In a nutshell, your online reputation is how you are perceived online. It’s what people are saying about you and, perhaps more importantly, it’s the information voters first encounter when they perform online searches about a candidate and his or her campaign.
Look at this way – when someone searches your candidate’s name, what do you want to appear in the search results? You’ll probably find some old newspaper articles (good or bad) and maybe some nasty blog posts or discussion board comments – especially if you are an incumbent.
Rather than leaving those results to chance, those results can be influenced fairly easily. The most direct ways are to 1) create new, favorable content and to 2) heavily link that favorable content.
Here are some ways to take control over your reputation online:
Have a campaign website. It’s a primary reason why we recommend that candidate domain names include the candidate’s name within them. A domain name containing search terms almost always appears in the top search results. Best thing about a campaign website is that you can put your own message out there for people to find. A website is one of your best ways to influence your online reputation.
Create social media accounts on Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace. Pages from these sites often appear in the search results when a person’s name is searched. Are these accounts essential to have? You might consider creating them, because you don’t want someone else ‘hijacking’ your good name.
Create social bookmarking accounts. Delicious.com, Diigolet.com, Faves.com and Propeller.com are sites that allow you to bookmark and share favorite sites and web pages. Use these sites to bookmark websites, articles and other items about your campaign. They key here is to only bookmark favorable material to the candidate or unfavorable material about the opposition.
Links build relevancy. With a few links to select material, you can help influence what appears for searches involving your candidate and your opposition. If you have a few web-savvy supporters each create accounts for themselves, you can leverage this technique. Mileage will vary.
From your website or social media accounts, link to stories that are favorable to the candidate and unfavorable to the opposition.
Keep track of what people are saying about you. The overall idea is to create new positive content and link out to existing positive content. (We are NOT advocating the creation of negative content with the goal of smearing an opponent. Not only is it unethical, it can backfire against you.)
With a little bit of work, you can keep positive content appearing for related searches.
And if you’re really good, you can push up less flattering information about your opponent.
Additional Articles:
Online Reputation Management DOES matter
Online Reputation Management: Fact or Fiction?
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