyBlogLog.

ReadWriteWeb reports MyBlogLog will be closed down by Yahoo! in January 2010 (Next Month)
MyBlogLog is a social-network service for the bloggers that enables them to connect with other blog writers and readers visiting their sites. The website lists the profiles information of the writers as well as the blogs for the same.

MyBlogLog was a wildly innovative service that grew fast after launching in 2005. It was originally developed by Cloudspace, a Florida-based web applications development organization and was acquired in January 2007 by Yahoo! for around $10 million. There were over 45,000 blogs subscribed at the time.

Chris Yeh, Head of Yahoo! Developer Network (YDN) says, “Frankly, it’s no secret within Yahoo! that we’re actively discussing the future of MyBlogLog. However, it’s also true that we have not made any final decisions at this point. Is a shutdown on the table? Sure, that’s an option. But there are other options as well. We know this creates some uncertainty for current MyBlogLog users. While we aren’t quite ready to share more details, we promise to keep you posted.”

Yahoo! has shut it’s a variety of products in the past year, with the objective to cut-costs and be more focused on its “core” services. If MyBlogLog shuts down, I see a lot of MyBlogLog users being very upset. There are a lot of paid users and avid users of MyBlogLog.

Our blog (SEOFRIENDLY.COM) is on MyBlogLog and we get a fair amount of traffic from our listing with them. In my opinion, Yahoo! Inc. should stick with this project or at least transfer ownership to another company that could keep the site alive.

Why Do You Like Twitter?

This post is basically a question to all twitter users. Why do you like Twitter? Why do you use Twitter?

A lot of people do not like twitter and refuse to use the site. It seems that some people think that Twitter and Micro-Blogging is a squander of time and serves no business purpose.

So if you have a moment and want to share your thoughts please post a comment and let everyone know:

• A. Why do you like Twitter?
• B. Why do you use Twitter?

Twitter Video Below:

 Follow Us On Twitter

Tips On Making Money With Twitter

There are a lot of people online that sign-up for twitter in order to utilize twitter’s money making and marketing capability. I have personally made money because of my twitter account and not so much directly from my account. Some people post spammy affiliate links over and over and simply end up losing followers. Without a strong following of readers you are simply what I call a Sp-itter which is someone who just ads stuff to twitter and no one reads what you are posting, so what you are saying is worthless. If you have followers (a lot of them) then you will make money from and because of twitter.

How to Get More Twitter Followers:

Follow more people in your niche
Post at least 10 useful posts for every promotional tweet
Add Twitter to your blogs, forum accounts, and websites to get more followers
Use twitter Chains like FastFollowers.com to get followers faster (not the best way but works)
Promote your twitter account like you would your own website

How to make money with Twitter:

Join Ad.ly (www.ad.ly) If you have a lot of followers you get paid to tweet stuff (ads).
Post your blog updates to draw in more blog readers thus more money
Post affiliate links to programs you like and are successful with
Sell Sponsored Tweets (Charge A Fee To Post Announcements/Ads)
Create A Twitter Related Website or Service (Directory, ReTweet, Ad.ly)

There are a lot of ways to make money with Twitter. I do not think you will get super rich from using twitter but it can help you increase your revenue. It may be a building process but making “money” with Twitter is easy if you have the time and resources.

With the arrival of online tools that make it easy to share information, meet new people and keep in touch more rapidly than ever; online reputation has taken on a dual facet. Individuals and businesses no longer have to be troubled about their reputation in true life but in the virtual planet as well, making it two times as hard to keep up with what’s being said. There are a few ways that you can work to manage your online reputation. The resources listed below offer tips and tools to make it easier to track, control and manage your online reputation so you stay on top and in control of your personal and professional image.

Reputation Management Tips

Here are some general tips when managing your online reputation.

1. Create official online profiles. Don’t let just anyone talk about you online. Create your own profiles and websites complete with the type of information you really want to be available online about you.
2. Check what people are saying about you online. Whether good or bad you can do yourself a kindness by finding out what is being said about you online. Use some of the tools mentioned further down in this article to stay in the loop.
3. Stay on the ball. Don’t get sluggish about monitoring your reputation. If necessary, perform weekly checks to see if there’s any information about you that could possible be harmful.
4. Google yourself. The easiest method to find out where you or your company’s online reputation stands is to Google (search) yourself. See what kind of results pop up first. If they aren’t what they’d like them to be, you’ve got some work to do.
5. Presume everything can get on the web. Equally in your personal and professional life, what you say online and off can come back to bite you. Be safe and assume any emails, conversations or photos out there can eventually end up on the Web.
6. Select your words carefully. If you are blogging, running a website or just have a social media profile, be cautious what you post. Unless you’re looking for controversy what you say may cause you tribulations in the future.
7. Know your weakness. If you know your business has a particular weakness or are just familiar with your tendency for getting untamed on the weekend, keep this in mind and have it as your top priority for checking on your online reputation.
8. Protect yourself from hackers. This may look as if like it goes with no saying, but many people fall short to adequately securing their online information. Make sure yours is as safe and sound as it possibly can be.
9. Keep social networks private. One way to prevent snooping eyes is to keep your social networking profiles confidential to all except those you approve. This will keep informal viewers from seeing your information, good or bad.
10. Consider pseudonyms. If you do want to keep a blog or take on arguments on internet message boards, create a name for yourself to hide behind so you can’t be easily tracked.
11. Be proactive. Instead of waiting until you have a problem with your online reputation, stay ahead of the game. Search for what’s being said about you regularly so you’ll stay up-to-date.
12. Act quickly. If you do find something said or posted about you online that you feel could be particularly damaging to you, take action immediately. Whether it’s your friend posting photos from your bachelor nigh out or someone you don’t know slandering your business, taking care of it more rapidly rather than later is best.
13. Keep your cool. You may be irritated at what someone has said about you online, but don’t let it illustrate. Keep your fury to yourself and off the internet where it can do more damage than good.

Articles

Here are some good quality articles about reputation management that are nice reads….

1. Protect Your Online Reputation: This article from SEO Chat lays out some basics for monitoring and protecting your online reputation.
2. Ten Tactics That Could Save Your Online Reputation: The CEO of Trakur gives some great advice in this Mashable article on how your company can avoid reputation meltdown.
3. How to Manage Your Online Reputation: This article goes through a number of tools and how to use them to keep your reputation intact.
4. Social Networks Become Powerful Tool in Online Reputation Management: Find out how social networks are playing a bigger role than ever in online reputation from this short article.
5. How to Create Online Reputation Tools for Your Brand: Worried about the online component of your company’s brand? This article gives some advice on creating custom tools to monitor and control your online rep.
6. Online Reputation Handbook: You’ll find just about everything you ever wanted to know about online reputation in this helpful handbook.
7. Manage Your Online Reputation: Lifehacker gives some great tips and pointers, as well as links to tools that can help you get control of your reputation.
8. Free Online Reputation Management Beginner’s Guide: If you’ve never done much with online reputation before, or haven’t even considered it, check out this business-geared article.
9. How To Protect, Fix Your Online Reputation: From keeping problems from arising to fixing them when they do, this article is full of helpful advice.
10. Using Social Media to Manage Online Reputation: Find out how social media can be a help, not just a hindrance, to online reputation.
11. Basics of Online Reputation Management: Here you’ll learn the basics of getting your online reputation in order.
12. Managing Your Reputation Online: Technology Review provides this informative article that can help you understand and take action when it comes to your virtual reputation.
13. Online Reputation Management for Individuals: Online reputation isn’t just a concern for businesses, and this article explains how individuals can keep their name in good standing as well.

Websites and Blogs

These sites are dedicated to helping you keep an eye on and manage online reputation, providing the basics, suggestions for security, and much more.

1. Online Reputation: This site has articles on everything from brand reputation management to monitoring your reputation online.
2. The Reputation Blog: Business owners and leaders can take advantage of the advice offered by this blog.
3. Reputation Advisor: Here you’ll find advice and articles that provide essential information on keeping your business’ rep and your own looking good.
4. Reputation Management: From information on slander protection to posts about using search engines to monitor your reputation this blog is full of great info and insight.
5. CopyBrighter: Get some new insights into online reputation management and social media from this blog.
6. StepRepBlog: Find out just what social reputation is or get tips on connecting positively with customers from this site.
7. OnlineReputation.com: This site provides more in-depth explanations on how to use reputation tracking software, advice on building a solid online rep, and much more.

Personal Identity

These tools can help you manage your numerous online profiles, monitor your personal reputation and more.

1. ClaimID: Check out this program that uses OpenID to manage your personal identity over several sites, meaning you only have to remember the password for one, not numerous ones.
2. FindMeOn: Want to connect your identity over several sites? FindMeOn lets you do that while keeping your information private and secure.
3. FreeYourID: Make maintaining your online identity easy, with this tool that bases it directly on your name.
4. Garlik: If you’re worried that your identity may be more than marred and straight out stolen, give this tool a try. You’ll be able to search for mentions of you on the web that might involve identity theft.
5. myOpenID: Don’t worry about having multiple logins with this OpenID site.
6. SpyShakers: Try this tool to get access to any of your profile passwords remotely. It specializes in protecting your information from spyware.
7. TypeKey: TypeKey allows you to integrate your blog into your OpenID, allowing you to manage pretty much everything with one main profile.
8. Realmee: Here you can create a personal profile that will allow you to more easily control what others can see of you online.
9. LookUpPage: Want to control what people find when they search for you? This site helps out, by giving you a central page that comes up at the top when your name is searched for.
10. MonitorThis: Try out this site to monitor and track keywords over multiple search engines, giving you clues about who’s talking about you.

Professional Identity

Keep your business’ name out of the mud by protecting it with these helpful tools.

1. Trust-Index: Find out how well your business is trusted with this tool.
2. Google Alerts: With Google Alerts you can get email updates of the latest google results based on your name or other topic of your choosing.
3. BoardTracker: Whether you post on boards yourself or want to see if anyone else is talking about you, this tool makes it easy to filter to threads.
4. Vanno: Get an online reputation the democratic way, with this site that allows others to vote on the stories, videos and blogs about your company.
5. Serph: Use this search tool to look up your company and find out just what kind of buzz is going around the web about your company.
6. Searchles: This social search engine can help you keep up with the news out about your business.
7. Omgili: Search through the numerous forums out there to find out what people are saying about you using this helpful tool.
8. BoardReader: This tool is especially useful, allowing users to search through forums, videos, Twitter conversations, IMDB and more.
9. Joongel: Zoom in on the type of media you’d like to search with this online tool. Choose from videos, photos, shopping sites, and more.
10. Techrigy: This company makes it easier and simpler to monitor your business’ reputation online.
11. Keotag: Match blogs with tags that reflect talk about your business or related topics using this tool.
12. UpdatePatrol: This tool makes it easy to watch websites for updates and changes, which can sometimes be useful when you want to know what a particular site is saying about you.
13. BrandsEye: Hook up with this company to get stats and other information on where your business or blog reputation stands online.

Blog Tools

With the great proliferation of blogs out there, it’s worth your time to keep track of what’s being said about you on them. These tools make it easy and convenient to do just that.

1. Zuula: If you want to get posts just from blogs, try out this search engine. Users can also limit results to photos or videos.
2. SezWho: Follow who’s important in the blogging world and what they may be saying about you with this tool. Also useful to find out where your personal blog may stand.
3. Technorati: Whether you’re blogging personally or professionally, listing your blog with Technorati can be a big help in managing your online reputation. You’ll get updates whenever someone links to your blog so you can keep tabs on what people are saying about you or your business.
4. BackType: BackType is a service that lets you find, follow, and share comments from across the Web, allowing you to keep track of where you’ve been and what you’ve said on blogs.
5. TweetBeep: TweetBeep will let you keep track of conversations on Twitter than mention you or your business or anything else you’d like to track.
6. co.mments: When you sign up for an account with this site you’ll be able to track comments and conversations that can influence your online reputation.
7. Blogpulse: Keep your finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the blogging world, especially in relation to your business using the tools offered on this site.
8. Trendpedia: For businesses, this can be a valuable tool to track when and what your business is getting attention for and how you’re doing compared to your competitors.
9. Twist: Twist allows users to compare mentions of several different topics and view recent tweets about each one, making it easy to track info about businesses.
10. monitter: This tool lets you do much the same as Twist, but you can monitor topics in real-time or by geographic region.
11. Buzzlogic: Track buzz in the blogging world with this site, and find out just who’s word matters when it comes to blogs.

Profile Management

These tools make it easier to keep track of your social networking profiles and your online reputation in turn.

1. Comwat: Use Comwat to organize your social networking profiles into one so that its easier for others to find and easier to control what they see.
2. onXiam: Here you can establish a central online identity, use this identity to link up all your other sites, and even promote this new online location as well.
3. OtherEgo: Show off everything that you’re involved in on the net through this centralized site.
4. Zoolit: Check out this landing page service that makes it super easy to manage all the social networks you’ve been using.
5. Venyo: From lengthy blogs to simple comments, this site allows you to access everything you’ve done online, building up a trustworthy reputation at the same time.
6. ProfileMat: Pull all your existing online profiles together into a “mat” and allow users to comment on this new singular profile instead.
7. SimplifID: This site allows users to organize the online world by creating one central place you can access your blogs, social networking sites and more, allowing you to categorize it by type of viewer.
8. SocialURL: Here you can connect all your online identities by linking your social networking profiles to one URL.
9. ProfileBuilder: Want to create a professional looking profile using material from your existing social networks? This site lets you do just that, keeping or blocking the elements you choose and giving you a super useful home page to visit.

Managing Your Reputation

These tools allow you to hunt down what’s being said about you and find out just what others think of you or your business.

1. Naymz: Give this site a try to get feedback from people you’ve worked with, customers and friends.
2. Rapleaf: Here you can look up your personal or professional reputation, rate other people and businesses and get your own ratings.
3. RepVine: Using a search engine is the easiest way for people who want to know about you to find out more. This site helps you to manage what they find when they do this.
4. Keotag: Manage the blogsphere with this site that allows users to find tagged blog posts over several blog search engines.
5. TrustPl.us: Are you trustworthy? This site works by analyzing your or more like your business’ trust scores and giving you a ranking.
6. ReputationArmor: If you’ve found information about yourself online that’s less than true or extremely damaging to you, try out the services of this company that helps you get things said about you online removed.
7. FriendFeed: Whether you want to keep up with what your friends are looking at or keep up with what’s being said about you personally, this site is a useful tool.
8. Social Media Fire Hose: This accommodating tool tracks your name, brand or product across sites like Digg, FriendFeed and others that specialize in social media.
9. Trackur: If you’re willing to shell out for a little help monitoring your reputation, Trackur is a grand choice with tools that will search through all kinds of sites from social media to video.
10. Radian6: This tool makes it easier to monitor social media, frequently to the benefit of businesses who can use the information to their benefit to build better reputations and products.
11. Cision: For a fee, this tool can help you keep an eye on “100 million blogs, tens of thousands of online forums, and over 450 leading rich media sites.”
12. Web of Trust: Make certain your website is considered trusted by joining up with this site. After all, no one wants to be associated with a dangerous site- it’s just bad for business.

General Tools

If you haven’t already, bookmark these sites which can be a big help in maintaining your reputation optimistically online.

1. Digg: Check out Digg often to see if anyone has submitted stories about your or your business.
2. Reddit: comparable to Digg, this site will allow you to see how much interest there is you on the Web.
3. delicious: This social bookmarking site is a excellent place to see if your webpage or information about you or your business is being passed around by others.
4. Flickr: Think there may be some less-than-impressive photos of you out there? Trying searching this photo site to see if you come up.
5. Facebook: Facebook can be a great place to network, just make certain you keep your profile free from things you wouldn’t want spread about you online.
6. MySpace: With millions of visitors, this popular social networking site can be a great place to get your and your business’ name out there.
7. LinkedIn: Here you can create a professional profile that will allow you to interact with others in your profession in a safe and positive manner.
8. Google: There’s no easier way to find out what your online reputation is than to do a simple Google search.
9. Rollyo: If you want a more customized option for searching, try out this great search engine that you can mold to your online reputation finding needs.
10. Furl: an additional social bookmarking site, here you can track who’s interested in your sites.
11. Twitter: Whether you want to communicate with others or follow the noise about you on the net, Twitter is an essential tool.
12. WordPress: If you’re going to create a blog to be the face of you or your company, this site makes it easy to do so.

Here is a list of 25 high page rank web sites where you can post your content, create profiles, and link-up your site’s URL without any reciprocal link from your site. Once you create these high page rank backlinks, profiles, and accounts, they will be a source of web traffic for you. These sites are also great for reputation management campaigns. The sites will normally create a good ranking profile for your company name that in most cases willl appear witin Google’s search results pretty fast.

1. eHOW.com Write how to articles or videos. Post your link in your profile. Also a good source of information if you want to know how to do something.

2. WikiHow.com Same as eHow but you can edit existing wiki pages or create your own. Cleverly put your link in “Sources and Citations” section

3. 43Things.com You have to sign up for participation. Post your own goals or reply to posted “to do” list. Occasionally, insert your own link as a resource.

4. Squidoo.com This is one of my favorite. Build your lenses and you can add links to your site, embed your YouTube videos and flickr photos.

5. AssociatedContent.com You can add your link in your profile. Not a favorite of mine.

6. HubPages.com Another site like Squidoo and AssociatedContent. You can put links to your sites in the content you create here.

7. Digg.com The most popular news ranking site. If you have good blog posts you can post them here. If your article goes to the home page, you will attract thousands of high page rank backlinks and tens of thousands of visitors for a short period. Be prepared for handle the load otherwise you will bring down your server.

8. Reddit.com Another news popularity site. Same as Digg. Post your blog articles here but don’t submit your entire site.

9. Answers.yahoo.com Ask questions and post answers to others questions. You can post links to your site in your answers.

10. Xanga.com A community blog. Crete keyword rich contents and links to your sites in the posts.

11. Kiva.org A microfinance site. You lend to and borrow from individual entrepreneurs. Create a profile page and link to your site from your profile page.

12. Geocities.com One of the oldest site. Create a few mini websites and links to your web sites from the geocities pages.

13. Twitter.com Create an account using a keyword and post your link in your profile.

14. Propeller.com Another news popularity site. Put you site’s link in your profile page.

15. Tradebit.com A site where you can buy and sell digital contents. If you ebooks, your own recorded music, etc., put your keywords in listing pointing to your site’s URL.

16. Angelfire.com Another old site like Geocities. Create your mini sites and put links to your site on the mini site pages.

17. Weebly.com A web 2.0 site where you can create your own mini sites like Geocites. Use the same technique you use for Geocites and Angelfire for back links to your sites.

18. Blogowogo.com A blog aggregation site. If you are running a blog, add your RSS feed to their site and any time you post new articles in your blog, your page at Blogowogo will be updated.

19. Tumblr.com Post and share your photos, articles, links, music, and videos. Use you site’s link in the profile page.

20. StumbleUpon.com Discover great web pages and share with your friends. You can submit your site and individual pages to StumbleUpon.

21. eZineArticles.com The most popular article directory. Submit your articles with author’s box under each article. You can use up to two links to your site in each article.

22. Flickr.com The most popular photo sharing site. You can drop your site’s link on the profile page.

23. MyBlogLog.com Share your online activity on a single page. Link to your sites from the profile page.

24. FastCompany.com If you are passionate about business idea, you should sign up with this very respected site. You can use anchor text in your profile page to link to your web site.

25. YouTube.com The most popular video sharing site. If you don’t have an account with YouTube, you should sign up immediately. Upload interesting and funny videos. Create your profile and link to your site

Social Network Username Search & Protection

KnowEm checks the availability of your brand name, user name or vanity URL on 120 popular Social Media websites. This service is a neat Reputation Management Tool that all reputation conscious individuals should consider using.

A lot of people and business are at risk of becoming a victim of internet identity theft. This is where someone can pose as you on social networks and other username based websites like forums. Imagine if someone found “you” on MySpace or a similar social network and started chatting with “you” about private details, only to find out it really was not you. There are many risks when it comes to internet ID theft, most of the time the biggest risk is your online reputation. If someone was posing as you on a social network and started saying all types of damaging things on their account, people will think these are your words.

Protecting your online reputation is very important in today’s WWW.

The service that KnowEm offers lets you see who else is using your username on over 100 popular social networks.  They also offer to protect your name by registering accounts on these networks for you.

Another great service is the social network search engine optimized profile creation service that iPorfileMaker.com offers. They create full profiles with your custom content. This service is geared toward reputation repair and includes the identity protection as well.

Reputation Management & Social Networks

Online reputation management is quickly becoming more important as more and more friends, family and employers search your name. Even if you are constantly on your best behavior online or you have a fairly unique name, as the population grows and more people become creators of online content, there’s a big chance that people will interpret others activity online as your own!

Taking charge of or managing search engine ranking for your own name is fairly easy for an SEO (search engine optimizer), but what can the average person do? The best solution is to utilize social networks like facebook, linkedin, twitter, and many more. There are hundreds if not thousands of good social network you can become a member of and 99% of them are free to use. The paid ones may only charge for add-ons like featured profiles or special plug-ins.

Using social networks to help you repair or manage your online reputation is a method used by most if not all reputation management companies. Creating profiles on social networks can be very time consuming, but it is worth the effort in most cases. Usually to suppress bad press about your name on search engines like Google, you will need a lot of online profiles (Dozens Of Them). Most of these profiles will rank well on search engines when people search your name. Updating your profile regularly and adding content to it frequently will increase the chance of it out ranking negative information online.

There are even companies like iProfilemaker.com that will build hundreds of social profiles for you. Social profiles are a huge tool when trying to push down negative information on search engine. You can even get a fair amount of web traffic from social profile sites. Our blog (SeoFriendly.com) gets a few visitors a day from Twitter and other profile sites.