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.

Dan Tynan has a wonderful article over at ITWorld.com on why search engine reputation management is important, despite critics saying otherwise. He is right, but best of all–he’s hilarious while being right.

Here’s the deal. Not all of us will have lousy online reputations or commit indiscretions that are unfortunately captured for posterity. So if the choice for a job comes down to two candidates, both of whom are equally qualified but one whose online portfolio includes photos of him snorting cocaine off the breasts of a prostitute, we all know who’s more likely to get the call. (Unless, of course, the job requires familiarity with drugs and working girls – like, say, US Senator or Governor of New York.)

That last quip aside, Tynan’s argument is air-tight. While Tynan may not be worried about ever having to find another job, the rest of us certainly are.

http://www.itworld.com/career/105121/online-reputation-matter-does-matter-no-matter-what-michael-arrington-says?source=peer2peerpromo

A spotless online reputation is one way in which smaller companies can take market shares from the larger, more established, businesses. Facebook has been a very helpful tool to many of those businesses because their “fan page” platform allows those small businesses to set up online portals quickly and at no expense. The executives at Facebook have noticed the trend too. One of their regional vice Presidents said this of the new phenomenon:

“I think last year was a really interesting year. We saw a lot of businesses get into this experimental phase with social media, and are now seeing the results. A lot of people questioned it all last year, but this year’s it’s about moving on and getting involved.”

“There are businesses now, small businesses, who are finding really creative ways to leverage the platform. You can take it to the extreme with a brand like Coca-Cola, but there are heaps of smaller businesses doing the same sorts of things.”

Seems rather accurate to me. Probably tens of thousands of small businesses have created fan pages on facebook in order to boost or repair their online reputation.

http://www.smartcompany.com.au/internet/20100413-how-your-business-should-be-using-facebook.html

The Financial Times had an interesting, if misguided, article from a lady named Lucy Kellaway recently. She seeks to prove online reputations don’t matter–and in doing so she attempts to use the reputation of Jesus Christ. This is instructive, but not for the reason she thinks. Jesus Christ has nearly universal name recognition–therefore his online reputation matters very little.

What does all this do to the reputation of Jesus? I don’t think it does anything. This stuff is random, low grade and I would be amazed if any of it affected what anyone feels about him one way or another.

The only thing that Jesus’s online presence tells you is that he is pretty famous. A lot of people are interested in him, though not quite as much as in, say, Lady Gaga, who, on the day of my tests, was tweeted about five times as much.

She doesn’t give any reasons why she chose Jesus or why she couldn’t have profiled the online reputation of someone else. What she doesn’t say has conveyed more meaning here than what she has said. She could have picked Toyota, Tiger Woods, Chrysler, or Congressman Alan Grayson–all of whom would’ve been better examples of how reputation risk management matters.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fae79802-3ff3-11df-8d23-00144feabdc0.html

Reuters, that well-respected paragon of journalism and professionalism has issued a memo to its staffers concerning online media–especially twitter and other social media websites. This is confirmation that the line between the real-world reputation and the online reputation is blurring further.

For example, journalists are advised to get manager approval before using Twitter for professional purposes, have someone double-check their tweets before posting, avoid disclosing personal biases (especially political), and to separate professional and private activity with separate accounts.

This is going to be a difficult thing for many journalists, whose “private” lives might be too wrapped up in their professional ones. The ever-shrinking differences between the public and private life online is virtually non-existent when it comes to social networking sites.

http://mashable.com/2010/03/11/reuters-social-media-policy/

Roseanne Barr has not exactly shied away from controversy in her many years of celebrity. However, her recent comments about the death of Marie Osmond’s son are pretty inflammatory, even for her.

“Marie Osmond’s poor gay son killed himself, ” she wrote even though friends and family have not discussed the 18 year old’s sexuality. She blames his death on the Mormon Church. “He had been told,” she wrote,” how wrong and how sick he was every day of his life by his church and the people in it. Calling that ‘depression’ is a lie!

I can’t decide who needs reputation management strategies the most, Marie Osmond, Roseanne Barr, or the Mormon Church. Maybe all three?

http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2010/03/roseanne-barr-blames-mormon-church-death-marie-osmonds-son