1. Keep your PERSONAL
and
Business Online Social
Networks separate

2. As a business owner who has a personal
life, it is important not to mix the two. It can be
difficult today not to with the advent of social
media. When someone "likes", "follows" or
"friends" you because they know who you are, it
can be difficult, awkward and uncomfortable to
deny them. You may fear hurting someone's
feeling when you turn them down as a friend on
Facebook because they are a business
acquaintance and not a friend, but it is important
that you learn to do it.

3. It is true, that some business associates will cross
over and become friends, but it's not always the
case. In business, one wrong comment, picture, or
"like" can turn someone off your business even if it's
not business related. It's hard to imagine, but even
people you do business with, like and respect, often
have different political, religious and social beliefs
from you. The social rules of not discussing politics
or religion with mixed company still holds true. It's
just that you now have more places to manage now,
with the open atmosphere of the Internet.

4. If you've been on the Internet for a long time,
you might be surprised to find out what
information there is about you online. There are
websites that gather information based on your
name, address, and other factors. Check out the
site PeekYou.com, which is a site that collections
information from all over the web. Do a simple
Google Search on an old email address, or an old
discussion you had years ago on an open
message board or Usenet group, and you'll find
the ghosts of your past ready to jump out and run
your online reputation.

5. You can clean up the past, and bury it
behind new content and information, but
it will take a little work. Take the
following steps to clean up your online
reputation so that you can manage your
online reputation.

6. Separate
Keep personal and business separate on social
media. Ensure that updates on your personal
space are personal, and your updates on your
business space are business related. Do not
intertwine the two unless you have a really
good reason.

7. Research
Check out your search results and see if there is
any damage yet. Do a separate search on each
search engine especially Google, Bing, Yahoo and
MSN. What results turn up on the first three to
five pages? More importantly, what comes up
first? Most people will not look past the first
couple of pages, but it is important that you
check.

8. Clean
If you've already mixed up things, start slowly
cleaning it up. Announce to your friends and
business acquaintances that you want to separate
your personal and professional life. They will
understand, and you'll find that some people will
follow your lead. In some cases, you can even ask
for the content to be removed. Ask the
responsible parties to kindly remove the
offending content.

9. Cover
Up your focused and positive business content.
Set out to do at least one new blog post a day for
30 days, and one new article marketing article
per day for 30 days. Focus on specific keywords
that you want to be known for, and before you
know it, the bad search results will be buried.
They will never go away, but people will be less
likely to find them if you have positive content up
front.

10. END