Journal

Do You Know What’s Being Said About You Online?

If there?s one area where the Internet has made a huge difference in our everyday lives, it?s with the amount of information that is now freely available to and about us. Just type some keyword phrases into Google and you can be privy to almost everything that?s ever been written about a person or company.

Yet this isn?t always a good thing, as a friend of mine recently found out.

Typing her name into Google, she found herself on the Rip Off Report website, under a list of false accusations about her. What makes it worse with the Rip Off Report website is that the owner protects the names of the accusers yet will quite happily publish any story or complaint without checking the facts.

Instead, the accused can issue a rebuttal but that?s it – the complaint (false or otherwise) stays on the site for the whole world to see.

This seems morally and ethically wrong to me. Unfortunately, it also seems fairly common when it comes to your online reputation. If anyone can go online and post lies about you or your business, the results can obviously be extremely damaging. While you can certainly take out a lengthy and potentially costly lawsuit, the damage has been done.

This is why it?s so important to keep tabs on what?s being said about you online. Although you may not be able to prevent something from being written, you can react to it a lot quicker. Some of the best methods of monitoring your online presence include:

Google Alerts. Still in Beta, Google Alerts allow you to type in a certain keyword or phrase and whenever that?s referred to online, you?ll be alerted.

Social Mention. Excellent tool that searches the web for any mention of you, your business or brand. Can take its time to find all the results but the information it retrieves makes the wait worthwhile.

Technorati. The ?blog bible?, this site allows you to type in keywords, URL?s or tags and any posts that make a mention of these words will show up.

These are just some of the free methods you can use to keep track of what?s being said about you online. There are various professional business services available as well, if you need a more corporate-led approach.

Whichever one you choose to use, make sure you use it regularly. Otherwise you may find yourself in the same situation as my friend currently does – and a reputation can be a hard thing to rebuild once tarnished.

Lessons from Darfur – Why It’s Not All About the Money

While I tend not to let my personal views on the world and politics in general come into this blog, sometimes things need to be said. My apologies in advance, then, to anyone offended by this post.

As a business owner, the current financial state the world economy finds itself in is obviously one that concerns me. My business helps to feed my family, pay the rent and bills, and generally lets me live a reasonable life. Not luxurious by any stretch of the imagination, but reasonable.

Yet despite this, I can’t let it monopolize my thoughts when there is so much more wrong with the world. Nor should you. Have we really come to the point where all we care about is the fast buck and how quickly we can make it? Are we so blinded by greed that the color green is the only one that matters?

According to the CRS Report for Congress, The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11, the US Congress has approved $864 billion for military operations. $864 billion. What do we have to show for it?

A world more dangerous than ever before. A global economy that has been ripped to shreds by false wars over oil, not terrorism. Poor leadership from the people that decide our lifestyles. Millions of people losing their life savings when mega-corporations go under, while the CEO’s of these businesses disappear into the sunset with bulging bank balances. Is this the world we want? A world driven by the love of money?

Thankfully there are people who care and want to make a difference. People who continue to bring the plight of others to the world while others so easily forget. Plights like the ongoing crisis in Darfur.

While the Western world was trying to convince itself that Bush was right and Iraq was a threat, a genocide on a massive scale was about to begin. Now entering its sixth year, it’s believed that as many as 400,000 people have died in Darfur since the crisis began, with more than 2.5 million forced to flee their homes to escape the terror.

Think about that. While we’re happily throwing more billions into a war we can never win, our governments are cutting funding for the aid packages that Darfur desperately needs. In fact, in the first three months of this year, the World Food Program’s Humanitarian Air Service received no funding at all. The result – more than 100,000 deaths in each of these months.

While recent news about Darfur is encouraging – the Senate has passed a resolution to continue to look at ways to end the conflict – it’s possibly too little, too late. Particularly with the way the current administration places a value on things.

After all, while Congress is happy to allow $864 billion to be spent on broken promises and lies, only 6% of that amount has been set aside for aid packages to rebuild the countries we’ve destroyed. Even worse, less than 1% of this amount will go towards the veterans of the wars.

Do you really think an administration that places more value on the war machine over the destruction it leaves and the crippled it creates cares about a third-world country?

Do you really think that an administration that wants homeowners and taxpayers to get it out of the financial black hole it created – the very same homeowners and taxpayers it’s making homeless due to rising foreclosure rates – will give a sh*t about a conflict that has no relevance to them because there’s no oil at stake?

So yes, there’s an economic meltdown at the minute, and the Western world could be in for a very bumpy ride ahead. But you know what? It’s happened before, and it’ll probably happen again. And while it’s soul-destroying at the time, people that have lost their businesses have started again and made an even bigger success of themselves.

The people of Darfur won’t get a second chance. Not while we continue to be lost in the non-importance of our own little world, worrying because we only made so many thousands of dollars last month. Life is so hard, huh?

So forgive me if I don’t become too concerned with the state of our economy at the moment. Forgive me if I’m not driven by pushing my business one more rung up the corporate recognition ladder.

Yes, I want my business to be a success. Yes, I want to look after my family, friends and loved ones. But just how much money do I need to be really happy? And honestly, can I really be happy while another child dies in a country that no-one cares about? Can you?

To learn more about Darfur and how you can help, visit Save Darfur.

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5 Ways to Ruin a Perfectly Good Twitter Relationship

As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, I find Twitter to be one of the best social media tools around. The fact that it only allows you 140 characters to get a message across usually means that there’s no waffle.

People genuinely think about what they want to say, and it’s a great way to connect with people you share interests with, personal and professional.

Yet lately I’ve been getting a little frustrated with Twitter – not the service itself (although the fail whale is never a pretty site). No, my frustrations lie with the way many users are spoiling what Twitter has to offer – at least for me.

I know that people use Twitter for different reasons and I have no qualms with that at all. I just feel that some use it less effectively and far more selfishly than others. So here, in no particular order, are my Top 5 peeves when it comes to Twitter use. (These are just my peeves – it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re right – Twitter should be used how you want to use it).

Shameless self-promotion. Yes, we’re only human and that means we like to talk about ourselves. Yet social media is all about the conversation and interacting – sharing others as well as yourself. There’s nothing more annoying to me than a Twitter stream from someone that is nothing but a plug for their latest blog post or product. To me, that doesn’t offer anything to the community – sorry.

Selfish shouts. One of the reasons I love using Twitter is the way I find great new content, thanks to users I’m following recommending new blogs to check out. This has introduced some great opinions to me that I would never have been aware of otherwise. However, only recommending blog posts where you’re mentioned? Just as bad as shameless self-promotion (and possibly a little egotistical).

Twitter DM spam. So I’ve just agreed to follow your Twitter updates, and BAM! All of a sudden you feel it’s acceptable to send me direct messages telling me to sign up to your newsletter or join this group or that forum. Sorry, no – show me that you’re offering something selflessly and I’ll find that information anyway. Bombarding me with DM’s is akin to email spam and I instantly delete that.

Open conversations. This might be a bit contentious and I apologize if it comes across wrong – that’s not my intent. But if you feel that you’re going to have a long conversation with a particular user, can you use the DM option? Seeing half a conversation taking up every other Tweet isn’t particularly conducive to community spirit. You wouldn’t like me listening in on your phone conversation, would you?

Competition Tweets. While it’s nice to have the chance to win something at any time, Tweeting about it every other minute is not a great way to go about it. Instead of blasting everyone in your Twitter stream, why not have the competition URL and short spiel about it in your bio?

I’m not saying that Twitter is becoming annoying per se – just some of the ways that it’s being used.

Of course, maybe I’m missing the boat altogether and it’s me that’s in the wrong and the above points are moot. I’d love to hear your opinion, and if there are any other Twitterisms that annoy you.

Discussing Social Media with… Adam Gainer

A little while back, I sent out a request via Twitter asking if anyone would be interested in being interviewed for a discussion on social media. With the medium meaning so many different things to so many people, as well as how it can be used, I was interested to hear the views of the people I connect with.

My original plan was to run a ?round table? style of blog post – raise the questions and then have a mix of views as the responses. However, the answers I received back were all excellent, and showed why social media is the mix of interesting people and views that it is. So, I decided individual posts would be far more effective in an on-going series of interviews.

Sharing his views today is Adam Gainer, a Public Relations intern at Subudhi Consulting Group, a boutique PR agency in Richmond, VA. My sincere thanks to Adam for taking the time to reply and share his views. To connect with Adam, or find out more about him, please visit his blog Trying to Keep Up With an Ever-Changing World.

If someone was to ask you for your definition of social media, what would it be?

A mix of online tools for people of like interests to share information and collaborate on ideas.

What is your reason for using social media?

I use social media to share things I find interesting with my friends. It also helps me as I try and keep abreast of items and ideas in my field and try to keep ahead of the herd.

Do you feel that social media is being used to its maximum effect?

I feel that a lot of people are using it for its maximum effect to branch out to people they might have never met.

What social media tools or applications do you use? Why these ones in particular?

I use Twitter to find out what people in my field are doing, as well as let people know when I update my blog and what I’m working on or when I need ideas. I use Facebook to keep up and share things with friends, professors and colleagues. I use AIM to keep in contact with friends and family. Digg and delicious to find new interesting articles. I run a blog to try and help people looking to intern in my field see what they have ahead of them.

Where do you see the future of social media, both in general and for you?

I see social media being used for marketing as well as public relations to read direct niche markets with people who share common interests. Today is just becoming more and more media saturated and a lot of people are hungry for information. It will also be used by companies for them to be able to collaborate on projects from afar. For me I hope to use it to try and promote myself and help the right job find me.

Are businesses effectively using social media? If not, what can they do to improve?

I do believe that some businesses are. A lot are starting to get into twitter and blogging which is good because it helps them to communicate on a more personal level and get feedback from their customer base. The ones that do not are really missing out on an opportunity to find out what their customers and audiences think of them – this leaves them unable to influence perceptions.

What do you feel are the best and worst features/uses of social media?

I love how it’s instantaneous feedback and response. There is a lot of personality and interaction in different communities. The only drawback is that it’s 24/7 and you can’t always be monitoring it or you will drive yourself insane. Another aspect is while you can share a lot of information about yourself there is the constant fear of someone posting something you don’t like about you and it damaging your reputation.

You can find more ?Discussing Social Media with?? interviews here.

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