building an online reputation

What is online reputation?

Online reputation is a factor in any online community where trust is important. It affects a pseudonym rather than a person. Examples include eBay, an auction service which uses a system of customer feedback to publicly rate each member's reputation. Amazon.com has a similar reputation mechanism in place and merchants develop their reputations across different dimension. One study found that a good reputation added 7.6% to the price received. In addition, building and maintaining a good reputation can be a significant motivation for contributing to online communities. See Motivations for contributing to online communities for more information.To begin developing an online reputation, consider how your personal or company brand should be perceived. What is your brand identity / what is your value proposition / selling point / unique voice? Once you have developed the image you would like your constituencies to perceive, develop a strategy to build your brand. Are you seeking credibility in the marketplace (consider blogging, answering questions on LinkedIn), gain market leadership (create innovative tools for your industry) or connection (build a network of contacts in professional and/or social sites).Another way to look at online reputation is how well its being managed. This form of reputation is usually called web reputation to distinguish it from the online reputation.Indeed, Web reputation does not concern the virtual on-line reputation only, but the whole real reputation of a person or a company as it is affected by the Web. Nearly seven out of 10 global business executives see their reputations online as vulnerable. An online reputation is the perception that one has on the Internet based on their digital footprint. Digital footprints accumulate through all of the content shared, feedback provided and information that created online. People aspire to have a positive online reputation. If someone has a bad online reputation, he can easily change his pseudonym. This is why new accounts on ebay or amazon are usually untrusted. If a person or a company want to manage his web reputation, he will have many more difficulties. This is why a merchant on the web having a physical shop (with real name, real address) is usually more trusted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_reputation#Online_Reputation

Wikipedia explains it pretty well and I see no need to paraphrase it since I will demonstrate that I understand the topic later in this blog, and if I didn't oh well.

That is online reputation

How do I build it?

As it says in the definition you need "TRUST".

That is to become trustworthy. As the students reiterated several times in different words, you have to be radically transparent. By being transparent, you can become trustworthy. What happens if you are not trustworthy you may ask? Then people will not listen to you and therefore you will not be able to build up an online reputation.

How can one become trustworthy?

Simply put, you have to invest effort into it. ALOT of effort. Put an effort into what and how you post, type, etc. Part of being radically transparent is also to be honest, so one always has to present their best self. As shallow as it sounds you have to at least ACT as a very respectable person to get people to consider listening to you. Make sure everything is easy to read and organized. At the very least use spell checker and allow spaces between paragraphs so you are not posting a big wall of text that is very difficult to read. Use the proper size and fonts, using wingdings or size 1 is not helping people notice you.

Following the surface things, appearance and whatnot. You also need substance. Now that you have gotten people's attention one way or the other you have to now keep their interest with the substance of whatever you discuss in your blog or whatever site you are building your reputation on. Some ways you can do this are; Discuss interesting and relevant topics, be spontaneous, use many visuals to support yourself.



As you build yourself and maintain your current level you will get to know more and more people inevitably. Assuming you have done well up to this point, since we are dealing with online reputation people are a part of the equation. as you get to know more people your reputation will spread to the people they know to the people they know and so on.

I have been going on and on about how and what you should be doing but I neglected to say where. Visit relevant sites to your goal. For example if you want to gain reputation as an expert in Basketball, visit sites related to NBA, Euroleague and other Basketball related topics. Visit forums and be active in them. All the while maintaining a steady radical transparency.

Online reputation is the fad these days and many people will if not now, later, depend on it for building their reputation. Soon, the old ways of reputation will end. By old reputation I mean by word of mouth or television. As technology continues to progress and improve upon itself, people will need the old ways less and less until it becomes non-existent. By making the most of online reputation as your tool to gain attention, one can accomplish many things.