How do people perceive you online? With so many people trying to make money online a million different ways, it is more important now than ever to master your online reputation. I admit I struggled with this for years until I realized not only was I not mastering my online reputation, I was hurting it! Read on to learn how NOT to do that!
I started Pink Media in 2008 and I wrote this wonderful business plan with goals and all that good stuff we're supposed to do. Over the years I found I was slowly growing more and more discouraged and less confident in myself and my creativity. Why though? Was I just on the wrong track? Should I give up? Believe me, I thought of giving up many times. It was my children that kept me from doing that. When they saw me wavering in my commitment to what I wanted to build, they would promptly say "No mom, you can do anything, you can do this". I was always baffled by their confidence in me, so why wasn't I confident in myself? I knew some of the reason was due to things I went through as a child but I will spare you the details, we all have our stories. But the reason for a large part of the rest of my confidence issues clearly came from a lack of response to what I was creating. It reached a point where I would take positive or negative feedback, I didn't care. Then I realized I had to change not only my view of myself but also how people perceived me. It was time to get to work and learn how to value myself and my business. Below are tips on mastering your online reputation that I put together after I learned how to do it myself. Whether you are just starting out with your business or you've been at it for years, your online presence and mastering it is crucial for success.
1. Be Confident!
Say what? How can one just up and do the very thing they are struggling to do??? Well fake if you have to! No really, start trying to look at yourself and what you have accomplished objectively instead of through your own emotional lens. Mostly likely, if you take a good look you will find you have accomplished more than you think! Start taking stock in your successes
because dwelling on the negative ain't gonna get ya nowhere sister. Give yourself a pat on the back because just trying already puts you miles ahead of most other people.
2. Be Consistent.
It may be time for you to stop trying every new thing you think of and focus on just a few things consistently. Do it for yourself too because trying everything you think of can be exhausting and discouraging if you aren't careful. I know you may thrive on expressing yourself creatively in life or business but you can also do harm to your reputation and exhaust yourself trying everything and trying to be perfect. You don't have to be perfect, but being consistent will help you a whole lot.
3. Work Objectively Toward Your Goals
I've heard we should set goals. Then I heard that goal setting is not a good idea and that having an objective is a better way to get somewhere because meeting your goals may be to daunting of a task and discourage a person. Okay so which way is best? I decided to combine them! Ya! So now I work objectively toward my goals. Here's what I mean; say you want to make $200,000 this year. Well that is about $16,600 month and about $4,500 a week. Now wait. Some of you are now gone from me because you think that is just way too much for you to expect to make but I am personal testimony that someone without even a high school diploma can accomplish anything. So come back please:) Okay now the way to approach making that $4,500 a week is NOT to focus on how much you need to make an hour or how many sales in a day but rather while keeping those numbers handy (because that is the goal you made) and figuring out how to work toward the goal objectively is what you should do. So if that amount is about 7 sales a day for you then how many calls do you have to make on average? 25? 50? 100? I think it also depends on how long you are on each call so you may want to consider that too. ANYWAY,whatever that number is, that is what you focus on that day. Set your dollar figure goals to the side and focus only on the number of calls you need to make on average to sell a certain number on average. I love to work this way. It's far less stressful and helps me be far more productive.
4. Be credible
When you are a super creative person it can actually be hard to have credibility because it is just in your nature to try new things. This is great! Nothing wrong with it. You have to be careful that you aren't changing things too much though. It is important for you to identify what you are best at and then let everything else circle around that. Let what you are best at, even if it's 2 or 3 things that's fine, be your "center" and post about those things consistently. Also, don't hesitate to show you are qualified to do what you do and brag a little but not too much. If you have won awards or been featured somewhere, state it in your social media profile. By the way, DON'T forget to keep your profile updated. I am constantly tweaking mine. Most people are very bad about not keeping their profiles updated, don't be one of those people. Establish that you are an expert at what you do because you are. If you weren't and it was that easy everyone would be doing it.
5. Learn a Little About Social Media, Study Up!
You can't simply post here and there, taking for granted how important your online presence is these days, and expect anything at all really. You have to post consistently and it is very important not only read what experts are saying about social media but also do some experimenting yourself. For example, through some recent social media "testing" I discovered that if I post on Instagram between 7:45 and 8:30 AM I am catching a very high number of people in my time zone. I assume it would apply to other time zones as well so I am also posting at that same time in other time zones. I also recently tested my audience with 6 different posts designed to reach 6 different personality types. This information was invaluable and by watching the activity on my posts a learned a lot about my following.
6. Accept That You Can't Control Everything
People complain a lot about this social media outlet and that social media outlet but the truth is one or the other just may not work for you and in addition you just may not be very good at it. That's okay. Pick one to start and get good at that one and move on. But no matter what you do you still can't control that Facebook is always filtering and changing their rules and that Tumblr is home for many liberal activists sharing their hearts and stories to inspire change. You won't likely sell your It Works Wraps, or Baked Goods or Skin Care on Tumblr OR Linked In for that matter so don't bother with it. Linked In is comprised of a certain type of person, mostly home to small business owners mostly and those who are in management of big companies, corporate types. If you are a start up or small business owner it wouldn't be using your time wisely to try and jump on every social media outlet and hope to have success at all of them and also you are wasting time that could be 50% more productive and better at establishing your credibility by focusing on the two that best fit you. For example, most my effort for my business is focused on Instagram and Facebook. I will move on to Pinterest next.
7. Reciprocate the Love
It's hard to establish credibility if you are doing all the "talking" and no "listening". Like people's posts and comments and be genuine about it but do keep it short. It can be challenging to keep up with but it is important to make sure you don't miss anyone commenting on your posts. With Facebook and Twitter you can check in at evening time and still go back and see your notifications but with Instagram this is not the case. Once Instagram likes and comments have fallen off your notification page they are gone unless you want to go check each post you made.
8. Be Patient
In every capacity of operating a business patience is important and it's no different with social media. Again, be consistent and then be patient. Don't over post in an effort to be seen or get so discouraged you don't post or check your notifications daily. You never know who is following you and when they are looking at your page or posts. For example; I got an email this morning from a college student that wants to interview me for a class. I would not have guessed that young college student was even paying any attention to me. When I was asked to write my opinion on fashion at the Oscar's thisyear for The Daily Oklahoman I was surprised again because I just sort of assumed other journalists weren't really paying attention to me. I could go on and on but my point is; all of things are extra exposure for my business so I want to be diligent with my posting and patiently waiting for the response. It does pay off, you will hit that exponential curve. Promise!
Hugs! Noel
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