When it comes to talking about the importance of protecting our reputation, I can’t improve on The Bard.

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;
‘Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.

William Shakespeare, “Othello”, Act 3 scene 3

Which is why, as individuals, as business owners, we get upset and take action, including legal action, if we feel someone has harmed our personal good name – i.e. our reputation – or that of our business.

Yet I keep meeting otherwise well-informed people who do not seem to be aware that:

• their name (brand) is online
• they need to be active in protecting it in that environment

Some people I speak to about this seem to think they don’t have an identity online. Let alone having any need to take care of their online reputation.

Any of us who have spent any time online, posted a comment on a forum, had an assignment on a website somewhere, been a member of an organizing committee for a community event, or simply had our name on a list which happens to be online, should assume we have an online identity.

You won’t always find it on Google, although it could be there. What is potentially very problematic for a lot of people is that if someone – say, someone you want to do business with – googles your name and comes up with that name but as attached to someone the police are looking for, or adverse comments by someone about you or your business, how would that make you feel?

People who start to think about this but may not know a lot about how the web works, and specifically about how search engines work, may feel there is nothing they can do to remedy the situation.

An example I use frequently to illustrate the potential problems and opportunities surrounding online reputation is the Zoominfo site. It is particularly important for anyone in the job market, or likely to be at any time, to check out their profile on Zoominfo, which is an early port of call for recruiters looking people up online. The info on Zoominfo comes from a couple of sources: a) what its robots find about you, or someone with your name, on the web, and b) what you put in (you can also change info there that is out of date or incorrect). I found I had several “identities” there and was able to sort them out so the ones that were about me were consolidated and I could “disown” the others. I was also able to add a lot of information, so now if anyone searches for me either directly on Zoominfo or on another search engine and the Zoominfo link comes up, the information there is what I want people to see.

There is in fact a lot that people can do. And I would say, should do.

In her post Online Reputation Management a few days ago, Meg Tsiamis wonders why so many companies “do not seem to pay attention to reputation management” and points helpfully to Andy Beal’s excellent Free Online Reputation Management Beginner’s Guide, which is still getting favorable comments two and a half years on.

See also:

Business and Branding #1: Built to Last or Built for Now

Business and Branding # 2: Finding What Works

Business and Branding #3: Brand You

The post Business and Branding #4: Online Reputation Management appeared first on Thinking Home Business.

• flexibility in being able to make the brand refer to what I’m working on now, rather than what I was focused on previously
• ability to build on the presence I have established online, especially through the past 4.5 years of blogging and related social media/social networking activities
• it doesn’t hurt that there are not, so far as I’ve noticed, namesakes in the business spaces in which I am interested

The Brand YOU concept

As I mentioned in that previous post in the series, I actually started using my own name as a business brand way back in the late 1980s, when I started in business and – like most of the people I knew who established their own consultancies – just took my own name and added “& Associates”. In between then and now, actually just before I started blogging, I became aware of the branding implications, via the “brand you” concept as I learned it from Dave Buck, now CEO of a coaching organisation I belong to, Coachville, who in turn acknowledged the use and promotion of the term by Tom Peters. In the onsite explanation of his program on the Brand YOU topic, Dave says:

Your brand is your trust mark – it distinguishes you from the field. Not like competition, but like uniqueness. As Tom Peters aptly predicts “It’s Brand YOU or canned you; become distinct or extinct”. It makes you a (very well) known entity. It’s how you connect with the people you intend to serve.  Speaking of service, that’s the real essence of Brand YOU – making your talents, gifts, experience, knowledge and value adding products so well known, that the people who want and need them can easily find you.

This is not about an ego trip – although I suppose it could be for some people – so much as about using your own name as a business brand. And social media, which by definition is more about people than about companies or other organizations, lends itself to processes of “Brand YOU” marketing.

Nor does that have to be restricted to promoting only the businesses of solopreneurs and other one-person operators.

Personal branding and company promotion

Paul Chaney explains how personal branding can also be used to promote a company brand. He cites some outstanding examples in the social media space, people who have become, in that world, “household names”. He outlines how, by becoming well known and respected, these individuals have helped raise the profile and reputation of the companies employing them.

The question that immediately arises for me, with my coach hat on, is this: assuming a client buys the idea that the CEO or some other person in the firm could be allowed, encouraged even, to build their reputation online as  a thought leader in their field via a personally branded blog, with the accompanying/supporting idea that this can only enhance the firm’s reputation as well as the blogger’s, what happens when that person gets a better offer and leaves to work with another firm?

Surely the obverse of the company’s fortunes rising with the blogger’s comes into play, with that blogger’s subscribers and other readers now seeing the blogger’s new firm as the one to consider buying from, hiring, etc.

Could companies being asked to support executives and others blogging require them to sign a “non-compete” document, effectively stopping them blogging for a period once they left the company? Taking “gardening leave” from blogging?* And if so, would that requirement constitute, in some jurisdictions, an unacceptable restraint of trade?

Blogger contracts? Attorneys at twenty paces?

For those of us who are home-based, solopreneurs this is not likely to be a problem. But many of us are also in the business of coaching or consulting to companies, which can be expected to have an interest in the topic. If we encourage them, say, to help one of their key people to build their personal brand as a thought leader, in the expectation or hope that the firm will have an “aura” benefit, what do we say to them about what happens when that person gets a better offer and leaves to go and work for – and perhaps blog for – a rival company? Or at least keep blogging but with people knowing he or she is with the new firm?

*Interestingly, in checking for a link to explain the UK/Australian term “garden leave” or “gardening leave”, I found a link to a recent legal decision in the Supreme Court of Victoria (Australia),  in which one of the protagonists was Bearing Point, who from what I’ve read fought their case down to the wire: so who does Paul Dunay, one of the stars in Paul Chaney’s post, work for? Yes, BearingPoint. Small world. And in fairness it should be noted that Paul Dunay has an ‘opinions are my own’ type disclaimer on his personally branded blog, as well as stating his connection with BearingPoint.

What’s your take on the personal branding via social media possibilities? Any drawbacks? And do you buy the argument that personal branding via social media can help the brand of the company which the practitioner – blogger, podcaster, tweeter – works for?

See also:

Business and Branding #1: Built to Last or Built for Now

Business and Branding #2: Finding What Works

Business and Branding #4: Online Reputation Management

The post Business and Branding #3: Brand You appeared first on Thinking Home Business.