Someone is talking about you!

Someone is talking about you

So here is an interesting subject. Is someone talking about you? Well the answer to that question is, YES, someone is talking about you! What you should be concerned with is what they are saying and how they are saying it. The next thing that you should do is take advantage of what they say, even if it is negative. How you handle questions will make or break you in the business world.  Finally, if what they say is slander or libel then what can you do about it?

Who’s Talkin?

How do you find out who is talking about you? If you want to know who is talking about you then you can go to the different social media platforms and enter your name in their search engine. This will bring up all the people that are talking about you. Here is a list.

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Flickr
• YouTube
• Picasa
• Google Plus
• Digg
• Blog’s
• Forums
• Yahoo Answers
• Instagram

Google Alerts

Now you don’t want to have to go and check these every day so how can you be notified if anyone is talking about you? There is a way to be notified any time someone mentions you or your company on Google. In fact you can have it delivered right to your email anytime someone mentions you in an article that is indexed on Google. Go to Google Alerts and type in your name or company. Select the result type, if you want to be notified of everything that is said about you or your company on Google then leave that selected. Then next setting is how often do you want to be notified, you can even pick a setting that alerts you as the event happens! Next you can select only the best results or all results. For instance if you have a 2 or 3 word phrase then Google will take any combination of those 3 words in an articles. For instance I put in my name Maximus McCullough and there was an article that appeared that had anther “Maximus” mentioned in one part of the article and then “McCullough” further down in the article but had nothing to do with me.

Think about What Is Said

More often than not people jump the gun and want to get back at whoever is talking about them. There is a saying that there is no such thing as bad publicity. You can capitalize on what people say about you, in fact you can make money with is as well! If someone is talking positive about you then all well and good. Its harder to capitalize on something that is positive. So if there is something said about you that is negative, take a deep breath, sit back and THINK THINK THINK! My grandma Sis use to love to watch Judge Judy and I saw one of the most amazing turnarounds on that show.   A customer at a jewelry shop was taking the jeweler to court for something that went wrong with her watch. I thought the customer was wrong but the jeweler was a smart cookie. After the plaintiff  gave the bull caca story about how her watch broke when she slammed it in the door the jeweler did something extraordinary.  When it was his turn to speak he apologized to the plaintiff for and said that he was sorry for all her trouble and used that opportunity on Judge Judy to market his services. He brought in a watch that was twice as expensive and gave it over to the plaintiff for all her trouble. He offered her a lifetime guarantee for the watch and said that if she ever needed any work done on it he would guarantee it for free. Then he gave her a free $100 coupon for anything in his store. That my friends is genius!

When someone is talking slander vs libel

So lets say that you have not been able to think about turning a negative into a positive when someone is talking about you. Firs all I would ask you to reconsider thinking about it. There is a lot of opportunity there to capitalize for your business. However is something is just malicious then you can do something about it. In this United States our Constitution gives us the right to free speech.  Fortunately we also have the right to sue when someone causes damage to our business or character. This is pretty difficult to do but it can be done. Slander or libel is all summed up in defamation of character. In order to sue for defamation the statement has to be public, false, injurious and unprivileged. The next thing that you will have to do is prove it. If you find something on the internet it is pretty easy to prove and falls into the category of libel. For a step by step instruction on how to sue for defamation of character see article How to Sue for Defamation.

Keep People Talking

How do you keep people talking about you? Provide a great service, go above and beyond what is expected. Write great articles that are helpful to people. Think about their problems and solutions to those problems. People have a lot of problems and that is why they talk. Granddad Si use to ask me, “Sonny boy, we have problem solvers and problem makers, which one are you?” Well the honest answer to that problem is that I am a little bit of both. People in general are problem makers. Every time something is invented we have a whole new set of problems, issues and challenges. The problem solvers look at problems as opportunities.

Look Who’s Talking

When we look at who’s talking about us we can measure up the situation. It’s almost like playing a game of chess with calculated moves. Use Google Analytics to see what people are using to find you and capitalize on those things as well. Is someone talking about you? Papy Si use to say, if someone is talking about you, you must be doing something right! Plan out your strategy and capitalize on who’s talking about you. Remember if you offer a product or a service create alerts for those as well.

Who is talking about your competition?

In your Google alerts also set up an alert for your closest competition and the products and services they offer. You can capitalize on this as well! If someone is talking about your competition or their products it would be easy to join that conversation on a forum or a blog post. Be creative about what you say and never say anything negative about your competition, that would only give you a bad wrap. Try to partner up with the competition. There are great ways that people in the same business can help each other grow. You should focus on that when you talk about other people. If they do something good or have a good product then acknowledge it. Don’t be a hog and think that you can handle all the customers in the world. Also look for opportunities to talk about your product and services. The best way to do this is offer free advice, tutorials, articles and more.

Gossip is King

Gossip is a money maker to say the least. When you have people talking about you then you are doing something right. Even if it is negative don’t let that get you down, look for opportunity. People that say the craziest things are the people that get a lot of attention.  Keep in mind though that you want to generate the right kind of attention.