Own Your Name Online

Imagine you are " Company ABC". A user typed "Company ABC" into the Google search box and gets search results from sites with a negative comment about your company.  Or a potential employer or investor doing a background check on you and sees a Rip-Off Report post about you. These scenarios are potential headache to any business or individual.

As of March 31, 2009, there are around 1,596,270,108 internet users all over the world according to internetworldstats.com. 50-70% of the 1,596,270,108 use internet to search information. This means more and more people are going online to look up a product, a service, a company or an individual.

There are people online looking for what is being said about you or your company. Some may base their judgment and decision on these online feedbacks. If you are a company or an individual, it is important that you own your name online because every negative comment said about you or your company may mean missed-out revenue or job opportunity. 

For these reasons, you might want to consider looking up your online reputation. You want your official website or your professional profile to be on top of the Search Engine Result Page when searched.

In my future posts, I'll be featuring some of the tools you can use to monitor and manage your online reputation. Meanwhile, here are two things you can do to start claiming your name online:

1. LinkdIn is a business-oriented social networking site founded by Reid Hoffman in December 2002. It was launched in May 2003 and is mainly used for professional networking. For companies and indivisuals, this is a good site to establish your reputation. 
2. Facebook - with the large population of Facebook users, this is a good site to build your reputation. For businesses, you can create a Facebook page and send updates about your company or brand. This is also a good way to connect to your target audience or target market. Big brands like Coca-Cola is already connected to their consumers through Facebook. In the local political arena, Cong. Roilo Golez of Paranaque and Sen. Chiz Escudero already started ahead of their political rivals by connecting to as many constituents.

There are other sites such as MySpace and Multiply that you can use for your online branding. But the key here is to know the demographics of the users to have the maximum benefit for your business.