Your experience is relevant if you’ve ever:

• responded to a reputation management project
• looked to hire for a reputation management project
• responded to an SEO project
• hired for an SEO project
• responded to a social media project
• hired for a social media project

Most people hiring reputation managers are individual businesses or one man shops outsourcing outside of their specialty. So the likelihood of sharing valuable information with your competition here is unlikely (if you happen to care about that sort of thing).

What kind of information would be helpful to share with the community? Here are a few ideas to stimulate your thought process:

1. What was the deciding factor for you using one service over another? User Interface? Number of members? Specialized focus? Personal referral?
2. How much are company’s willing to pay for this service (and name the service)?
3. How much bidding competition is there on the service you used for each project?
4. Are the bidding clients knowledgeable enough about the service they need to hire wisely?
5. Are the bidding clients completely ignorant and hoping to pay pennies only?
6. What have you noticed differentiates the good clients from the bad clients on the service(s) you use?

That should get you started. Detailed comments are encouraged. Someone somewhere is going to search for more information on how to choose the right freelance service. We want to provide that helpful information below. Please take the time to read any and all comments below and ask questions of the commentors before you. If you post a comment, please return a few times to this post and make sure you haven’t been asked a question about your experience.

Certain experts in internet marketing and PR have been assisting individuals and corporations with reputation management for a few years now. Guys like Andy Beal, who’s been writing about ORM since his blog began. Lee Odden, is another example of a marketing professional who has combined the practices of public relations, image consulting, and search engine optimization to provide ORM.

Maybe it’s Andy Beal’s Twitter account. Maybe his blog has matured to the right status. Maybe the Interweb has finally seasoned enough users to deliver viral blow. Assign credit wherever you want; the truth of the matter is still that Andy Beal is in the right place at the right time.

Andy recently launched Trackur, a reputation monitoring program, and the timing just seems perfect. Enough people have enough problems online that a well publicized program/tool could really make a dent in the public awareness. It’s got the Web 2.0 look and feel. Andy Beal is speaking in multiple venues this year on the subject, raising awareness and educating the public on how to handle a reputation crisis (and prevent one from ever happening).

Marketing Pilgrim, Andy’s long standing blog on all things Internet marketing, has received a recent boost from Twitter networking and prize giveaways. In fact, the only thing in question now is the product itself: Trackur. Having not used it yet myself, I must reserve judgment for another day and another post. However, even if Trackur isn’t everything you’ve ever wanted, it’s brandable and it’s memorable and, like everything else these days, it can be improved and enhanced over time.

If I can get my hands on a version of Trackur that lasts more than two weeks, I’ll write up a full review. In the meantime, mind your words, and guard your rep.