Social networks can be used for any of a number of reasons from securing new business and winning new contracts to promoting new products to your existing client base. They can be used to generate new business, retain existing customers, and even to virally make new connections with the friends, family, and colleagues of your customers but the first step in this is to determine your goals and to use the most appropriate networks to help you achieve them. With so many to choose from this can seem daunting but it doesn’t need to be.

Location centric social networks such as FourSquare are an innovative way to promote local businesses and venues. They are particularly engaging for clients that use mobile GPS devices such as mobile phones and they encourage your customers to spread the word for you.

LinkedIn and Naymz are two of the most popular social networks for businesses, but there are a great many others. Social networks that are dedicated to start ups, entrepreneurs, web designers, and marketers exist in abundance and these can be great for developing working partnerships with other professionals, services, and businesses.

Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace can be used for a variety of purposes but offer tools that are especially useful in communications and Internet reputation management. Encourage your visitors to follow you on these networks and you can use the opportunity to increase the profit life of your customers. You may also develop new fans, and therefore new potential business, from the networks of your customers.

The efficacy of online reputation management is being proven each passing day, as companies large and small figure out how damaging online libel can be. The Internet is notoriously chaotic–it is governed by very few laws. More than any other sphere of media, the Internet can destroy a person or company’s reputation.

A company which has made all of its clients happy for many years can have its online reputation destroyed in a matter of seconds by an online blogger. Posting on forums, review sites, or creating a blog to attack that business can be done in less than 5 minutes–and all of these things could be incredibly damaging to the company’s future. Underhanded rivals or recently-fired employees often understand this and utilize it to exact revenge. Sometimes a dissatisfied customer goes online and makes a hyperbolic statement about the business–unwittingly doing far more damage that they really intended. In any case, online libel should be taken seriously by business owners before it becomes a problem for them, because afterward they won’t have a choice.

This brief blog post is a wonderful example of how Internet defamation can be self-inflicted. You’ll have to click the link below in order to see the images, but it is a the search results from a program, made by two guys, that search social networking profiles. In the images we see people claiming to play hooky, i.e. skip work. The author says of this:

Most online reputation management issues are self-inflicted. Before you hit that “publish” button, think about whether you’d be upset if what you’re about to say ever made it in front of your spouse/parents/kids/boss/pastor.

This is the truth. We must remember that anything we put on the Internet is basically made public, or it could be made public in the future. All it takes is your pastor or employer to do a social networking search, like this one, for your name and find out that you played hooky last friday.

http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2010/05/hey-everyone-im-about-to-ruin-my-online-reputation.html

1 – LinkedIn

LinkedIn is probably the biggest network that is dedicated to professional users. If you’re looking to make friends and start an online relationship then this isn’t really the site for you. However, if you’re looking for a new career, are setting up a new business, or want to find the best advice then this is a great site that will almost certainly deliver the results you want. The only slight problem with the site is that a paid membership is required for some of the more advanced (and often beneficial) features.

2 – E.Factor

E.Factor is geared towards budding and experienced entrepreneurs. It is more than a social networking website alone because it provides everything including a network of nearly a million users, a network of investors and angels, regular low price entrepreneur related events, and reduced rates on hotels, flights, and even car hire. A single membership can go a long way and while the membership list is slightly smaller than other similar sites it is definitely growing and one to watch out for.

3 – Cympitch

Cympitch is another social networking that combines numerous elements for entrepreneurs and this one is designed especially for the UK market. It is billed as being the social network for “connecting UK entrepreneurs and early stage investors” so is similar to E.Factor in its goals and its uses. You can also use the site to receive quotes and therefore give them, and seek the advice that many entrepreneurs need.

The Internet has grown in many ways. Not only are there more and more pages indexed by the search engines and a continual increase in the number of social networking websites that can be used by businesses and individuals, but the way that people use the Internet has also changed.

As a job seeker, the Internet offers you the benefit of being able to research the latest posts and find those jobs and careers that are relevant to you. You can even post your CV at relevant websites so that prospective employers and recruiters can contact you with possible job openings that might be of interest.

However, another area in which the web has become increasingly popular is in researching potential candidates before offering them employment. If you apply for a job then there is a very real possibility that the recruiter will do a quick search for your name on the Internet. Typically, they will use the search engines to do this which means that you should do the same to determine how your online reputation looks to others.

Your own comments as well as comments by others posted about you will often appear in the search results and be viewed by possible employers. Getting these removed can prove extremely difficult but you can minimise or completely remove the negative impact that they might have on your job search. Create pages and profiles that will be indexed by search engines and will ultimately find their way to the top of the search results and these will take the place of negative posts, offering you a way to manage your online reputation so that it paints you in a positive light.

BlogPulse is, at its heart, a blog search engine – nothing special about that, right? After all there are numerous blog search engines out there including those provided by the main search engines like Yahoo and Google.

However BlogPulse offers the kind of tools that you don’t tend to find on other blog search engines including trends, RSS feeds of specific keywords, and even featured trends.

It can prove a beneficial tool for conducting any marketing or advertising based research but is also extremely useful if you want to know what is being said about you in blogs all around the world.

The main search function of BlugPulse is very simple to use – enter a keyword or phrase into the search box and then click Go to be presented with relevant results. Type in your own name or that of your brand to see what people are saying about you.

As this single search only gives you a brief snapshot of what people are saying at the time that you conduct the search you will want to find a way to be kept up to date of any changes and BlogPulse delivers here too.

On the results page you can click Track Conversation to view all previous posts in a thread and even to see where else a post is being discussed.

Alternatively by clicking XML at the top of the results you can create a feed that instantly updates whenever new blog posts are found that match your given query.

Social media has expanded in ways never thought of before and is going to keep expanding for the foreseeable future. ComScore’s “2009 U.S. Digital Year in Review” shows that social media makes up 11% of all Internet browsing now. This article gives some good advice to businesses.

Unfortunately, as social media has become more prevalent in the lives of consumers and a more important tool for businesses, it has become much more difficult for companies to effectively manage. Digital communications channels have multiplied, and the amount of social media data available in 2010 – from tweets to blogs to customer reviews – is already huge. This customer feedback treasure trove continues to grow exponentially, meaning that companies interested in monitoring and leveraging such data (and that should be most) need to invest significant planning and resources into their social media strategies.

Companies would be wise to recognize these facts and act accordingly. The online reputation management industry isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Many consumers use the Internet in order to search for information relating to companies and individuals so whether you’re applying for a job or you run your own business, managing your search engine reputation is vital to your success. This can be done through a Google reputation management campaign.

The first step to ensuring that potential customers see what you want them to see is to determine the existing results. In order to do this there are some reasonably simple steps you can follow. Search Google and the other major engines using your individual name, company name, product name, or brand name. You will be presented with similar results to your potential customers so you can see what they see.

The top few results are those that the majority of people will click on. The higher the result the more people will see it, and by the time you reach the second page of the results you can begin to pay less attention to these results. However, if negative reviews or bad publicity appear at the top of the results then one step is to attempt to bury these results further down the list where very few but the most ardent researcher will find them.

You must have your own branded website. You should also include creating a blog and even a forum. Join social media websites and create branded profiles; get involved in the communities that you join to create a positive buzz. You can even post video links and photographs to relevant websites, write and submit articles and press releases, and comment with useful responses on other websites.