Proactively managing an online presence is more important than ever
While the rise of social media and other web 2.0 platforms have created some valuable opportunities for small business marketing, they have also opened up a veritable Pandora's box of reputation management.
And since a positive online presence can be one of the most valuable business resources available, it is now more important than ever for small business owners to be proactive in managing their online reputation.
To help small business owners in this pursuit, CIO magazine presented a list of free online tools to keep track of what people are saying online about a person or company.
First, there is the basic Google alert, which sends emails - the frequency and length of which are determined by the user - whenever new content is posted about the designated search term or phrase.
Other websites include Addict-o-matic, which aggregates news about the given search term from search engines and social media websites, as well as blog and RSS aggregators. More platform-specific websites include Technorati, which is just for blogs, and TweetBleep, which is for Twitter.
Another way to improve a company's online reputation is through the use of search engine optimization, experts say. By making positive, company-generated information attractive to search engines, small business owners can have more control over what appears in the forefront of a search engine results page.
