The Role of the Online Reputation Manager

When was the last time you searched for your own or your company's name in search engines?  Did you find results on the first page that you'd rather bury or have removed from the search engine index? If you read the article "Ten Ways to Clear Bad Press from Search Engines":http://imagexmedia.com/blog/2008/3/ten-ways-clear-bad-press-search-engines, then you have at least ten ideas for how you can create content that potentially can outrank your negative mentions. But what if you're a busy webmaster, entrepreneur, manager or executive? What if you want ongoing reputation management and monitoring of the conversation about your business on the web? Well, you need a dedicated online reputation manager, or at least a consultant who will do the job for you. In addition to monitoring the web for new occurrences of your brand name in real-time, an online reputation manager will also come up with a plan to clean up search engine results and reach out to unsatisfied customers. Part SEO and part public relations, your reputation manager needs to know his or her way around the web, understand search engine behaviour and have the personality and social skills to represent you in a professional manner. You may opt for a PR/social media marketing firm, a freelancer or an in-house, full time employee to handle your reputation management. Search any online job board for “Public Relations Manager” or “Community Manager” and reputation management is likely one of the listed responsibilities. 
There are many firms that offer social media marketing and reputation management in addition to SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (pay-per-click advertising) services.  But if you want to hire your own in-house talent or add reputation management to your marketing department's to-do list, a great training manual is Andy Beal's "Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online":http://www.radicallytransparent.com. For about $20, this book explains the “rules of engagment” -- how to write for the web, search engine optimization, social media and online reputation management tools.
   _Radically Transparent_ explains how to: * Create an online press room * Conduct effective (non-spammy) blogger outreach * Leverage multimedia content * Choose the style of corporate blog that’s right for you and establish wise policies * Measure your blog’s success * Repair your online reputation * Measure your reputation management program effectiveness When looking to hire or groom a reputation manager, here are some basic skills/traits a person should have to do the job well: * An understanding of the social web, including blogs, forums, social networks, microblogs, photo/video sharing, ratings and reviews, RSS etc. * An ability to manage several social media profiles (an organized person!) * Exceptional communication skills, fluent in English with proper grammar and spelling * Someone who comes across as pleasant, positive and polite in online communications * Attention to detail - not someone who might send a sloppy email reply to all or cut-and-paste without triple checking the recipient email and name * A ninja at using search engines for research (an understanding of SEO a plus!) * Experience with web analytics is nice, but someone who can learn new software quickly is essential * An insanely curious person who keeps up with all the Internet marketing and social media blogs on a weekly basis, and always thinks outside the box 
It's also a good book for you to read for your personal reputation management - we all have a name that can be Googled online!