It All Comes Out In The Wash
Lately there’s been a hell of a lot of talk and drama about blogging smack-downs, reputation management in the event that someone wants to make you look a bit less favorable than you’d like, who’s right who’s wrong shoulda / coulda’s, and how we can make ourselves look better than the trolls who expose us.
Let’s set aside the argument of who’s who, who’s right, who’s wrong, and all that jazz.
The fact of the matter is, if we are more busy being more transparent, honest and forthright in our professional and personal interactions online and off, then we are most likely not ‘prompting’ or otherwise encouraging another human being to publicly bash us.
Yes, there are creeps all over the net that like to publicly bash us, either for attention or out of cruelty, etc. Nevertheless, reality says, if you don’t want a public spanking, then PREVENTION is the best reputation management tool at your disposal.
Be a good friend. Be an honest and open marketer. Remove selfishness and greed from your agenda’s and maybe, just maybe, this will prompt public praise as opposed to spanking your little hiney.
In my personal opinion, if you’ve done something harmful or unjust to someone in your professional or personal life, then all is fair game.
Treat others how you would expect to be treated or it may come back to bite you in your ass.
Is this the fault of those who expose you? Nah, it’s time to grow up and realize that in this day and age, social media has widened the expanse of ways to market, keep diaries, and express who we are as people. I’ve said it before, we want to see giving rather than selling. Giving in social media needs to entail something that people are craving. Something that we have been desperate for. Transparency as opposed to the same old marketing manipulative behaviors and personalities that is quickly becoming a thing of the past.
In order to maintain a favorable reputation to your liking,
- stay away from open honest and expressive people that may expose you for what you really are
- be 100% perfected at being a fake, if you have something to hide or manipulate
or make life and reputation easier on yourself and do the right thing:
- do unto others (even behind their back, because behind their back can enter the blogosphere against your will once they have found you out)
Are the ones that expose you or talk about about you poorly going to receive self improvement awards? Nope. But that’s not within YOUR control. All you’ve got is what you put out there.
THAT’S reputation management for the year 2008 and beyond.
If you’ve backed yourself in a cozy little corner of ‘used-to-bes’, thinking that the double life that you may have been living can remain to your advantage, you may be mistaken. Be who you are and others will still follow if you are good enough at what you do.
Wanna be an ass? Be an ass. (not suggested, but to each his own. At least it would be honest) Believe me, even asses are more marketable than the manipulative crap that used to be part of the marketers journey. In this nation and others, we are tired of watching people talk out of both sides of their mouths. It got old, and we have social media tools at our disposal to say so.
Determine for yourselves who you are and what you are about. Then let it ride. Choose a path for yourself that’s less than desirable to another? You may be exposed for that. Don’t like it? Don’t do what you do.
It all comes out in the wash.
Tags: reputation management
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Nature Conservancy feed
May 15th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
[...] Read more It All Comes Out In The Wash [...]
May 15th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Nicely said, Kimberly. It’s the “golden rule” that we should have all learned as kids … treat others like you want to be treated.
May 15th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
i guess some may not have paid attention or cared to hear it when they were growing up..or maybe they have just learned to reject it as they aged for some reason. nevertheless, it’s all we have to offer. everything else becomes secondary.
May 15th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
[...] interactions can affect lives. This is an example that fortifies the points I made earlier “It all comes out in the wash“. Prevention. Reputation management is not the only thing that should be of concern in the [...]
May 16th, 2008 at 4:42 am
Well written!
Mark Dykemans last blog post..What did you do while Twitter was down Wednesday
May 16th, 2008 at 5:25 am
“PREVENTION is the best reputation management tool at your disposal.” ..a very good point.
There’s lot’s of talk [and even more points of view] about the moral aspect of certain forms of cutting edge marketing. What’s a lie? What’s a sphin? what’s “true”? What’s a great idea to drive traffic and what’s a strategy that will discredit the client in the long run? Is ALL advertising REALLY good advertising? Just based on this recent story: [http://www.cornwallseo.com/search/index.php/2008/05/15/when-linkbait-goes-mental/] ..what are your thoughts on this?
Cheerio,
supaswag
supaswags last blog post..A Weekend on Mars
May 16th, 2008 at 6:25 am
[...] There have been a lot of posts about Online Reputation Management going around at the moment (seriously, it’s like this week’s Twitter). Glen Allsop’s ViperChill blog is a good place to start with his post explaining what ORM is. Jeff Quipp at Search Engine People followed this with his list of over 50 sites you can use to help deflect the impact of negative publicity on the internet. Back to Glen at ViperChill as he demonstrates some of the dangers of upsetting women who have a clue about how to use the internet. Then Kimberly Bock got in on the act (after taking a couple of days off) with her post on Yicrosoft Directory Girl called It All Comes Out In The Wash. [...]
May 16th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Funny…you took a slightly different take on reputation management. OK, a very different take…the same take I took when working in the public relations sector years ago. Here is the SEO take on reputation management that I posted yesterday (because even if you do everything right, you can’t please everyone…especially the traditional loudmouths!)..
David Leonhardts last blog post..SEO tactics for reputation management
May 16th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
[...] reputation management. Today, as I was reading Kimberly Bock’s blog, I was reminded by her It All Comes Out In The Wash post of all the work that goes into protecting one’s reputation before it ever gets to the [...]
May 17th, 2008 at 2:43 am
I like this girl’s writing more all the time. Well done Kimberley. What we need, in other words, are good, old-fashioned standards and ethics when going about our business. I just can’t understand why some people think it’s ’smart’ or ‘cool’ to insult others or say mean things. Haven’t they ever heard of karma?
Patricia Skinners last blog post..What Tweeple Use Twitter For…
May 17th, 2008 at 8:25 am
sry it took so long to reply..
thanks mark.
supaswag, the best i’ve heard in response to lyndon has been from andy beard and jonathon crossfield. i have read others and agree with those that feel deception was wrong. certain tactics benefit us seo-wise, but damage the reps of marketers in the long haul.
(i feel more strongly than i should perhaps, so i am just going to leave it at that for now.)
jonathons post - http://www.jonathancrossfield.com/blog/2008/05/linkbait-at-any-cost.html
andy’s post - http://andybeard.eu/2008/05/blog-for-a-cause-or-fabricate-a-story.html
patricia, i have been the type of person that i now complain about..i have received plenty of ‘bad karma’ for my actions in life. maybe this is why it has become such a mission for me to support efforts that take a stand for otherwise.
thank you all for commenting.
May 18th, 2008 at 2:29 am
[...] Before your reputation needs cleaning up [...]
May 19th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
[...] It All Comes Out In The Wash [...]
May 20th, 2008 at 5:44 am
Even though the rule “threat others like you want to be treated” is a very important one, you should never rely on it. Often people will break that rule and harm you or your reputation even if you didn’t offend them in any way.
Malte Landwehrs last blog post..Wie man einen Inhouse SEO einstellt
May 20th, 2008 at 6:12 am
of course. and there are different reasons for that, that i dont always agree with or even understand.
i read a comment on someones recent blog post that suggests the tainted mindset of some people..the post was from someone that performs unethical services. ( lying for linkbaiting purposes) The ones that have openly disagreed with his concepts get smackdown comments and blog posts written about them..
the commenter said in regards to the disapproving ones:
“jeez even trying to understand their thought-process makes no sense - from the area I’m from those types hold no water at all - they remind me of some repenting church of the SEO poisoned mind.”
my point is, no matter what we do or say, in the blogosphere, there’s not always reasonable reactions and public displays when we are being referenced. it’s not a perfect world, and we may find ourselves needing defense even if we have done nothing wrong. but we CAN control what we offer as individuals.
thanks for taking time to comment.
May 21st, 2008 at 6:05 pm
[...] It All Comes Out In The Wash [...]
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:57 pm
[...] prioritized professionality, hopefully you have found that I put a lot of effort into the idea of using ‘the golden rule’ as a form of reputation management, fairness in a not-so-fair world of [...]
June 27th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
[...] It All Comes Out in The Wash - personal favorite. [...]