5 Simple Ways to Destroy Your Online Reputation and Lose Your Audiences Trust

I’m sure you’ve heard of the saying that “people buy from those that they like, know and trust”.

The problem for businesses and individuals that advertise online is that there is often a distinct lack of trust from potential customers. Online sales and marketing has come a long way in recent years but many people do still see the internet as a “dark and dangerous place” that they must be careful of. Recognizing this should be treated as an opportunity to prove otherwise. When we connect with an individual and show them that we have their best interests at heart, it can be very satisfying and extremely mutually beneficial.

Whether trading offline or online, there are actions that we can take that build trust with our audience and enhance our reputation, and actions that we can take that destroy trust entirely. Our reputation is everything we have online so we must avoid actions that will have our audience “running for the hills” never to return.

Here are 5 Simple Ways to Destroy Your Online Reputation:

1.    Over-Enthusiast and “Eager-to-Please-King-Google” Content Creation

We all know that keyword optimization is important in getting eyes on our website or blog. It’s useful to perform keyword research and then optimize our posts for those keywords…, just don’t over-do it! Ensure you are writing for your audience first and foremost because when people see your content stuffed with the same key words they know you are writing for the search engines and not them, and it turns them off.

2.    Being Socially Invisible Online

If you are not using social media then you are losing customers and money every day. To build long lasting connections with your audience and enhance your online reputation you need to be embracing the many forms of social media options available. Social media is one of the most effective ways of building reputation and trust with your audience. It is recommended that you have profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+ and YouTube as a bare minimum, and you should be interacting daily. Post great content and always interact with people daily, share, like and re-tweet posts and you will be surprised how effective this is at building trust and enhancing your reputation.

3.    Being a Promotion Monster

Marketing online is about connecting somebody with what they are looking for. However, there is a limit to how much stuff you can promote before people start to take a negative view of you and your reputation is damaged. We must all be wary of how much promotion we are doing. Whether you are writing to your email list, or posting on your social networks or blog, always lead with value first. If you are screaming about your product or opportunity all the time people will see you as a low status salesman who is not generally interested in them and only wants to take their money. That is definitely not the reputation you need to be developing.

Promoting too many products is actually counter-productive. Think about it, would you rather buy a product from somebody who delivers pure value and useful information to you 80% of the time and the other 20% recommends a carefully selected product, or buy from somebody who promotes every product to you most of the time?

Selective marketing is one of the secrets the top earners know and it allows them to make huge money from carefully selected product launches. 

Even if you are not yet a top earner, think and act like one and you will become one.

4.    Being “Shady”

Nothing kills trust and reputation more than a “shady” online profile. By this we are talking about having a website, blog or social profile that does not clearly show who you are, what you are about and how you can be contacted. It’s kind of like getting a Facebook request from somebody you don’t know and who has no profile picture. I doubt most people would accept that request? It’s recommended that in all online marketing you have a clear picture of YOU, an address where possible and contact telephone numbers. Make it very easy for people to contact you.

Use video in your marketing even if the idea of being in front of a camera gives you a cold sweat (it becomes easy the more you do it) Don’t hide behind a generic business name and use your own real name to build your reputation. Remember that people will connect with you if they know, like and trust you. It’s very hard to develop a reputation and for somebody to trust you if they don’t know who you are or anything about you. Don’t be afraid to give your true story, be a real person and never lie or mislead anybody in anything you do.

5.    Being Devious And Generally Annoying

Certain behavior will destroy your online reputation faster than Usain Bolt can run the 100 meters. Avoid this activity at all costs:

• Using a fake picture, fake name or lying and deceiving people with your online presence or story.
• Creating fake testimonials and fake reviews.
• Not including unsubscribe links in emails (or having the unsubscribe link set as inactive so it looks like it’s a technical glitch)
• Spamming your email subscriber list or selling their email addresses to other spammers.
• Spamming online forums, groups and pages.
• Arguing with competitors or customers over social media and bashing other companies publicly.

Online Reputation Take Away

If you don’t have integrity, you have nothing. You can’t buy it. You can have all the money in the world, but if you are not a moral and ethical person, you really have nothing – Henry Kravis

Trust is slow to build but quick to lose. Don’t ever sacrifice your long term integrity for short term gain. Acting with integrity in all your endeavors will build trust, and will enhance your online reputation and will reward you with continued success for many years to come.