It takes years to build your online reputation, yet it can all be destroyed in a moment.
So, how do you maintain your positive name?
We chatted to Business Chicks member Kavita Sharma, Reputation Manager at Internet Removals, to find out.
Hey Kavita! Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your career to date?
I was born in Fiji, raised in Sydney Australia since the age of 2 and I am of Nepalese origin. I first started my career in 2 fields, I worked in Finance during the day and studied acting at nights. I lived and worked in Mumbai for 6 years until I made a personal choice to not pursue acting any further.
I returned to Sydney and restarted my career in Finance, over the years I undertook further studies and worked my way up the corporate ladder. Working across multiple sectors in Banking and Finance.
In 2018 I met a wonderful man, fell madly in love and got married. My husband, Raj owns a manufacturing business based in Fiji. At that point I had to make a very hard decision to leave my career and support my husband in his business and move to Fiji, for a 2-year period. In joining my husband’s business, I took on the role as co-owner and Director of Exports.
In 2020 as we started to transition back to Australia COVID-19 hit the world. And with no end in sight, I decided to start working again. I am now a Reputation Manager with Internet Removals. A role I find exciting, meaningful and have the privilege of working with a diverse global team across Australia, USA, UK, South Africa, Netherlands, Europe, India, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Internet Removals was recognised by GoDaddy as the pioneer of the content removal industry. Tell us about the business and what services you offer both business and individuals?
The services provided by Internet Removals helps to educated and manage the reputations of businesses and people. We are Content Removal Experts who provide a wide range of services including content monitoring, content removal and reputation management. We specialise in removing false, harmful, defamatory, potentially illegal or personal information from thousands of platforms around the globe. We commonly deal with clients and businesses who receive false and defamatory reviews, potentially from competitors, disgruntled employees, or customers. We have also helped many people who have been victims of revenge porn and had illicit content published online without their consent or knowledge.
Our services aim to eliminate the content from appearing online and further damaging the reputation of your business or of an individual.
There are loads of business owners with our community, what advice would you give them to protect their reputation online?
For a business your online reputation is crucial for your brand and credibility.
We provide services, tools and analytics to actively manage your online reputation, helping businesses to not only overcome online negativity but to get ahead of the problem. It is, however, difficult to provide advice which is applicable to everyone. In fact, we prefer to provide our advice in one to one, or group engagements.
Generally, a useful guide for business owners is to avoid the trap of only considering whether your actions are right, lawful or whether you are entitled to act this way. We often hear from a number of our clients that, for example, they were entitled to refuse a refund to their own customer. Our client’s may refuse to refund a $100 item on a lawful basis, but what in turn happens is that their customer leaves a barrage of online reviews across multiple platforms, which causes damages that far exceed the cost of the refund. We don’t advocate placating everyone, rather the example above is used to demonstrate that you should consider any risks to your online reputation before you act in situations which may later become volatile.
The same can be said for any interaction that a business has, whether it is with staff, personal relationships or service providers. Any of these interactions can, rightly or wrongly, result in harm to your reputation.
And what about personal reputation management? What can we do to keep our profiles safe online?
Be intentional with the content you create and publish online. Always remember that social norms and attitudes change over time and, just because something seems acceptable to publish now, doesn’t mean that it will be defensible in the future.
An area where advice is certainly needed is online dating for professionals. What many people don’t know is that their online dating professions often connect with their social media accounts and import personal details such as their university and current employer. This poses two risks, (1) that this information makes them more easily identifiable if someone was to post harmful things online, but also (2) that these interactions on dating profiles can sometimes attach negativity to employers.
Accordingly, it’s best to be private about what you publish online, be measured in what you do and say, and where possible, avoid exposing your personal information to platforms or persons that you don’t know.
What’s next for Internet Removals?
Our mission is simple. Continue making it easier for stakeholders and persons or businesses in need to find our services and gain the help that they need. We simply want to ensure high accessibility, ease of access and unbeatable efficacy.
What’s been the biggest challenge you’ve faced in your career and how have you overcome it?
A commonality I found across any field or any role I’ve taken on, is that you will often hear people say “no’ or “no, you can’t do that”-naysayers.
You will often come across obstacles and objections. In order to overcome any obstacle have faith in yourself, confidence and be tenacious. My reasons need only make sense to me and if I know in my heart of hearts what I want to achieve is the right thing, that’s all the validation I need. I’ve never been afraid of challenges, I believe in having a considered approach, and avoid acting on knee-jerk reactions.
In short – don’t always take “no” for answer, be resilient and be persistent.
You’re a woman killing it in tech, what advice would you give to others looking to go down a similar career path?
Enjoy your work, life’s too short to do something you don’t enjoy! Be adaptable and keep learning. The tech industry is forever evolving. It provides us with infinite possibilities and reach, but we mustn’t turn a blind eye to the challenges it creates. Switching career paths gives you the opportunity to expand your skill set and a chance for further professional and personal development.
Finally, how can we connect with you?
Got a question for Kavita? Visit Internet Removals to claim your free digital footprint analysis.
Want to tell your story? Become a Business Chicks member today!
