- Twitter to lose its reputation as a free speech platform?
- IIPM worried about Google Suggest, why is it so?
- Reputation Management Tip for 2012: Brands need to tap into social media search!
- Facebook Timeline and Reputation Management
- Apple Siri gender bias or glitch?
- Google+ vs Facebook – its not over yet!
- The Ethics of Self Promotion Through Charitable Causes (A Case Study)
- Google scraps sidewiki – will you miss it?
- Facebook, the trust factor
- BlackBerry Blackout- RIM’s Reputation Takes another Hit
Archive for September 2009
Reputation the definition
September 9, 2009 | 
Author What does reputation actually mean?
The dictionary definition is
- The general estimation in which a person is held by the public.
- The state or situation of being held in high esteem.
- A specific characteristic or trait ascribed to a person or thing: a reputation for courtesy.
noun
- Public estimation of someone: character, name, report, repute. Informal rep. See respect/contempt/standing.
- Wide recognition for one’s deeds: celebrity, fame, famousness, notoriety, popularity, renown, repute. See knowledge/ignorance.
- A person’s high standing among others: dignity, good name, good report, honor, prestige, repute, respect, status. See respect/contempt/standing.
So how this effects you
Online reputation management or ORM is not a common phrase YET, like SEO was a term not used by average business owner 5 years ago. As time progresses and people start to hear from customers “Did you know such and such said they are not happy with your service on a website X”, they will start looking for ORM services. How will potential customers know what to look for, the may start off with search terms like Search Engine Optimisation or Search Engine Marketing. Although many SEO companies can help with ORM, it is altogether a bigger beast and requires a company with experience in the field.
Steps to online reputation management
The best steps to online reputation are definitely the pre-emptive measures, like any service if you call a plumber out at 10pm you will pay way more than if you can schedule a normal time. Reputation management is much the same, unless you company name is a popular name like “Music Download ltd” then for the most part a reputation management company should be able to get quick results quickly.
Some simple steps to help you get going:
- Make sure you have a well optimised site
- Sign up to Social Network Sites like facebook, twitter, etc
- Register blogs and wordpress
- Create some articles
- Do some online press release
Of course all this takes time and resources so if you need a hand then get in touch and we can certainly do a lot of the work needed to help your reputation online.
Reputation Management for Social Media
The first thing you need to realize is that when you enter a social media network, you are seeking your target audience. This is an ideal ground for you to apply your marketing skills, but the feedback may be positive as well as negative. Marketing the core idea of what you have to say to people who are completely uninterested, will lead to negative comments. Unfortunately this approach probably would also create a black mark to your reputation. Such activities turn down even the reputable marketing campaigns. This will make it difficult to transmit the necessary information. So make sure that you are getting the right information to the right people so that you won’t upset the users who visit your site.
When you enter this social media network, there is no doubt that you are going to create negative feedback. Definitely there will be someone that doesn’t appreciate what you have to say. Go ahead, accept it and think how best you can use it. On one side you should make sure that they don’t affect your reputation and also you don’t need to overreact. A negative comment can still provide a push for meaningful conversation that can work in your favor. Select your battles wisely. And if you like to engage in a battle, make sure that the topic is worthwhile. Petty arguments are not good and can actually be more damaging.
While you do not want negative comments, they can be useful and at least provide you with a judgment about an opposing position on what you support. Don’t be afraid to enter into social media marketing. Just make sure that you are following a good plan of action and are not immersing uninterested people with valueless information.
Who should look after your SEO and reputation management
SEO Online Marketing
So often when a company is looking to hire somebody for the intenet to help with marketing they will hand it over as an IT issue rather than a marketing issue. This is often because companies still don’t get and understand how the Internet can help or hinder a company. When you talk about advertising in a newspaper they get what quarter of a page looks like, SEO on the other hand is very subtle and often not obvious.
So many times I’ve heard in the past people saying I am getting my cousin, brother, friend to do our website, or our graphics designer is building our new site and so on. One thing runs true no matter whether we are talking about online or ofline business, Location, Location, Location. If I ran a large department store, would I build it on some little housing estate on the outskirts of town, or would I build it in the the prime shopping areas where the footfall would be 1000′s of times greater.
So taking that same attitude, would you get someone who has never ran a successful website online to help you with your online marketing, build your website and ultimately control you reputation online? I hope your answer would be no.
When do you start your online marketing?
Again one of the biggest mistakes is to wait until your product or business launch and wonder why nothing is coming through your website. We like to plan at least 6 months ahead to get the ball rolling, work on our marketing strategies, start our SEO campaign and build good quality content. Don’t leave it till the day you open for business as you will be dissapointed. Of course you can also use Adwords to get the ball rolling but rlying on just this form of marketing can be costly.
Make sure to leave a budget for your online marketing, I remember talking with a developer who had built 200 serviced apartments to rent out as holiday lets. They had spent £30,000 on towels and allocated £1,000 for online marketing and website…. Need i say more.
SEO and Reputation Management has to be part of your marketing strategy, there is only 10 places available on the first page, make sure you are planning to take one of those spots.
Posted in Reputation Management, SEO | 
Tags: Internet Marketing, MArketing Online, Planning, Reputation Management, SEO | 
No Comments »
Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre
I saw a piece on the BBC breakfast show this morning about Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre or CEOP as it’s also known. It’s amazing the lack of interest this site gets from parents considering what they are trying to achieve, but at the same time I’m not surprised.
People including companies still seem to bury their head in the sand when it comes to understanding the Internet, but when it comes to our kids we cannot be so blazay. The Internet is an opportunity for for paedophiles and criminals alike to take advantage of ignorance.
What CEOP is trying to achieve is great but they need the help of parents, think of a PC like you would a telephone or a TV, you are probably very vigalent who your child is talking to or watching, but the Internet an altogether different beast. By all means don’t be spooked and scared from your kids using the net as it’s here to stay, but do get an understanding of what they are doing and people they are talking to.
There is loads of great advice on the website and I’m not going to even pretend I have the answers but here are some basic rules I would have my kids follow:
- Try to use a pretend user name rather than your actual name.
- Don’t give out any personal information including your age or where you live.
- If someone does start asking questions alert a parent immediately, if it is concerning then let mum or dad know straight away.
Here is some more information from their site:
Who can I talk to?
If you feel upset about anything you have seen on the computer or if someone has said something which makes you feel bad or funny inside – you need to tell your mum, dad or whoever looks after you at home.
If you want to talk to someone else you can call ‘Childline’, which is a place where people who are nice can help you.
They won’t tell anyone that you have called and it’s free. You can phone them on: 0800 1111
You can also talk to your teachers if anything is upsetting you and they will help you.
The most important thing is to remember is to tell a grown up you like and trust if you are unhappy or scared about anything.
Lets see if we can help protect our kids and take a more active roll in understanding the NET it’s not going away!!!
Visit http://www.ceop.gov.uk/
Posted in Reputation News | Tags: CEOP, Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, protect children online | No Comments »
Often companies leave online reputation until it’s a crisis
There is a great article in BusinessDay about how getting the best staff can often depend on a business’s reputation. Any savvy potential employee will search the Internet to find out about a potential employer. If you have negative content about your company online, then often its quite difficult to get rid off and put great potential employyes off.
The best approach is to preempt the bad press online by dominating the search engine with positive content.
Posted in Bad Press, Company Reputation, Reputation News | Tags: CEO, Employers, Eployees | No Comments »
Bad press and reputation management online what’s the difference?
Bad Press in the 80′s and early 90′s
Bad Press Vrs Online Reputation
Back in the good old days when the Internet was just a urban myth used by the geeks and the MOD, health and safety had not banned the use of newspapers to wrap your fish and chips in, bad press often only last 24 to 48 hrs. Life would turn to normal for those involved in the bad press after a couple of days as people threw the newspapers away and the TV news would move on to the next big thing.
Often you would keep your mouth shut and watch the news go away unless you had some one like Max Clifford on side who could help with damage control and even stop some of the stories appearing in newspapers.
Then came along the 00′s
It’s incredible to think how many massive companies and PLC’s still have not got their head round bad press online or as we call it Reputation Management Online. The biggest difference today is often a well written article on an authoritative site can stay at the top of Google. These articles and pages often encourage people to add remarks which helps cement the pages ranking in the search results. So ignoring bad press online can actually hurt you more then if dealt with in a correct strategic manor.
Now what you definitely don’t want to do is reply on 3rd party sites defending your position are challenging people as this will make things much much worse. What you need to do is to take a very proactive approach and smother the Internet with positive stories. If you have a large brand then a couple of articles a week or blog posting will not cut it. You need to very aggressive and supply content through many channels to bury any negative content that might be rising.Many of our clients need help and resources with creating content and managing profiles and channels online.
So how do we approach bad press online?
If you have a global company, brand or a celebrity and have already been effected by such negative content online already then this will require our Warpath package.
- Track brand or company (unlimited keywords)
- Dedicated account manager and team
- Continuous searching of the Internet for any up and coming negative content
- Weekly reports
- Register and create social network profiles, blogs
- Reputation management for 10 countries
- Full online media monitoring
- Aggressive and continual positive content produced and channelled
- Micro sites built and marketed
To see all our rates and prices for online reputation click here
Google Alerts can cause more worry than what its worth
I often get clients using Google Alerts and emailing me about a new posting, especially blog posting. I have to say there are a few issues with Google Alerts, number 1 is often google picks up blogs actually hosted on WordPress and Blogger.com and often misses thousands of blogs hosted on actual domains. The other main issue is quite often the alert does not actually mean the page is going to rank well for the keyword. Out of 100 alerts I would say on 5% actually make it onto the first page normally via Google News which only lasts 24 hours.
So often the Google Alerts only relates to the blog search and not the web search. I don’t know about you, but I never use google’s blog search and I think there is only 2 reasons why anyone would:
- Me Searching – looking to see how well your own blogs and posts are doing
- Real Time Searching – Before google got fantastic at updating the web results and their bots fly around scrounging for new news, blog searching was a more effective way to track how well a particular story was doing.
I have searched for figures on how many people use the Google blog search facility and to date not found anything solid , Google does not make it an obvious search choice option unlike pictures and videos, so I’m guessing that it’s not that popular filter.
So don’t panic if you get a Google alert and its a negative story about you or your company, as it probably won’t come to much. |However it is a usefulcustomer service feedback tool and also helpful to watch a story just in case it does create momentum and start moving upwards.
Another sure way of reducing the likely hood of negative content rising up the search engine is of course to take positive reputation management steps to stop it.