In today’s tech-savvy world, establishing and maintaining a good online reputation is vitally important to one’s success. After all, when individuals are looking for answers or solutions to their various questions and problems in life, they are likely to turn to the internet. A good online reputation can establish one’s business high on search engine results, and can convince readers that they are worth taking a closer look at. So how can images affect one’s online reputation?
Managing an Online Reputation
It’s become increasingly well-known that providing regularly updated, unique and valuable content is critical to establishing and maintaining a good online reputation. This content can establish trust between a business and their future clients, and it definitely includes the images associated with one’s business that are posted on both business and social media sites.
Search engine results often include images, sometimes displayed prominently near the top of the page. Unfortunately, if the images that turn up are negative in nature, they can have a detrimental effect on one’s online reputation, and unfortunately, they can be fairly difficult–or even impossible–to remove. Social media sites often list terms of service that specifically state that while they don’t have ownership of any of the content published therein, they yet have the right to use any published content for their own purposes. This obviously includes images–which essentially means that a single image published once can be shared and spread among others, becoming somewhat immortal and popping up elsewhere at random points in time. Obviously, this means that if a business posts an image that they later determine does not convey an appropriate message, they may very well discover that removing it from their website and social media sites does not actually cause it to completely disappear from search engine results.
In short, it is very important that one never publishes any images online unless they are absolutely positive that the image conveys the message that one is comfortable having all present and future clients see.