You know that in life you only get one chance to make a first impression. That is absolutely true - literally. The first impression someone has of you can only occur the first time they meet you.
When you meet someone for the first time they are going to feel a certain way about you and it can be positive or negative. Just like when you visit a web site for the first time.
With regards to people, after they’ve gotten to know you a little better, they may change their perception of you. They begin to associate a reputation with you. Everyone wants a good reputation.
No one wants to be “that” person thought of in a negative way when their name is spoken. “Oh, I know Henry. He is a ….” Fill in the blank.
Bad or negative reputation
If you have a negative reputation with a certain group of people, you can either work really heard to change the perception of you, or simply change your circle of people. People like to feel included.
There can be a sort of feeling of camaraderie when people have a shared perception of someone’s reputation. They are sharing a belief and it may or may not be entirely accurate.
We all know that sometimes, things get blown way out of proportion. Someone may get a bad reputation for a matter completely out of their control, or they may have a label placed on them because of a small incident that was magnified into a much larger incident than was necessary.
Either way, a bad reputation can follow a person around like a plague and be difficult to get rid of. It is helpful if you have a good friend who can look out for you and squash rumors before they get started. But unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen in life. However, when you are a business with an online presence, this is necessary.
Just like in life, if you own a website or sell a product, a good reputation is important. A good reputation online may be even more important than in real life. In real life if you get a bad reputation, only a few people may know. However, when you have a bad reputation online, a lot of people take notice. Millions of people even.
In the digital age when almost everybody and their grandma is online, it can be detrimental to have a bad reputation. It could cost you money. When given a choice between purchasing the same product or service from company A and B, which one will a customer choose? If company A has a reputation for always dealing well with customers and company B does not, it is an easy choice.
With the wide use Facebook and Twitter, among other popular social media sites, information can travel fast. If you are a business owner with a web presence, this could be a good thing, or a bad thing. You would hope that whenever customers have a positive experience with your business, they would share it with friends.
You would like to think that they would never have a bad experience with your business, but the reality is that you can’t always make everyone happy. And which stories spread around faster, good stories about good things that a company does, or the bad ones?
What do you do to manage your online reputation? Do you have any online reputation management tips? Please share your thoughts in the comments.
Nirra Poret is a freelance writer for Bullseye Media, a top seo agency in the UK. She also blogs on her personal blog about deals, coupons, and anything else she enjoys.
This is the first post i am reading on your Blog and i am Impressed by the Content. Can’t wait to check your other posts.
Nirra says
Oh, really? Thanks a lot. Probably I will write something interesting soon.
Christian says
Tanks for the tips!!!!
Always looking for more info on Blogging!!!
leigh says
Great post!I really like reading your post because i learn a lot on it..Keep it up!
Nirra says
Thanks a lot, it is very pleasant to hear such good words from people who read my articles.
the importance of reputation can not be looked down. you have to be very professional in your approach. One bad strategy can undo the heard work of last 1 year
Hi Jane, I’ll be honest I’m surprised no one has come up with a more secure way to protect your online identity. I mean anyone can for and make silly comments acting as if they were me when in fact it wasn’t. This is one of my biggest worries online.
Nirra says
Hello bbrian017,
To tell the truth, it is not hard to understand if you get “false comments”, such comments may be written from your competitors in order to let you down. You can only to get rid of such comments very quickly. Such things often happen in online business.
Hi Nirra, thanks for the reply, I apologize I didn’t see you were the guest writer. I usually nothing this stuff. thanks for the great article.
Excellent post! A rumor that creates a bad reputation can spread like wildfire given the great bits of information technology and the evolution of social media in the internet today. No matter how much we want to keep a good reputation, there will always be others who envy and make up anything to give us a bad reputation. For me, an easy way to deal with those kind of enemies is to not give a single bit of attention but focus instead towards better customer engagement.
Building reputation is a really a hard work and you simply can’t ignore it especially if you want to make a brand. Work hard and make better relations with people can be seen a positive step. Thanks for the nice article.
Nirra says
Thank for reading my post.
Nirra Thanks again for an awesome article.
I remember a guy on facebook offered me some of his services, the guy just added me on facebook minutes ago and instead of giving some introduction he thrown his services at me. I only replied him to first build some reputation than come with your services, he asked why. I said if someone meet you first time and insist you to buy something will you buy obviously no but if someone meet you in a proper way, listen to you, help you, guide you to good stuff, warn you from bad stuff and someday tell you to buy something than their will more chances that you will buy. This is called REPUTATION
Nirra says
Hello Umiar,
Yes, you are absolutely right, usually people want to have all at once and quickly, mostly because of this they have troubles in future. The first and the main rule is to know for sure that your actions are correct and then to realise them.
For me it’s always being honest with your readers. To never recommend something that you did not honestly believe in. It can be really easy to ruin a good reputation, one that can take a long time to build up and that is why you should never take chances with it.
antioxidants says
great blog… it is not hard to understand if you get “false comments”, such comments may be written from your competitors in order to let you down. i always get rid of these comments very quickly. it must be a problem of online business
It is difficult to maintain good reputation online since everybody has the ability to send out rumors about us. Yet, if we can be very careful on our activities on our image one, we can at least lessen the possibility of getting bad reputation. So more or less, we need to be wiser on how to deal with people because it might reflect to our image online.
Yes, indeed, reputation can go a long way. As far as I am concerned I don’t even know how some public figures have sometimes managed to get out of the mud almost untouched, or not for long anyway.
I think that in many cases, however, a bad or a good reputation will stick with your forever. Great article, Thanks
This is a great reminder about 1st impressions & that you only get one of them.
Your online reputation is so important these days as you are correct in that everyone & their Grandma has access to the internet & anything that has been posted on it.
I think it’s also important to do Google alerts so you can stay on top of anything posted about you or your company.
Great post