Have you ever wondered what it means to have a good and trustworthy reputation about your personality? The kind of reputation that can stand the test of time, no matter what happens?

Most times after striving to build up a high reputation, we tend to attract more rivals and new enemies to ourselves unknowingly. Some people will try all possible means to pull you down.

Hence it's not very easy to also maintain our high reputation or our personality, especially in the online world where it is almost very possible to frame up someone with one form of scandal or the other. (ask some of the celebrities around you).

An article in forbes shared the experience of Erik Kopelman, a business development professional who was haunted by an accusation that appeared on the web in 1997.

"It was an accusation printed in the student paper about the misuse of funds” he says.

According to the article, Kopelman was clearly worried. He felt that these allegations were simply going to haunt him.

However, he discovered that as years went by and as he had a lot of experience under his belt-the ingrained fear began to dissipate.

And today, he is no longer bothered as that page no longer goes above the second page of search engine results.

The above story, made me to realize that it is necessary to have a good reputation about your personality.

Some people say it's all about building the level of trust people have on you.

To an extent this maybe true. But just leaving it up to trust- especially on a small scale isn’t enough to protect one’s integrity trust has a limit, especially if the organization you have to contend with is a large one.

Below are some tips that will help you protect your personality and also improve your integrity online.

1. Have a Good Search Result: A positive search result helps shield you from
negative reviews to an extent, especially if you have an unworthy past. It's aim is to ensure you rank high in Google, Bing and Ask.com

Hence you need to set up personal social media accounts for these sites. By being fairly active on these sites you are sure to have your profiles pop up at the top of Google search engine, reason being that
these sites do have high page rank.

2. Sign Up For Alerts: To keep yourself in the loop of things concerning your brand or name is for you to subscribe to www.google.com.ng/alerts This service is free.

Another service you can make use of is Mention.com. They are all geared
towards giving you timely info whenever your brand or name is mentioned online.

This goes a long way in ensuring that you give prompt response to situation as they arise.

However, in responding to question or queries you need to be careful, the reason being that if care is not taken, people may assume that you want to cover the truth or you could blow the situation out of proportion. So there is need for a balance.

3. Subdue Negative Contents: An easy way to do this is for you to produce content on a regular basis.

This is why blogs are extremely important.

Setting up a blog doesn’t need to cost much. For just a small amount, or even free, you could get a nice looking blog.

The reason you need to set them up is because setting up a blog and publishing content regularly helps push down negative reviews about you or your brand.

4. Give Out Free Advice: Giving out free advice is an excellent way for you to build your online reputation. This is the reason why guest-posting is an incredible way to protect your online reputation as it
gives you the opportunity to connect with people who will fight your battle for you.

For example if for one reason or the other a disgruntled customer goes online to make a complaint, by having an army of followers you’ve built by relating with other bloggers you can easily see people who would vouch for your integrity.

5. Always Double Check: Before posting something online, ask yourself if posting this stuff will in anyway hurt your reputation. If the answer is YES, then it’s best if you set up a different e-mail with an alias name.

6. Contact Websites Owners: If you stumble on an absurd article, that aims at tarnishing your image. Simply get across to the owner of the site. Utilize the contact form or if there is a listed mail-send a polite one asking for the webmaster to remove the offending part.

Your mode of approach is very important. This is because an antagonistic stance may just escalate the problem.

7. Learn To Apologize: If for one reason or the other you feel you’ve erred, humbly apologize, by so doing you could win back the heart of people as you will be seen as someone who is willing to accept
mistakes.

8. Let Private Be Private: If you need to share things that only a few people need to see them there is need for you to modify your privacy settings. Be careful what you share to co-workers and your boss as this may turn to hurt you. Be careful who you tag on social media as the
photos you tag may not be protected by privacy settings.

9. Know Your Current Reputation: It’s important you do a simple Google
search of your name. Check out what you see. If in any way you feel what pops out is something you don’t like, do the following:
* edit it to reflect the reputation you want to be known by.
* if it’s time consuming-you can assign it to professional to get it done for you or you can delete the profile.

10. Seek Legal Help: There are times when you may need to seek advice especially if you need Google to remove certain materials that you may conceive to be offensive. In this situation, seeking the help of legal personnel is important.

Thanks for reading. Please share with friends and love ones.

source: www.cashrange.com/protect-personality-nd-improve-integrity-online/