Archive for August, 2009

Apple’s reputation has always been good thanks to the passionate advocacy of the Mac Fan Boy club who respond vociferously to any public criticism of their god. Regardless of the poor performance of the iPhone, they are hysterical in their support of any and all Apple products. The result is that few of the problems that arise with Mac products – broken screens, overheating batteries, poor reception are properly aired in the media. According to techcrunch, that may be about to change as the tech community begins to return back to Microsoft.

Partly this is down to fashion. As Apple has moved mainstream, it has begun to lose its cool among techheads and the silicon valley internistas. Now everybody has an iphone or Macbook, it is no longer cool to be seen sporting one. Much better a linux netbook and Android phone.

My experience is that many of the people I meet who use iphones complain like hell about them. People who use ipods love them without ever being aware of any other products. For many consumers, an ipod is the only portable music player – a walkman without competitors. That says more about the cluelessness of the competitors whoc are still struggling with the combining of hardware and software.

When it comes to the reputation management, apple’s fans have been the reputation managers for the company. Apple itself always seems secretive, paranoid and slightly nasty. The problems facing Apple are threefold in this area:

1. what happens when the company has to manage its reputation and not rely on its fans
2. what happens when things like appstore do not rally such a lot of money losing developers
3. when competitors finally get it! or android enables the hardware guys to produce phones that match the slickness of the iphone?

To date negative comment about apple gets drowned out by fans… when the fall silent.. then it will be interesting.

We often think of reputation management being about written negative content, but as this video shows, with a bit of magic and imagination you can create a very effective method to get back at a company if you feel hard done by.

United Airlines frustrated a customer, little did they know that as of today he has told 5,273,284 people.  I think that may cost United Airlines a wee bit more than just dealing with his complaints quickly and efficiently.

As more channels become available in the search results like comments, blogs, videos and photos it makes you appreciate how Google Alerts only covers a small amount of the content flying around the internet.

What’s amazing is how big companies still have no real understanding of reputation management on-line and how it effects them.  Here are some examples.

KFC

The Google search shows kentuckyfriedcruelty.com these kinds of search results can effect not only business reputation with customers but also shareholders.

Apple’s Iphones

This result is number 4 in Google could certainly put people off buying the Iphones.  The issue with negative results showing for your product is you never know how much it’s hurting and costing the comapny.

negative content results about iphones

Holiday Inn New York

Many hotels around the world suffer from sites like tripadvisor which normally have way more negative comments than positive ones.

Holiday Inn Hotel Reputation Online

So these are just a few quick examples of household brands who have not fully understood the need for managing the content on the first page results of search engines.  It’s no easy task and requires commitment from the company as well as the online reputation company.  Some industries naturally have a tougher job than others, take hotels for example, because of the nature of the industry they encourage 3 rd party websites to have content on them so they can make commission of bookings.  These 3rd party sites learnt very early on that customer feedback creates lots of fresh original content.  The problem created by this approach of course is more often than not people will write remarks when they have had a bad experience rather than a good one, so more often than not the content is normally negative rather than positive.

So how do you protect your brand and company reputation?

There is no quick solution to this, it’s really about creating good quality content  and keeping on top of the social network sites.  When we are creating content we put it into categories:

1. Top quality – this content is written for the main website and any press releases.
2. Middle quality – this content maybe out sourced and used for social net work sites and micro sites.
3. Lesser quality – this is used to fill the Internet with positive stories and helps push and support the top quality content.

Although we offer SEO services much of our work is creating positive content for clients and managing the whole online presence.  It is an ongoing battle making sure you keep on top of the online world, 1 or 2 articles a week just won’t do it if you have a global brand and you are going against 1000’s of people writing about you.

If only you know precisely what your customers are saying about your brand in the Internet world? And who all are your competitors. The Internet and has provided forums and platform such as blogs, video sharing and online customer reviews, and create content that is readily available to people who are interested in your merchandise.

For every businesses, it is vitally important to see how it is shaping before it starts taking a bad turn. People depend heavily on reputation before they venture into acquiring your products. So all you need to do is ensure the content available on the website accurately and positively showcase your product.

It is a tough task to monitor what all is written about you and your organization, but by actively listening, participating in conversations with all group and sending out positive messages you can better manage your organization’s reputation.

What is the Impact if we oversee these facts

Reality is harsh if a potential customer searches for your brand in Google, what is he going to see, obviously some link to your website, but what if there is a link to a site that talks about a bad experience someone had. So the impression of your brand takes a beating. You might even be willing to pay a bit more to keep the reputation of the company. The negative feedback can have a huge impact on sales.

The fact is that very less companies have proper strategies in place to counter such negative comments. Reputation management with its active team to shield your organization’s “online reputation” by employing Search Engine Reputation Management. They are capable to bring light through search engine queries. Some use these tactics reactively, to minimize damage inflicted by negative blogs or forums.

So it’s really meant to be easy now to find out what people are saying about you or your product. So how can you do it?  With so much chatter on the Internet, social network sites, blogs, news, alerts, websites, videos the list goes on and is growing.  It is essential that companies and individuals who want to protect their reputation online keep an eye on whats going on online.

Google Alerts

Google alerts is a great tool and it’s free, you can set up as many alerts as you like to keep a watch on whats happening in the blogging sphere and search results.  To set up a Google alert is very easy and very effective.

Twitter

Twitter can give you live results instantly see what people are saying online, very useful especially if you have launched a product and want see if any issues are flying around.

Friend Feed

We are keeping an eye on this service as it takes feeds from many of the social network sites.

Technorati

Tchnorati, this is an ok tool again focused more on blogs.

Broadtracker

This is a great tool for see whats happening on forums and discussion boards

These are just tools to measure your reputation on line, these will not stop negative content but will certainly alert you to any up and coming issues that might be arising.  It’s never a good idea to respond to negative comments directly on forums etc as quite often than not you will only make it worse.

The first rule of how you deal with negative comments on a forum about your company is under NO circumstances respond to any comments.  If you do then your opening a can of worms.  Forums are normally places where joe blogs can blow off steam and vent their issues.  The last thing they want is somebody from “the company” defending themselves.

There are 3 good reason not to respond on a forum:

1. Forums are normally driven by people who have an issue or like a good discussion.  The last thing an annoyed customer wants is someone from the company defending themselves.  We have seen this in previous cases with clients who try to tackle such threads in forums are suddenly attacked and not just from the customer but also from other people who just love adding negative comments.
2. By adding to the discussion you are also making the page become active and therefore encouraging Google to rank the page / thread higher up in their such results (and no google will not remove these search resultswithout a court order).  The reason for this is google is trying to show the most relevant pages for a keyword, so if it sees a site with lots of activity then its more likely going to show that page higher up.  That’s why sites like wikipedia do so well because of all the activity on the site and the endless amount of pages and content.
3. You cannot control the content on a forum, so don’t even start a thread about your company as it won’t take long for negative comments to appear if not from a disgruntled customer then from a competitor (I know sounds sly and just because you would not do it to your competitors does not mean they have the same moral standards).

So how do you deal with negative comments on a forum? 

It can depend on the actual content in the forums, if it is slanderous then there is case to contact the site owner and ask for it to be removed before you take legal action.  Another way is to do a whois check and find out who owns the domain and who hosts it.  You can sometimes contact the hosting company who in turn if they agree with you can pull the whole site offline until the negative content is removed.

When emailing the site owner of the forum, add this “email is confidential” in all correspondence, do not add any comments to the actual threads.

Reputation management preventative measures

The best way to avoid these types of issues is of course through reputaion management preventative measures, what I mean by this is by owning the first couple pages of Google with your own positive content.  So if you have a blog make sure you keep it up to date.  If you have social network accounts keep them up to date and so on.  It is time consuming but well worth it, we of course can help manage you reputation online and can also help advise and remove negative content from the first page in Google.

How long does it take to remove negative content?

This can really depend on a few factors:

1. How competitive the keyword is we are trying to protect
2. How much authority the forum has, is it an old page / site, does it have lots of content and activity and so on
3. What Internet presence you already have and how much resources you have to help provide content.

We would normally expect to be getting good results within 3 to 6 months, sometimes quicker.  We do this in many ways but the bulk of it is by filling the net and feeding it with positive content.

As your business grows and you see a huge potential your business is subject to be of customer reviews on blogs and social media websites. These types of websites will help influence your business as well create adverse or false message probably by likely competitors thus harming your business. That is exactly where online reputation management comes in for your rescue. Online reputation management companies protect their clients from getting negative comments and instead allow them to operate seamlessly on their business. The company constantly monitor the internet on remarks against your company and track the pulse of the consumer.

The process of online branding the business, person, company or available service is called as the Online reputation management (ORM).  ORM is typically considered as a coloration of marketing (including SEO, SEM) and public relationship. The online reputation management industry is becoming the hot one. Multiple companies are offering this service or starting the newly branded companies to focus on this. The reason for ORM industry fast growth is because of the huge need of protect the business and individuals online. The rapid pace of growth on the internet businesses well as the consumer introduction and the user generated media caused to increase the need of ORM. Mostly user generated media would be the things like blogs, forums, book marking sites, social networking sites etc. These kind of sites make more influence on decissions in online purchases. These kind of social media websites can be used to a company’s reputation growth or can be used to destroy a company’s reputation. That the main reason of Online Reputation Management industry growth.

Overall Consumer Generated Media (CGM) Tips

You have to investigate the fact before you plunge into action because you have to sure if this is not your competitor’s rumor to harm your business. Take a high note of the reality and be honest to counter them. Put down an explanation to justify your action and how you rectified it.  Rally friends, clients, peers and utilize your allies. Don’t create new profile to support you position you are likely to be caught.

How to conduct outreach to CGM

Task someone in-house to participate in any applicable forums as user. This will help minimize the impact if there is a regular contributor from your organization. Try sponsoring most forums and build alliances/partnerships with most vocal members.

Forums, user groups and message boards

When trouble strikes, you can minimize the impact if someone from your organization is a regular contributor and can voice your company’s side of the story on the forum. Put yourself consider sponsoring most influential forums Less likely to see sustained criticism if you are a supporter/sponsor.
You build alliances/partnerships with most vocal members.

Blogs

Identify the author of the blog, and read their profile and try to see who they are and what they do and about their work. Just check their author’s previous work to get a feel for his work. Understand the threat level – How respected are they. What is their audience reach

If a blog post is factually incorrect:
Ask the author to remove the same providing him with enough supporting evidence. Put yourself on the forum to keep the blogger updated about future news. If it still does not works, the last thing you can do is send your side of the story and explain the situation. You can even add comments to the post and be open to acknowledge email questions.

Balancing Negative CGM

If the article is true, do not try to ignore or hide the issue. But instead be a part of the discussion. Add response to the website and post your statement like what you wish to do. Try to engage the expertise of  CGM communication expert.

On the other hand if it’s not true, you can politely request for the removal of the blog owner remove or retract. You can even try for legal opinion and ask the blogger to suffice correct information and request them to put your information. Add statement to your website  with a search engine optimization consultant to ensure all content has been optimized and will achieve top search rankings

This ruling by a judge could be the start of the end for anonymous blogging.

A former Vogue Australia cover girl has won a landmark court battle to reveal the identity of an anonymous blogger who called her a “skank” and an “old hag”.

via Liskula Cohen Forces Google To Reveal Anonymous ‘Skank’ Blogger’s Identity.

There are 2 sides to this ruling if this does become wide spread for reputation management.  Often in the passed people have wanted to give their opinion without worry about any repercussions.  This maybe very legitimate if you are a whistle blower and want to protect your identity or have an issue with a company but need to protect your identity.

However because of the nature of humans, we take things for granted if they are written.T he issue of course is people also take the opportunity to abuse the anonymous approach and use slander to attack individuals and companies.  We even see it with our kids at school through cyber bullying.

In my opinion making the net more transparent can only make it safer.  It may help stop spammers and other undesirable groups as well.

It is good to see that large companies like Google are being held accountable, to often they take the approach that individual companies need to go through courts to get things removed from their search results.  Thats fine if you are a big celebrity or corporate PLC who has money to waste on legal costs.  If you are a small business trying to survive in today’s economic climate or a 14 year old kid being bullied then frankly that attitude stinks.

So I say bring on the transparency, I think the positives far out weight the negatives.