Quick Tips on Improving Your Online Credibility

Throughout the 2016 Presidential election, fake and biased news sites emerged from the dark corners of the web and spread quickly like wildfire on social media. Some articles, filled with completely falsified propaganda and biased headlines, were shared, retweeted and “liked” without users investigating their credibility. Other, more subtle sites hinted at “alternative facts” that seemed more nebulous than journalistic. In today’s new media landscape, audiences and consumers carry a new, great task: determining for themselves what may or may not be true online.

Have you ever stopped to think about your own credibility? Whether you’re a budding journalist or multinational corporation, your digital brand is only as effective as your reputation. If you (or your website, or your social media profiles, or your media) seem untrustworthy or unethically biased in some way, your users could feel alienated, and you could be ineffective at sharing your message. Here are some quick tips on how to improve your online credibility and build a strong, reputable brand:

Strong Ethical Compass

Before getting to the practical stuff, start by going deep. Your individual or corporate brand should have strong ethical guidelines, influenced by your deeply seated values. Pinpointing these values at the outset will determine everything from your company ethos to how you respond to a tweet. Start by asking, “What’s deeply important to me?” and write those values down. Values can range from everything from family, to money, to religion, to friendship. Each decision you make as a business or individual will be influenced by these values.

Entrepreneur and digital media strategist Gary Vaynerchuk has coined the mantra, “Legacy is greater than currency.” One of Gary’s most prized values is his legacy and his long-term reputation. He cares about it more than money and more than fame. This value permeates every decision he makes. As a business or individual, when confronted with a digital dilemma, it’s easy to access those core values and have a solid reason for why you might make a certain choice. Determining your set of values will be your first step in becoming an integrated, trusted brand.

Be Consistent

Often, the most credible sources are those with the most consistent, longstanding voices. The New York Times, for example, is one of the most trusted news sites in the world because of its years of reliability and commitment to truth. But businesses don’t necessarily have to be aged to be trusted. Even startups can be taken seriously, as long as they have a consistent voice. So, don’t start conversations on social media if you genuinely care. Don’t ask questions on Twitter to get engagement if you have no intention of following up with people. That makes you a flake. Build credibility by interacting with your communities. Follow up with users on social media. Engage with commenters on your blog. Don’t let your accounts go cold; instead, warm them up with consistent feedback.

Be Transparent

Openness and honesty go a long way online, especially in journalism. Linking to original sources or providing full transcripts of conversations help your readers understand you’re not trying to hide something. They can even look for nuances and facts themselves and hopefully hold the media accountable. Thanks to digital tools like DocumentCloud, sharing vital information is becoming easier and easier.

But even if you’re not a journalist, your business or brand should still strive to be transparent. The beauty of digital and social tools today is that they tend to be more casual, so your business or brand doesn’t have to hold your cards so close to the vest. You can explain why you made a certain business decision. You can ask your readers what they’d like to see more of on your website. You can publicly respond to negative feedback in a constructive and kind way. If you want to say something that may be construed as biased, that’s OK! Just be sure to explain to your audience why you feel a certain way, and don’t try to hide. All these moves can help humanize your digital brand and increase your overall trust.

Practical Advice

Besides some of the more ethical or conceptual steps to improve credibility, here are a few practical steps you can take as well:

1. Update Your Stuff: First of all, make sure your website and social media accounts are consistently updated. If the copyright still says 2016 in the footer of your site, for example, you might want to get on that. Cold social accounts can often tell your readers you’re disinterested or are checked out.
2. Contact Information: Be sure users can easily find your contact information. Often, fake or biased sites do not provide ample information to contact a webmaster or manager, so simply adding an email to your contact page can be more credible than a submission form. Adding a phone number can help as well.
3. Fix Broken Links: Use link-checkers like Broken Link Checker to make sure all your web links are in proper working order. Because website come and go so often, a site you linked to a year ago might no longer exist.
4. Spell-Check: Yes, there are also spell-check tools for your website! Just copy and paste the URL of your website into this form, and fix those grammar goofs.