Building a positive online reputation is difficult, but you can do it. Everything you post about yourself is as necessary as what others post about you or your products and services.
Imagine you are walking on this newly painted white floor. You forgot to wash your feet, leaving your footprints each time. The same happens every time you post, share, comment, or make yourself known to others through platforms. You always leave marks.
When you leave a digital footprint, you want it to be positive. Something that will build you a positive reputation. How do we make a positive reputation, then?
10 Ways to Build a Positive Online Presence
The powerful tools of the social web are within your grasp. You must use them to position yourself well in the market and achieve your goals efficiently.
1. Learn from the greats
When you scan the web for flourishing people in their fields, you start admiring them and somehow wishing to be like them. That’s normal. Now, after enjoying reading through their profiles, you will somehow have an idea of what makes them unique.
Then, you’ll start thinking that there is no way for you to become like Christiano Ronaldo, Taylor Swift, Barack Obama, and the other greats. But you know what they commonly possess? They leverage their best assets, their best skills, and the best versions of themselves.
Find that in you, then you’ll know what to do.
2. Know what you want
Choose your niche. And if your niche is still too vast to cover, choose your sub-niche. The most important thing is you’ll be able to focus on something to hone and grow. Always follow your strengths, and talk about them on your social media.
Be consistent in your brand, even in conversations, in your posts, and in all your online engagements. When you are focused, so will your online presence.
3. Show sincerity
Readers see hollow promises, words that mean nothing, and selfish promotional offers. Be sure you do not give your readers one of these. For if you do, you won’t see them following you again.
Your goal may be having good online reputation management, but this won’t be hard to do if you are sincere in your connections and intentions. Everything follows.
4. Honesty is not a lonely word.
Honesty is an essential part of your reputation management. Make it a point to be true in your online or offline dealings. How people may invest in your trustworthiness is also how fast they may withdraw from you at the sight of how untruthful you can be.
5. Validate yourself
You will attract your readers and followers if you give them something they can benefit from. We all work towards goals, something that could satisfy us. If you can address your readers’ pain points, they feel satisfied after reading your content and continuously find their purpose in you; expect them to be your loyal followers.
Hiverhq reported that Americans across the board tell more people about poor service than about good experiences (15 to 11).
6. Befriend Unselfishness
If you keep on sounding like a promotional brochure, people will feel you are being selfish and vain. Self-appreciation is good but never forget the 80-20 rule.
It is as simple as 80% of your social media time for non-self-promotional social media activities and only 20% for self-promotional activities.
7. Reply with an online smile
Reputation management also involves acknowledging others on your social network to build relationships with them. You need to make them feel you understand and care for them.
Be responsive to messages, tweets, and comments.
8. Pay it forward
Do to your readers what they are doing to you. Comment, reply, or tweet back. You cannot be successful if you just think of your happiness. When others share your post, also take time to share others’ posts.
9. Be generous
Let other people share about you and your content. Let them engage with your content, with you engaging too.
Your online reputation will be built more when others share content and dialogues about you and your content. There is also a positive way of facing negative interactions from your audience. Don’t worry.
10. Show Up
Don’t spend your time in just one section if you want to succeed in your reputation management.
Spread your wings and be social.
Conclusion
Social media is within your reach all the time. It’s now easier to establish an online presence to further careers or businesses. Use it well, and you’ll prosper. Misuse it, and you will suffer.
Take time to post your profiles on different platforms. The goal is to create so much content over time that shouts out your reputation, and people will seek you out first.
According to Backlinko, a page that ranks number one on Google generally gets 31.7 percent of the traffic, while a page that ranks 10th at 3 percent.
Building a positive online reputation is not a “walk in the park”; it is more like a “dig it, then eat it” thing. Reputation management will take time, but the rewards will be worth it.