One person’s defensive reputation management maneuver is another’s ghastly crisis. In search marketing blogs and communities, social media reputation management experts inadvertently teach losers to build nightmarish nuclear bombs. It’s a nasty byproduct of the holistic work we do. To assume that only smiley-faced individuals harvest the reputation tips and tricks our community proffers would be incredibly naive.
Social media experts: how would you feel to learn that blog posts you’ve written empowered some malfeasant idiot to completely trash an Innocent’s Google reputation? Ironically if you think about it, a recent slew of (intriguing) articles teaching tactics to defend reputation disasters could actually empower evil losers to pull the trigger with cunning focus and killer professional techniques. Let’s have a look.
Step By Step Dissimulation
My friend Jeff Quipp who we have the utmost respect for, recently wrote 2 posts which (albeit outstanding) essentially comprise the definitive how-to guide for bad guys. “How to Bury Negative Online Mentions of You – Intermediate Level Tactics” and 50+ Sites To Help You Bury Negative Posts About You or Your Company!, if reversed amount to nuclear ammunition for any blogger with half a brain, time on his/her hands, a bad attitude and sharp ax to grind.
Ironically, misusing as “offensive” the ostensibly “defensive” tactics Jeff so ably outlines would be so much more difficult to defend than the average blogger’s weak-ass-PageRank-zero post to nobody we usually have to deal with. Take for example link-building to specially named Digg, Twitter, StumbleUpon, MyBlogLog and LinkedIn profiles. In the wrong hands the results could be completely devastating and difficult to defend even for pros.
Another Sphinn friend David Wallace, in his post “Using Social Media To Help Manage Online Reputation,” serves up an illustrated do-it-yourself guide to exploiting social media and blogs to “control” online reputation. The post is amazing in it’s detail. God help any of our clients should the nasty-banditos adapt David’s techniques.
Stuntduble, in the classic “lay-it-out-for-anyone-to-easily-understand style” he’s so well respected for, offers simple step by step social media defensive instructions by posting “Reputation Management Emancipation Proclamation – 10 Ways to “Own Yourself” Online.” Think about the ramifications if some asshole vigilante pit bull studies Stuntduble’s tactics and applies them to somebody’s company or girlfriend.
Build Anchor Text on Your Name(s) Now!
At the end of the day, clearly the best defensive tactics are undertaken preemptively. Still, not everyone has taken the time to build mini authority cross linked empires on their personal and/or company names as anchor text for SEO.
In that light while offering up holistic advice to wounded folks who are in a heap of hot soup is a kind thing for social media pros to do, we need to keep in mind that we are ALSO teaching the enemy how to take us on using our own weapons.
Additional Resources
A New Wave of Reputation Management Issues
ViperChill, Glen Allsopp
Trolls or Upset Customers? Do You Know the Difference
SearchMarketing Gurus
Nine Essential Tactics For Reputation Management In Social Media
SearchEngineLand
StumbleUpon Death Threats in eBay Social Network
SearchEngineWatch/blog,
Dissatisfied Customers + Word of Mouth = Marketing Gone Bad
Tamar Weinberg, techipedia
Online Reputation Management Requires Cabinet War Rooms
SearchEngineWatch, Greg Jarboe
yicrosoftdirectorygirl by Kimberly Bock
