FYI: The Internet Can Kill Your Business
Don't let the search results online control the success of your business in the real world. Especially when you can be passively proactive about building your reputation through sharing what you already know and create a buffer of positive results, using this network!
What Goes Down Only Sometimes Comes Back Up
It takes a very long time to build positive reputation and image for a business using traditional methods, but alas it can be demolished by a single negative post or feedback easily in just few minutes by anyone and that anyone can also be your competitor. Review websites are promoted by the search engines though for a good cause of helping people identify the right products, companies and service providers, it has now become one of the most severely abused platforms. Reputation of several good companies have been damaged by unscrupulous competitors through these review websites by posting false comments and feedback. Though legal action is possible, it is a time consuming and expensive process and meanwhile you can lose a lot of business. If timely action is not taken, you could easily lose customers and um... millions of dollars.
Your reputation is also at stake every time you post a negative comment or reply on industry forums toward your fellow surveyors. In the 90's and early 00's you couldn't even find a surveying forum that you didn't have to sift through endless pages discussing the latest major sports event or surveyors bashing other surveyors simply for asking a question. This is one of the many reasons why Land Surveyors United is intolerant of negative, off topic and abusive commenting. The goal is to help each other build more positive reputations through sharing what we know and constructive criticism.This is the only way to improve the image of the surveying industry in the public eye and improve the findability of surveying companies amongst all of the garbage online.
An Exercise in Findability
Go ahead and search for your name or company on google in another window (I'll wait). Now imagine if that entire first page of results was filled with awesome surveying photos from your area, helpful tutorials in surveying and links to thank yous and appreciative comments from your associates and customers. That is what I am talking about. You tell the search engines how you want to be portrayed when people search for you. This is how you build reputation online.
Chances are, you initially found Land Surveyors United by googling something related to surveying. This is because our network is highly search engine optimized, thanks to thousands of hours of work since 2007. What would make you think that your content is any different?
Be a Mentor
In today's world, your company name and brand are dependent upon how you are found on the internet. Your reputation depends on how you show up in search results when someone googles your name. Do you really want a negative review or an abandoned profile to be the first thing a potential customer sees? This is why we have created simple methods for building and maintaining your social media presence online through sharing useful knowledge with your fellow surveyors. By sharing something positive from your surveying experiences, you are placing positive and helpful information for others to find when searching for the services you offer.
Today, a professional land surveyor must learn new channels of communication and ways to market their business online. Newsflash: Online reputation is driven by social media action. Since 2007, Land Surveyors United has been committed to not only simplifying and teaching methods for accomplishing this knowledge, we have streamlined the process for you. On this network you will be able to simply and effectively maintain your social media presence right from your profile. Have a twitter or facebook account? Sync it with your profile and with one single click you can update all of your profile statuses at once.
Using the power of social media combined with social support of your associates, you can create not only a credible image for your brand, you are building a legacy. On Land Surveyors United, we are building a living library of surveying history, for the future. You may be an experienced surveying veteran or a geospatial student, a professor of geospatial sciences or a rodman in the field- we all have something to learn. Through teaching what you know, you are documenting your life as a professional land surveyor and ensuring that the future for the industry is not simply robotic. Our network is a venue for mashing up the old tried-and-true traditional surveying methods with the new and exotic. All land surveyors have a voice on Land Surveyors United. Use yours to change history!
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