How To Build, Maintain & Repair Your Reputation

I was recently called to help repair the online reputation of an actor who was honestly being misjudged for a misdemeanor. People were beating her spirit down over it. Gossip, pictures, and press were about to destroy her reputation and her own personal happiness.

It inspired me to write a little about how to use good reputation maintenance practices.

1. A professional photography session depicting you in the environments and settings that you need to achieve your goal of worldwide perception.
2. 300 social profile websites built with 10 variants of pictures, short descriptions, and long descriptions of how you want the world to perceive you.
3. A personal website, usually www.yourname.com, built that highlights you, your hobbies, achievements & awards
4. Your interests, awards, partners, personal statement, dreams, accomplishments, and goals. This website will be optimized for SEO for your own name.

WHY THIS WORKS

These social and personal sites act as a shield against negative press and gossip columns revolving around your name or business name.  The layer of good news and image protection these sites can offer in a google search for your name can be so thick that bad press may be so far back in the Google search that no one ever sees it.

Regular maintenance of your reputation will involve following all press associated with your name, rewriting, reposting, and better optimizing the bad news in order to psychologically reset the wording so that it spins that bad news into a better light.

“We keep up with the news & write better news that outranks the bad news, by doing this we ‘maintain positive reputation’.”

You Did Something Dumb, And Now Everyone Knows It

You did something really stupid, or at least the vast majority thinks you have done something stupid. It no longer matters whether or not how true it was, once the public knows about it, it might as well have happened.  Being upset about the gossip and rumors surrounding the truth, or being upset about everyone knowing the truth, no longer matters and does you no good to dwell on it. It is now your job to manage what people know.

Do Not Change The Story, Admit To It

Everyone already believes who did it, no matter how false it was, once people have made up their mind on a judgement, they will not go back on it without hard, public, in-the-face proof.  Own up to it. You messed up. You did something stupid and now that you are done being mad at yourself or blaming everyone else for it, it’s now YOUR JOB to fix it.

Let’s say you were caught doing 90 on the highway at night whilst snorting blow and you got caught with a baggie of it.  This is innocent fun, it’s innocent because you didn’t realize the consequences until you are making that collect call at 4pm the next day after spending the night on the concrete jail floor and getting sentenced by a cold heartless judge at 11am. You misjudged the consequences, heck everyone is guilty of this, hopefully, no one got hurt.

Now Everyone Knows What You Did

Everyone knows, because that collect call started it, or your friends, bystanders or cops leaked it to the press.  How do you fix this?

• A. Everyone knows what you did so stop acting like you can somehow change the story by making something up, it makes you look even more stupid to the people who have placed blame and judgement already.
• B. Own it if it’s true. Admit to it, even tell the rest of the story if no one knows about the rest yet, it will make you seem super honest when new news comes out and you’ve already admitted to it. When people believe you know what you did and can admit to it, their view of the situation being innocent and accidental increases dramatically, the gossip and news surrounding it diminishes because spreading bad news is way more entertaining than spreading the good news, leaving them with only good news to tell and remember.
• C. Stop thinking people are against you, everyone wants to see bad turn into good, if you take steps to show people you are changing your behavior, it acts as a gossip squasher. It is not enough to ‘just change’, you must SHOW people you are changing, talk about it, post it, and live it (a little).

Example: You got busted on the highway doing drugs at night while speeding. Everyone knows it. Your parents or family now think you are a drug addict, they think you are out of control and going to end up dead, their built-in human behavior trait of protection has been turned on and they start to worry, calling you to ask if you are OK, it gets annoying. Some will do counter-help, doing the dumbest things to help you, not knowing they are making it worse. There will be many people who use your behavior as an opportunity to gossip amongst each other to compensate for their own boring lives.

Ignore The Naysayers

People who spread gossip and bad news despite a turn of events are not worth your time. They were not your friends or followers, to begin with, and will be lucky to have friends for themselves later on. Be glad this event has turned them over so you know who they are.

• 30% of people will never change their minds once their mind is made up, despite proof, ignore them
• 70% of people will believe you, forgive you, and have their opinion swayed by new information.

You only need to convince 70% of the population involved that you are back on track. It would help if you truly are getting back on track, but if not, use reputation repair tactics to cover your activities until you can correct them.

I hope my series of articles has helped someone in some way. If you need online reputation management help, for correcting a mistake you made, removing negative news, or just need general reputation maintenance, ask me or call 316-300-1785 and I will help you.