Managing your or your clients’ reputation online can be a lot of fun. It can alo be a little bit scary, as you cede control of your image to strangers who may or may not be the best judges of your business. Sites like Yelp, Citysearch and Google Maps can help you quickly build a reputation – for better or worse. They can also help bump up your search engine ranking.

If you are in business for yourself, or if (ahem!) you are in the business of helping your clients to succeed, what can you do to take advantage of these resources? Here are a few dos and don’ts:

Do: Make sure the right message is getting out. Discreetly encourage your satisfied customers to go online and say nice things about you.

Don’t: Write fake reviews about your company. Internet readers are often smarter than you may think and they can smell such dishonesty – all the way from your competitors’ front door. Ditto with offering cash or prize incentives to people who write positive reviews; most reputable sites, such as Yelp and TripAdvisor explicitly forbid such practices.

Do: If someone writes a bad review, learn your lesson (if there is one) and try to improve. But don’t worry too much. Customers will sense that you want to do right by them. After reading one customer’s negative comments on Yelp, the owner of a an Austin, Texas-based hair salon invited that person back for a free haircut. Afterward, the customer logged back in and commented positively on the owner’s efforts to win him back as a customer.

Don’t: Don’t try to coerce customers who have written negative reviews into writing new, positive reviews. Simply try harder with them next time and silently let them know that their opinion matters to you.

Do: Monitor the online community regularly. When people say nice things, don’t hesitate to use their comments in your marketing. Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, quoted in USA Today says, “Some business owners will post their reviews on their door, or on the counter, to show them off, and that’s a subtle way of asking customers to write about them.”

Don’t: Sweat your business. If you’re trying too hard to pull the online world to your side, it means you’re probably taking your eye off of the business itself – and you’ll look as pathetic as an overweight middle manager trying to score chicks at a rave party. Remember that even a negative review still helps your search engine standings.

One additional tip for public relations professionals. Getting some ink in tomorrow’s Tribune might convince your clients that you are doing a terrific job (and it may be true), but in some cases a well-rounded PR campaign could also include giving social media venues your attention as well. Such an approach would show your clients that you’ve got their back.

Keep it cool.
Social media shouldn’t drastically change the way you do business. Your company will get the reputation it deserves regardless of any “social media strategy” you implement. People have always talked, and they always will. With social media, they have found some news ways of doing it.

“I read the reviews and decided I must see you.” Those are the magic words that Tracy Menasco, owner of Trixie’s Beauty Bar on North Lombard has being hearing since she opened her business just over a year ago. Her customers aren’t talking about articles in The Oregonian or Willamette Week. They’re referring to unpaid coverage that has appeared on social media websites such as Yelp and CitySearch.

Trixie’s, which offers hair and nail care, as well as facials and waxing, does no traditional advertising. It doesn’t have to. Menasco, a Reed College graduate who earned her M.S. in Marketing from Northwestern University, told me the other day, “My business has grown tremendously as a result of just a handful of online reviews from satisfied customers.”

Not only do these online reviews help her “get the word out,” but they also do wonders for her search engine visibility. Reviews and star ratings often show up in search results and Trixie’s has booked clients from as far away as North Carolina and Japan who were planning their trip to Portland.

This body waxing specialist wants her clients to Yelp – just so long as they go online to do it. She is not alone. As a recent article in USA Today observed, more small- and medium-sized are using online reviews to boost their business than ever.

What’s Roger Ebert got that I ain’t got?
According to Nielsen/NetRatings, nearly 3 percent of all Internet users in March went to Yelp; traffic there has quadrupled over the last year. That represents a significant shift in consumer habits – those who formerly sought out the advice of professional experts are now relying on peers for advice and direction. They are also giving out such advice themselves. These ordinary consumers are influencing commerce to such an extent that traditional media increasingly seems to be just another voice. Last autumn, a survey by Deloitte’s Consumer Products group revealed these telling facts:

-Over 60 percent of consumers read consumer-written product reviews on the Internet.

- Of these, more than 80 percent say their purchase decisions have been directly influenced by the reviews.

- Such reviews reach far beyond the online world: 70 percent of these readers share the news with friends, family or colleagues, thus amplifying their impact.

Of course, newspapers aren’t sitting idly, allowing consumers to scoop all the attention. Readers of Willamette Week, for instance, can take the conversation to the paper’s Web version, rating staff writers’ articles and posting their own comments. (A quick glance at the paper shows that such measures have had lackluster success thus far.) Newspapers, of course, aren’t going away – professional experts will always have a well-deserved audience. Still, they are making room for consumer voices, and staff cuts at bureau desks are as much a reflection of this new reality as they are of the fact that newspaper ad revenues are declining.

Tomorrow, I’m going to check back in with a few dos and don’ts of social media marketing.