Hello lovelies…we all love our social media right? We also know that no matter how rigid our privacy settings, once published a post remains forever in cyberspace. Before hitting the publish button we now ask ourselves – could posting that photo of my Tequila fueled friend dancing naked on a late night cocktail bar potentially damage her reputation? Or mine for being so thoughtless?

Would my offhand response to that political hot potato negatively reframe me in the eyes of others? Would that angry, revengeful diatribe about the cad/cow I’ve just broken up with call into question my integrity/sobriety/sanity? And how would I feel if the CIA, my boss, potential employer, Nana or the media saw my post? One, two, five years from now?

‘What goes on the road stays on the road’…and YouTube and Vimeo and Reddit and…

Yes, critical indeed that we carefully manage and protect our online personal brand. But what if someone deliberately set out to damage our brand image?

Recently met an extremely influential high flier who had Google searched herself and found, immediately below the link to her LinkedIn profile, a savagely titled link leading to an unnecessarily vitriolic essay written about her by an individual (read ‘troll’) hell bent on damaging her reputation. She needed a solution STAT!

Here’s what we recommended: (more…)