In the world of online reputation management (ORM), your social media accounts play a major factor. There are many people that have a great social media presence and they should be rewarded for their efforts. When you look at their profile it is absolutely amazing. They constantly engage with people and there is rarely, if ever, a shred of information that can put them in a bad light.
When you look at it, you think how trustworthy they look. Well, so do prospective employers. When an employer goes to your social media profiles, they are what you call interested. They want to see who they have to potential of hiring. If you have a bunch of things on your website that is controversial or sheds a bad light on who you are, they move on to the next candidate. However, the person that we described above just made it to the sold list. That is, the employer knows that they have to have this person in their office. They will do almost anything to have someone that has a glowing social media presence.
This person is not special. This can be done by anyone. All it takes is a little bit of time and forethought. The aim is for you to leverage your online presence for new and interesting opportunities. To do this, you must understand the value of social media. Most people use it as a way to complain about certain things in life. This will not look favourably on your image. Instead, make your posts about positive things in life. You can even have links to some really neat ideas that are floating around the scientific community. Top it all off with some great pictures and you are set.
To help you better understand the things that you need to do, we have put together a little resource pack of sorts to help you get yourself up and running.
What is Social Media Reputation Management?
In order for you to understand the things we are about to lay out in front of you, an understanding of what social media reputation management is a must. Social media reputation management is when you build and monitor your social media presence. This will make your overall brand (your name) better than other people. Businesses do this all the time. It is high time that people realize their name is their brand. In much the same way that a business needs to groom their social media, you need to as well. There are three major benefits to managing your social media reputation.
The first one is by managing your reputation on social media, you will enhance your brand as a whole. This is likely the first place that people are going to find you. If you are not giving them the best things to look at, they will simply move on. On the other hand, if you have a lot of things that are interesting for them to read, they will be hooked on you and your brand.
Second, managing your social media reputation will make you rank higher on search engine results (SERP) pages. The reason this happens is that the more people are interested in what you have to say, the more they will come to see your social media. Additionally, they will likely share the content that you are providing them. This makes you appear relevant to SERPs. The more relevance, the more they want to stick you at the top of the page.
Last, but certainly not least, social media is a way to garner instant feedback. No matter what you are selling, in this case, yourself, you will instantly know what is working and what is not. This will also give you a chance to respond to your followers in a positive way.
The Foundation
In order to form a solid foundation for your social media reputation, you are going to have to set up accounts on all the major ones. This includes but is not limited to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, about.me, Vimeo, YouTube, and Tumblr. We will describe why each one of these is important.
- Facebook – Most of the people that have at least one social media platform have this one. That means that it is a broad net to catch the most amount of fish that you can. It will afford you the opportunity to connect with not only family and friends, but also prospective employers and companies.
- Twitter – This platform allows you to share brief moments throughout your day. We suggest that you find positive things to say here so when anyone looks you up, they can see that you are trying to find the best that life has to offer. Remember to stay away from controversial subjects and anything that can be misconstrued as bad.
- LinkedIn – If you are serious about your social media, then you simply must have a LinkedIn account. This is the go-to platform for all things business. Depending on your goal, you can easily search and connect with companies in your area looking to hire people just like you. Remember, this is not Facebook. Keep it professional at all times.
- About.me – Think of this as an online resume and biography page. You can put several things about your life on here as well as things that you would want prospective employers to know. If you don’t have a dedicated website to yourself, this is the next best thing.
Conclusion As you can see, having a solid social media reputation is vital in today’s age. If you don’t have an online presence, then you simply don’t exist. Many people have fought the digital age for too long. The time is now to make sure that you are online, and that people can find you. When you are creating your profiles, make sure that you keep it consistent. This will make it so that anyone that is looking for you will not have to try to hard to find you.