If you’re running a local business you need to take every opportunity to both manage your business’ reputation while reaching out to your local clientele, especially when that opportunity comes at no cost. Some of the best of these no-cost resources for local businesses are the local listings such as Google Places, Yahoo Local, and Yelp.

There are three primary reasons for claiming your local listings through these providers:

1) Claiming your local listings provides an easy to use platform to publish your contact information, hours of operation, directions, etc. You can also engage in reputation management practices such as responding to negative reviews and building optimized profiles. Photos, video, coupons, and special offers can also be added to these sites.

2) Neglecting to claim your listings can reduce your local visibility, pose risks to your company’s reputation, and assist your competition. While some local resources will publish a skeleton description of your business, others may not post anything at all. For example, if someone is trying to find your business but you’re not listed, the chances are that they will move on to a business that is listed. An unclaimed local listing can also look sloppy with fuzzy pictures and random information – not what you’re looking for in terms of making a good first impression.

3) Local pages give you another opportunity to occupy rankings on the front pages of the search engines, a critical element of proactive reputation management.  

The search engines have made huge advances in terms of helping local businesses to get found by their local customers. Gaining that visibility while managing your reputation at no cost is the kind of deal you just don’t see every day.   

Managing your online reputation can be challenging enough without putting up your own posts that anger half of your existing and potential customers. Such is the case when starting or participating in controversial threads on social media sites like Facebook and other social media sites.

The practice of reputation management is often seen as a necessary reaction to negative information posted on the web. While reacting to negative posts by putting reputation management strategies to work is an absolute necessity, businesses can put themselves in a much stronger position by using proactive reputation management practices.

Those big advertising budgets just don’t buy what they used to, especially when it comes to brand building and reputation management. The reason? In the not too distant past, the majority of what consumers knew about the products they were interested in was dished to them through slick advertising campaigns channeled through traditional media outlets.

The First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech, is one of the foundations on which this country was built. It is also the reason you should start and online reputation management initiative for your business as soon as possible. As more online businesses realize every day, sometimes to their dismay, nowhere is the First Amendment on display more than on the internet.