Illinois Congresswoman Melissa Bean Learns Importance of Online Reputation Management

Whether you’re a student, a CEO, or a stay-at-home mom, here at ReputationDefender, we believe that everyone should take control of their online reputation. Still, there are some professions where being on top of your image online is especially important. Take politics, for example.

When you decide to run for public office, you knowingly cede some of your privacy with the goal of helping better serve your fellow citizen. With this decision, however, comes a responsibility to actively protect how you appear to the world. After all half of a politician’s job is to get his or her constituents to trust in them, isn’t it?

Since the emergence of blogs and social media, not to mention the 24-hour news channel, a politician must be on top of their reputation at all times to be an effective public leader. Besides the risk of negative press or defamation, politicians must worry about who they associate with, what businesses they patronize, and, perhaps most importantly, how their image is being used. No one can speak to that last point better than Democratic Illinois Congresswoman, Melissa Bean.

As reported by NBC Chicago, Bean recently found herself the subject of some scrutiny after her name was hijacked on numerous social media sites, including Facebook.

Scammers create fake Facebook accounts using Bean’s name, photo and pictures of her friends and family and send an invite to unsuspecting victims.

Once the victims friend the fake Bean, they receive emails asking them to donate money to bogus charities under the guise that Bean is endorsing them.

She’s not.

Obviously, for Bean, this represented a huge image problem. Not only were people on the web posing as her, but they were doing so in such a way that they were actually driving visitors away from her real social networking accounts. Luckily, Bean acted quickly, alerting both the police and Facebook to the fraud. In responding to the phishing scheme, Bean offered her supporters some words of advice on keeping their identities secure online.

“As someone who has spent a lot of time working on issues of Internet safety and identity theft, I know how widespread scams like this have become,” Bean said. “I encourage everyone to be careful and follow common-sense procedures, such as those suggested at OnGuardOnline, before giving out personal or financial information over e-mail, or to someone who has contacted you via e-mail.”

Good words of advice from someone who truly understands the importance of proactive online reputation management.

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