According to Mashable there has been a lot of controversy following Twitter’s most recent announcement that means third party sponsored Tweets will no longer appear in the user timeline. The uproar has not come from Tweeters who may find that the move enhances their own experience when reading others’ timelines, but instead from the active community of developers that has grown around the Twitter API and the Twitter user base. Presumably, those that have their own income stream based on sponsored ads may also have some reason to air their grievances although some advertising is still allowed.

While third party ads in the timeline are out of the question, there are still other ways to directly monetise your Twitter following. Advertisements that are not displayed in the timeline itself, and are therefore displayed around the edge, are still OK even through third parties. What’s more, you can still use the Twitter run Promoted Tweets service to show sponsored Tweets in your timeline. However, third party publisher applications have proven especially popular because of the greater freedom that they offer.

The move has undoubtedly been taken to protect the user experience (too many sponsored Tweets can be incredibly annoying and can make a timeline difficult to follow with any accuracy) but it has also been taken to help Twitter monetise their own network. Again, there are few that can have genuine argument with this but the big problem comes in the fact that developers feel they have not only been kept in the dark over the situation but have been given misleading and inaccurate information in the past.

Like the old Wild West, the Internet is a bit anarchic–but that doesn’t mean that there is no justice or that there is no way to defend yourself against unfair attacks. Just like the old West, there are tools with which individuals can protect their honor/reputation–and on the Internet it doesn’t require a six-shooter or any risk of getting shot! Wild West 2.0 is a new book on reputation management written by Michael Fertik. In it, he offers suggestions on self-defense against the sometimes-malicious Internet.

Your online identity is made up of all the online content that appears to belong to you. To claim it, you do not need to reveal any information about yourself. You simply need to claim usernames and URLs that mirror or resemble your real name. Create profiles on LinkedIn and Facebook. Visit the most popular user-created content sites—Google Profiles, Twitter, and blogging sites—and register your name, or something close to it, as a username. Finally, register your name as a domain name. It doesn’t require any technical knowledge and, if you use a popular registrar such as GoDaddy.com, costs around $10 per year. By claiming your name across the digital frontier, you will have an established profile in case of a future impersonation attempt or slanderous attack.

This is just one part of a book review on WorkBloom, the rest is well worth reading. One can never be too informed about online reputation management services.

http://workbloom.com/blog/miscellaneous/protecting-your-online-reputation-smart-digital-self-defense-and-insurance-against-damage/

Hotels are one of the many businesses whose websites and online reputation are extremely important to their overall success. Indeed, hotels spend millions each year on online reputations, websites, online advertising, etc. One very important part of the Hotel business is paying attention to online reviews.

It used to be that Trip Advisor was the only major player in hotel reviews, however, consumers now have many other ways to vent frustrations or express positive experiences – and they’re all online on their phones accessing social media platforms.

Two consumer trends are converging in the hotel review process.  The first one is the adoption of Smart Phones as a primary communication tool and the second is the ‘immediacy’ consumer, one that wants to communicate their experiences and touch their communities in the ’now’.   Neither of these trends are going away.   eMarketing predicts that mobile and Smart Phones are going  to double in the next two years.  (12/19/09)

Consumers can update their social network pages via the apps that are available on their phones.  They can push out Tweets on Twitter and post to their Facebook wall the experiences  they have. They can also access review sites like Yelp to immediately post comments.

It is certainly true that reviews are easier than ever to post and more visible than ever before. This is why it is so incredibly important to get out ahead of these problems and be proactive. If you must be reactive, though, the online reputation management industry certainly can help.

http://www.4hoteliers.com/4hots_fshw.php?mwi=5083

Whatever niche you or your business operate in, you can be sure to find websites and portals that are relevant to your industry. Similarly, you can also find geographically targeted websites that are especially useful if you tend to deal with consumers or businesses from one specific area. The same is also true of social networking websites – there are many general ones that are extremely popular but there are also a similar number of sites in virtually every conceivable niche and category.

Whether you’re looking for niche websites to help you improve search rankings or as part of a search engine reputation management program these niche websites can really help you develop the reputation that your business needs. Create your free profiles and become an active member of the community in order to get other users involved – this involvement can help to increase the number of search results for your brand and it can also develop new customers directly. What’s more, your community will tend to grow and grow.

Whether you own an artist’s workshop selling sculptures locally or a multinational non-profit organization you can find niche sites that are dedicated specifically to you. Many of them will enable you to develop relationships of every sort while others will specifically offer you a means to develop working partnerships or to create new custom for your business. Take a look around rather than diving in to the first site that you see because your results can vary greatly depending on the network that you join.

A reputation management campaign means controlling the results that web users see when they conduct a search for you, your business name, your brands, and your products or services. A little negative press can go a long way to damage a reputation but by burying these negative posts and replacing them with positive or informative pieces it is possible to improve your reputation and even win new customers and more business. Setting up social networking profiles with sites like the following 3 is a great way to start any reputation management campaign.

1 – LinkedIn

LinkedIn is arguably the best and most popular social network that is dedicated to professionals and service providers. You can create a profile that links to your home page and you can add existing contacts while using the site’s features to help make new contacts. A great way to essentially post an online CV that anybody researching your name will find.

2 – Naymz

Naymz is one of the more popular contenders for the LinkedIn crown and it has a number of benefits. It offers more features for free, especially those features that are specifically designed to help you develop your network. It is especially popular with entrepreneurial professionals too.

3 – Newsvine

Strictly speaking, Newsvine isn’t really a social networking site but is more of a social media or social publishing site. Create a profile and add news articles and general interest pieces with links in order to generate traffic and create a buzz. Used well it can generate some good traffic and some excellent links.

Many businesses, websites, and individuals turn to social media optimization because it can be used to benefit their businesses or websites through marketing, brand building, and reputation management.

Unfortunately, the nature of social media and social networking websites is such that they can quickly take up all of your time logging in and checking and answering messages.

If you set up a Facebook account or a LinkedIn profile to help you bury negative search results then getting embroiled in lengthy conversations and looking up old school friends won’t help.

Online marketing and Internet reputation management are not mutually exclusive and indeed the act of creating and promoting your own web pages so that they perform well in search results could be considered a practice to benefit both.

Look for social sites that enable you to create a profile and then check back occasionally to see how things are going. It’s possible that a potential lead has made contact especially on some of the better networking sites for professionals but if you become a regular user of Twitter and MySpace then you won’t have much time left for running your business.

There are many types of social website. Social networking sites allow you to create a profile and then reach out and connect with others. Bookmarking sites provide a convenient means to bookmark your favourite pages and even make them public. Social media websites allow you to share videos, photos, and other forms of media.

Using a combination of these sites can help you improve your reputation and drive high quality traffic.

This article couldn’t be more right–in terms of online reputation management, there simply is nothing worse than British Petroleum’s handling of their recent oil spill. Online and offline, the press has been handled awfully.

“Obviously BP’s first priority is stopping the torrent of oil coming from the ocean floor a mile down in the Gulf of Mexico; the second priority (pursued simultaneously) is containing the damage from the spreading slick on the surface. Next to these tasks, formulating a social media strategy might seem trivial, secondary, or even inappropriate – but as marketers and PR folks will tell you, this should have started the instant the disaster was reported to BP’s management,” says Sass

It is easy to imagine why BP would neglect to tackle this problem online in light of the magnitude of the oil spill. But if they want to survive as a company with a decent image, they’ll have to confront their bad media sooner rather than later.

Social media has seen a massive boost in its popularity and widespread use with individual consumers, businesses, and organizations. Internet users are not only able to establish their own websites, blogs, forums, and other types of web page. They can also create profiles and establish a following on increasingly popular websites such as Facebook, Bebo, LinkedIn, and many thousands of others. By doing so it is possible to promote the appearance of being a professional in any field while also helping to promote a website and generate greater traffic for that site.

Another great benefit of effective SMO, or Social Media Optimization, is that it also assists with an effective online reputation management program. In business terms, reputation is everything. A good reputation can spread virally especially on the Internet but perhaps even more important to the website owner is the fact that a bad reputation will almost certainly spread and stick unless you do something to counteract the problem. Social media websites are one of the most popular avenues for people that feel they have grievances and they are equally popular with consumers and businesses looking for some kind of indication as to the value of your product, company, or individual reputation.

Bas posts about a company name or individual name can quickly reach the top of search results. While comments that are proven untrue may eventually be removed, the mroe proactive response to such a post is to bury it lower down the search results – establishing and managing online profiles with social media websites can play a major role in this act.