When you’re a celebrity, you’re always in the spotlight. And sometimes that spotlight is a little too bright. We’ve all seen celebrities break down, makes embarrassing gaffes, and get caught in compromising situations. Even though we’re all human, and we all make mistakes sometimes, when you’re a celebrity, everyone sees your mistakes and immediately puts them on the web, which can tarnish their online reputation.
When a potential fan Googles your name, you don’t want them to see a heap of bad press and negative reviews of the work you’ve done. So, the first step toward a positive online reputation is to not do anything bad or embarrassing in the first place. But even if you have a clean background and rehabilitate wounded puppies in your spare time, there will always be detractors out there who want to tarnish your name through their blogs or online reviews.
Google News
First of all, if you’re a popular celebrity you may have a Google news spot at the top of your search results. This spot will feature the most recent and popular news about you and is determined by Google algorithms that keep that content constantly changing. This means that that top spot is very hard to control and it’s always changing. However, if you can continually get press for positive things you’ve done, this spot should stay relatively free of bad press.
The Bottom 10
Although the Google news spot is basically out of your hands, you can control the next 10 links fairly easily be leveraging the power of your fanbase.
Clearly, you should have an official website where you can publish updates, news, announcements, press photos, and more. And depending on what you do, you should establish official profiles on all the major social networks. You can easily fill the next handful of links on a Google search with links to your Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, and others. Additionally, make sure you appear in online listings appropriate to your profession, for example, IMDB, Last.fm, and others. And, if you are a true celebrity, your Wikipedia page should appear in the results as well.
Simply including the majority of the above mentioned properties in your online reputation management strategy should fill most of a SERP for your name. Next you’ll need to turn to other online platforms where you name is mentioned. For example, look for unofficial fan sites (which will generally be all positive information about you), news articles in major publications, articles on popular blogs, and more. Once you’ve identified the most positive content about you on the web, all you have to do is point your fans in that direction through your social media accounts and it won’t be long before those properties rank well in your SERP.
Social Strategy IS Reputation Management Strategy
Building and maintaining an active social presence is the best way to control your online reputation. Not only will active social media profiles rank well in the SERPs, but if you have an active and engaged fanbase, they’ll do your reputation management for you. All you have to do is share links to positive information about yourself on the web with your fanbase and they will retweet it, share it, like it, and write about it on their own blogs and fan sites. The increase in links and mentions to the information you have shared with your fanbase will result in that informaiton ranking well on Google. And that is how you can fill the bottom few spots on SERP for you name.
So, in the end, reputation management for celebrities really is all about social media. Social media profiles will fill up the majority of a Google search, and maintaining an active social media presence will help you leverage your fanbase to get other favorable information about yourself on the web to rank well in your SERP.