Sabrina Clark is the Director of Marketing at BrandYourself.com You may remember BrandYourself from their appearance on the Shark Tank.
Sabrina is a proud Marist College alum where she co-founded the Student Entrepreneur Network. Now as a part of the BrandYourself team, Sabrina is helping sculpt the future of the online reputation management industry.
Our discussion today includes the topics:
1 – Why your online brand is important
2 – Why it’s important to Google yourself (stop smirking)
3 – 10 easy steps you can take to improve your online reputation
4 – How to “remove” unwanted search results
5 – What is BrandYourself.com
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THE IMPORTANCE OF YOUR ONLINE REPUTATION
Sabrina and I start our discussion by talking about the importance of your online reputation. No matter how you dissect this question, it all comes back to one thing, Google.
If we want to learn about anything or anyone, Google is the place we go. This includes finding information out about restaurants, events, jobs, other people, etc.
Which means anyone anywhere can search for YOU on Google. Todd Lohenry called this the “zero moment of truth” during our discussion.
Because people look for you online, Sabrina reminds us that what people find about us online portrays to them who we are and what we’re all about.
What does your online brand say about you?
Regular listeners to the show already know my story and why I got into personal branding and online reputation management, but it was interesting to hear that Brandyourself.com co-founder Pete Kistler has a similar story while Sabrina “competes” online with a professional cheerleader.
While both Sabrina and I wish everyone understood the importance of their online reputation, sadly many people still don’t get it.
Worse yet, when the light bulb does go on for many of these individuals it’s usually because something negative appears about them in a search result.
Could you image finding out about a negative search result from a recruiter or during a job interview?
10 STEPS TO TAKE TO IMPROVE YOUR ONLINE REPUTATION
Once someone realizes the importance of their online reputation, it’s critical for them to understand the steps they can take to maintain and improve their online brand.
Sabrina and I talk in-depth about each one of these ten steps you can take to improve your online reputation. She also shares several pro tips for each step.
1 – Google your name
2 – Do some housekeeping
3 – Put your name in a few key places
4 – Write unique bios
5 – Join one site and fill it out completely
6 – Make a schedule and stick to it
7 – Share rich media
8 – Purchase your domain name
9 – Try your hand at blogging
10 – Create a hub about you on the web (personal website)
Sabrina Clark also shares an excellent BONUS tip.
WHAT TO DO WITH NEGATIVE SEARCH RESULTS
As we already mentioned, many people begin to see the “light” when a negative search result surfaces. If this happens to be where you find yourself, don’t panic, Sabrina walks us through the steps you will need to take.
To overcome negative search results, Sabrina Clark stresses the importance of producing content in order “push down” negative results. The amount of content you need to produce will depend on the type of “negative” content found.
Some negative content such as Spokeo, 411 or white pages will be more easily supplanted with content while a Ripoff Report will require much more. Sabrina recently did a webinar on what to do if you find yourself mentioned in a Ripoff Report. You can find that webinar HERE.
If you've never heard of the Ripoff Report, check out this link to the Reply All podcast all about the Ripoff Report.
The one thing I want to stress about negative results is this, once something is on the internet it’s there forever.
This means negative results will always appear in search results unless the owner takes the content down. All you and I can really do to combat negative results is to “bury them” with positive content. Lots and lots of positive content.
Just keep in mind that the negative result is still out there so consistently publishing positive content is a must but no guarantee.
WHAT IS BRANDYOURSELF.COM
BrandYourself.com was founded in 2010 to put online reputation management in everyone’s hands. You may have heard about them when co-founder Patrick Ambron appeared on the Shark Tank.
BrandYourself's clients typically fall into two buckets, those who understand the importance of managing their online reputation and those who are looking to “get rid” of negative search results.
The help with this, BrandYourself offers three tiers of services so you can take control of your online reputation.
1 – DIY (FREE)
2 – Premium (PAID)
3 – Concierge (PAID)
I use their free service and have found it to be very helpful with ideas and suggestions on ways you can manage your online profile. I also attend Sabrina's webinars and recommend you check them out. Sabrina does a great job tackling what can be a very daunting topic for many people.
You can view past BrandYourself webinars HERE.
WRAP
The following are the best ways to get in touch with Sabrina or learn more about BrandYourself.
Web: BrandYourself.com
Phone: (646) 863-8226
eMail: sclark@brandyourself.com
If you’re ready to start managing your online reputation check out this VIDEO and get started in less than 5 minutes.
