So you have a new website, you’ve sprinkled in a bit of SEO, maybe got a Facebook fan page or Twitter account going. Now it’s time to sit back and reap the rewards and watch as your stats go whacko, right? Not so fast.

Have you considered your online reputation management (ORM)? Many people don’t. These days, ORM is essential, especially for business owners. I’ve found The Online Reputation Management Guide from Outspoken Media to be an excellent resource and would like to share it with you (I am just nice that way ).

Consider this segment from the post:

Why do you need an online reputation?

If you don’t control your brand online, someone else will. Consider recent advancements on the major search engines in:

• Universal search
• Personalized search
• Enhanced search results
• Rich snippets

There are more opportunities than ever before to quickly rank negative or slanderous results. If you don’t protect yourself, someone can easily post a comment, make a video, create a blog post, file a complaint, promote your competition, develop a hate site and more. Or even worse, an angry employee will leave the company with revenge on their mind and reek havoc with yours. Managing your online reputation isn’t shameless promotion, it’s a means of defense and best practice.
The Online Reputation Management Guide (2010, April 23). In Outspoken Media. Retrieved 10:25, April 23, 2010, from The Online Reputation Management Guide

So off you go—go read that post (also available for download as a pdf) and let me know what you think. Is your ORM good, bad or just plain ugly?