Posts Tagged ‘forums’

I asked a question on the FSB ( Federation of Small Businesses ) forum, of course generating business from such a question would have been great, but I truly wanted feedback from business owners and here is what I got.  I was surprised by the response:

My question was:

Reputation management is becoming a big issue for companies and negative results moving up the search results.  I’m interested in finding out what companies would companies call Reputation management or search for, e.g. Online PR, SEO, Damage limitation and so on?

Post 1

I’d say it is called PR.  SEO is nothing like the same thing really, it’s PR plain and simple.  To be honest if someone came to me offering ‘Reputation Management’ I’d wonder whether they were on the same planet as me.  Please don’t take that personally that’s just how I see it.

Post 2

I would quite simply call it an advert.

Post 3

I am minded to agree…but… if it were not from an FSB member I would have deleted it…right now it is getting “The benefit of the doubt”..but..the forst complaint and it is gone.

Have a complaint.!

And my post was promptly removed, I just thought it was incredible how quickly my question was removed because no one understood it.  The FSB is meant to be a resource for small businesses to get useful information, I have to say, seeing how they dealt with my question I’m not surprised that the forum does not attract much traffic.  That was my second visit and will be my last.

Having a reputation management strategy going forward for businesses is going to  be critical and just as important educating businesses  about it.  Communities like the FSB should be very proactive at educating businesses as more often than not their customers understand the net more than the business owner does and the consequences of not dealing with can be catastrophic.

To often I’ve heard companies when I’ve ask how long has the negative result been on the first page of Google respond by saying at least 2 or 3 years.  What have they done about it? Nothing!  Why? Because they don’t know or have the resources to deal with it.  The big question is how much have they lost in business because of it.  Some of my clients have mention loosing at least 6 figure sums because of negative search engine results, it’s incredible.

People will save money on gas and elec, insurance, spend money on advertising or SEO what’s the point if it’s  being wasted because your business is being totally trashed by annoyed customers or in some case the competition.

Groups like the FSB should be talking about the impact of reputation management especially in the social networking world.  Ignorance is not bliss but incredibly expensive

By Nicola Ford, Head of Editorial, Trinity Mirror Digital Recruitment (TMDR)

Consumer blogs, discussion forums and feedback ratings are just some of the opportunities the internet offers to consumers who want their voices to be heard. With as little as a 30-second registration process, disgruntled consumers can now have a serious impact on the reputations of previously almost impermeable corporate giants.

Online reputation management (ORM) is the process of protecting a brand, product or business across the internet – both limiting damage following negative press or public response, and also reinforcing and promoting existing corporate values.

The proliferation of user-generated content online means all organisations both private and public need to take ORM very seriously. And it’s big business, in 2008 the UK ORM industry was worth £60million (source: Online Reputation and Buzz Monitoring Buyer’s Guide 2008, e-consultancy) – and as the internet continues to expand exponentially, so will the number of companies that need ORM.

Moreover, as companies continue to downsize to survive the recession, reputation management is increasingly important. If you don’t treat your exiting employees well, they might try to damage your reputation online, and your remaining employees might leave once the economy picks up. Companies need to safeguard their reputations for the future so they attract the best candidates to work for them.

But it’s not just organisations that need to worry about online reputation. With, on average, 80% of employers checking people online before interviewing them using social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn, candidates need to make sure their online ‘brand’ positions them correctly.

Most people take a reactive approach to their online brands only removing content they don’t want people to see. And although this is definitely part of it, it’s those people who are proactively building their online brands that will reap the biggest rewards – one of which is recruitment.

It’s estimated that 70% of all job opportunities are never advertised – in today’s tough market, jobseekers need to tap into this hidden job market and online networking is a great way of doing this. It’s not just making sure your LinkedIn profile is up to date – it’s about positioning yourself as a credible player in a particular field. There are a variety of methods to build up your online following: blogging, participating in discussion forums, Tweeting and so on.

A successful personal online brand does take time and effort to establish itself but the benefits can be great. By establishing a great online reputation for yourself, you should attract companies, professional contacts and friends with great reputations in return. And if that’s not enough to convince you, think of the alternative – competing with the majority of people for the 30% of job opportunities that are in the public domain…

And fortunately, there’s help available to make sure your online brand positions you as the sort of employee companies want to recruit. Services like Workthing which provides you with all the tools and advice you need to take a proactive approach to managing your reputation online.

We had a case recently where a PR company decided to tackle some negative comments about a client on a popular negative forum.  The backlash was immense and completely back fired.

Here are the main reasons for not tackling forums.

1. Forums are traditionally places where people like to complain, the last thing they want is someone to defend the company, their attitude is you can put your positive info some where else.
2. You can’t control the content on a 3rd party forum site so its really risky, any thread you begin will start out positive but will quickly attract negative content.
3. Last but not least, the most important reason, by adding more content onto these types of sites you encourage Google to rank it higher.  Especially if it attracts more people to attack the company and add even more content.

The PR companies  intention was good, but you cannot apply the same methods you would use in publications (Traditional PR) to the Internet as you will get hammered.

Also sites like Wiki and  Facebook can bite you if you are not careful and incorrectly set up.