With the importance of the online environment for building a reputation as a writer, the environment can also provide ample temptations to ruin it – cyber bullying, making unkind comments and replies to other writers’ articles and blogs, heated discussions online that ruin relationships, vitriolic humor, profanity, outright disrespect for other people, companies, or groups, writing articles and blogs that are of questionable taste, writing negative content. In this case, the best way to manage your reputation as an author means “if you haven’t got anything nice to say” don’t write it, and by all means don’t make it public for all the world to see. Behaving in these ways will mar your reputation rather than helping it.
Don’t get me wrong. If you have a strong opinion on some issue, and that opinion may be contrary to what some others are saying, it’s okay to state those opinions, as long as nobody gets hurt in the process. No libel or slander allowed here. State your opinion in such a way that it shows what you value and what’s important to you. It’s a way of branding yourself as a writer, in the best light possible. But there are other ways to manage your reputation as a writer and show your expertise to the world.
Building Your Expert Reputation
Building your expertise takes time. It doesn’t happen overnight, with one article, book, or blog. IT requires writing and publishing regularly over many months and years. It involves publishing in more than one place – books, magazines, multiple online sites. It means having a profile in numerous places like LinkdIn, Twitter, and Facebook for starters, as well as having your own blog and your own website. Writing is your business, and these tools are your advertising. They also provide the opportunity for readers to share your stories with others, as well as to get your photo and your profile out there so your readers can find you.
Strategizing
Periodically you need to stand back and observe the results of your efforts. Read responses to your articles. Lots of good responses means you’re doing something right. An abundance of bad responses means you need to stand up and take notice. If there’s a recurring theme to the responses then you have an idea of what you need to change to make things better.
Sometimes you’ll get responses that are derogatory, ill-intentioned, or just mean spirited. How you deal with these can make or break you. In some cases it’s a good idea to make the responses public, and see what happens, In most cases, though, it’s probably a better idea to delete the replies s they are not constructive and only intended to be malicious. if
Finding Topic Areas and Venues Where You Can Be Successful
Social media sites, writing websites, personal blogs, and countless opportunities for freelance writing and technical writing for any company that needs a few pieces written for them. As for topics, anything that interests you can provide an opportunity for success. It helps to have more than one area that interests you and to try your hand at areas that you’ve never considered before. I recently began writing blogs for a real estate company. It’s an area I’ve not had a great deal of experience with, but I find I am learning a lot, which is another way to become a successful expert, to be open to the possibility of learning something new.
Having a Plan and Executing It
It helps to have a plan for the places you wish to write for and the topic areas you wish to cover. But simply having a plan won’t do anything unless you take action. Part of the execution process requires leaving room for new writing opportunities and taking advantage of them and being open to learning new things.
The execution process also involves avoiding all those things that have the potential for ruining your reputation. One stray comment is all it takes to bring down a well built reputation. No matter how badly you’re tempted to reply to an negative comment about something you’ve written, stop and ask yourself if it’s worth the risk of ruining the name you’ve built for yourself. If someone leaves you such an irreverent comment, post it – or not – but don’t reply to it. It is far nobler to just let the commenter have his or her say, and leave it be. The only person who gets a bad reputation is the person who made the negative comment. That should be the most important part of your plan. Either finding the best things to say, or saying nothing at all.
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