In this day and age, all brands and individuals are hell-bent on improving their online presence and ensuring that people fall in love with whatever they have to offer.

Your online presence is heavily influenced by your reputation. Since customers are quick to judge nowadays, it doesn’t take a long time for them to form an opinion about your business based on the limited interaction you have had with them.

Since the online world treats all opinions the same, you may get to see a wide variety of reviews regarding a person’s/brand’s reputation.

While brands have a keen eye on their online reputation, we believe that individuals too can benefit from fixating their eyes on their reputation online. And when it comes to online reputation management, nobody needs it more than politicians.

Politicians have got a reputation to maintain online, as well as in the physical world. Hence, what people have written about them or what others perceive about them online is something that directly affects them.

In this article, we will discuss the basics of online reputation management for politicians. While politicians can directly influence public opinion through their actions, it is oftentimes a bit difficult for them to manage their social media handles with the same caution and diligence.

People only trust those politicians whose online presence resonates well with their ideals and philosophies. By the end of this guide, all politicians will be able to better understand better the importance of online reputation management and how they can fully leverage the opportunities present for them online.

Regardless of whether you are maintaining an online e-commerce website or are a public figure like a politician, online reputation management can assist you in ways more than one.

Reputation is an important part of any politician’s PR campaign, and managing it online ensures that politicians are able to gain the trust that they so desperately require their supporters to put in them.  

The process for online reputation management usually contains steps pertaining to the generation, maintenance, and promotion of your reputation in the online world.

Online customers make use of numerous resources to gauge the trustworthiness of a political candidate or a politician. This presents a lucrative opportunity for you to build on and ensure that the people on the internet are attracted to you.

Customers only prefer buying and trusting in sites and names that have a good reputation online, so you have got all to gain and nothing to lose from your efforts in this regard. Having a solid online reputation management strategy will surely work in your favor in all upcoming campaigns.

The importance of online reputation management for politicians and companies is pretty obvious. With a massive change in the behavioural patterns shown by voters, it is imperative that politicians have a seamless online presence that is void of any flaws whatsoever.

Political candidates should ensure that their customers trust them once they search for their name online.

Customers nowadays don’t waste a split second in searching the name of a candidate online. The reason behind this is to find out information on the candidate and to see if they have any conflicts associated with their name. If your name is free of any such reputation damaging instances, you would be better able to pull the public towards you.

However, if your online presence is maligned by numerous claims that paint you in a bad way or tarnish your image, then chances are that your target public wouldn’t trust you the way you would want them to.

Within all of this tension, it is necessary that you keep a stringent check on the online world, and ensure that customers aren’t in anyway exposed to details maligning you.

The facts shown regarding your career and your political stints on social media can directly influence the decision voters make regarding selecting you when the time for the election comes.

A recent research study conducted in 2013 by the American Institute for behavioural Research and Technology found out that there are two interesting patterns pertaining to politicians on search engines and their election campaigns that follow later.

The findings made as part of the research stated that firstly search engines could manipulate and influence the outcomes of real elections. This was done after checking the behavioural patterns of different public sectors after reading good things about a politician online.  

Secondly, the research also found out that this manipulation online can be achieved, without the people or the general public actually getting to know about it in anyway. The manipulation of the masses through social media would be done in a covert manner, with the ultimate aim to shift public opinion in favor of the candidate.  

The study states, “that unregulated search rankings could pose a significant threat to a democratic system of government.” However, the parameters for this research rested on the fact that the elections should remain on a small scale basis, and some ‘swing votes’ should be available. Swing votes are usually those that can tilt in anyway just before the elections are held.

“Given that search companies are currently unregulated, our results could be viewed as a cause for concern, suggesting that [search engines] could manipulate the outcomes of elections in ways that would be difficult to detect. And whereas donating to campaigns is expensive, altering search results costs nothing.” –  Robert Epstein.

Politics has taken over the world of internet by force, and we now see a lot of politicians make their way online and adapt themselves according to the importance of search engine results.

It has taken some time for the web to catch up with political campaigns, but now that it has caught up eventually, it is time for politicians to keep up with the change and implement pertinent measures for online reputation management.

Politicians from across the globe can now be seen using all of Facebook, Google and other search engines and SEO marketing tools to ensure that they rank well on search engines and on social media, just before the elections.

This final push is made just before the elections to ensure a good performance in the election, with the general public responding well to their popularity.

Many politicians have used paid search methods here, to ensure that they are in line with their competition online, and don’t fall back on the opportunities.

The fact that not all politicians have mastered this medium and that there is a long way to go before all politicians are part of it, gives an indication of how hard online reputation management can be for politicians to manage.

The general public is extensively using the online web to search up on politicians, and with the growing emphasis on paid search engine marketing by these marketers, we might see a growing industry in the coming days.

However, online reputation management for politicians isn’t a walk in the park. While online reputation management can be a hard task in its own, it is further amplified when it comes under politicians.

Some of the reasons why online reputation management for politicians is so hard include:

Politicians often find themselves facing a dead-end when it comes to deciding how they should proceed with changing their online reputation management.

Politicians might not look like it, but they really are undecided when it comes to finding out what makes good publicity. Some politicians think that all kind of publicity can be good for your brand. But, that isn’t really the case.

It is often necessary for you to identify bad cases of publicity and have them removed from your profile online. Not all publicity is good for your brand, and you should limit the marketing of wrong kind of publicity.

One reason that makes online reputation management so difficult for politicians is the presence of so many opponents that are hell bent on maligning their name. Contrary to the ‘every man for himself’ environment within the business world, politicians interfere a lot in each other’s affairs.

All of your competitors would do all that they can to ensure that your endeavours in online reputation management go to waste, and that you aren’t able to maintain the kind of reputation you would want online.

Politics is played in front of the public, with the public clearly eyeing every happening as it transpires in front of them. Keeping this in mind, it is difficult to hush down certain talks within the community.

Even minor indiscretions can be blown out of proportion within no time. Fake news is rampantly shared, and your online reputation management team has to be on the tip of their toes to ensure that nothing goes against plan.

It is necessary for the online reputation management team to keep an eye on whatever is shared in regards to the politician online.

There are numerous magazines and newspapers that have a significant presence online, but are tilted towards a different ideology than yours. Such newspapers, believing in partisan reporting, do not account for your reputation management steps and lambast you for whatever reasons possible.

Now, these magazines and newspaper have a good presence online, which is why they can twist facts and make fiction look and sound like reality. Interestingly, it takes a lot of efforts to negate the presence of such content on the internet.

Having addressed the difficulties related to online reputation management for politicians, we will now get to mention some tips that you can follow while starting your campaign.

Some of these tips include:

A website that has the politician’s name in its domain is bound to perform and rank better than another that doesn’t have such a domain. Having a website of your own is a definite must for you to follow while ensuring your online reputation management.

Websites with the same domain name as your original name tend to achieve good ranks on Google and other search engines. So, they present a good chance for you to enforce your own agenda on people, and to cancel out that of other partisan reporters and journalists.

Facebook and Twitter pages also rank well when the name of a politician is searched upon Google. These social media handles should be properly maintained and should be routinely checked for canceling out or going through any reviews on them. Your online reputation is under your command, so use your social media handles properly, and only make posts that make sense and have purpose.

Being timely and fresh with the content you post on your social media and on your website is an imperative detail for online reputation management. Being timely with your websites articles and posts will make people link back to you and treat you as an authority.

Also, search engines will give priority to your website if you are being back-linked to regularly. The process will also help you rank well for keywords related to you, so that you can outdo the agenda of your detractors.

You can get in touch with Professional  online reputation management consultants  to get the most out of your sales potential.