Posts Tagged ‘SEO Reputaion Management’

This post is about demystifying ORM in the simplest way possible…

• Is online reputation management (ORM) kinda like SEO? Yes it is, the one cannot exist without the other in the online world.
• Is reputation management like public relations? Yes it is, ORM is a lot about projecting the right image to the world.

In fact, we here at Reputation Management For.com believe that  ORM is a mix of all this and yet it is more.

Functions of ORM:

Reputation Management is all about protecting, defending and removing the best and the worst respectively, about you from the public eye.

Picking up on things on alerts, monitoring the airwaves for all that is being said about a person who can be a celebrity, a professional or a politician or a corporate entity or a brand as the case may be is an important function of ORM.

Crawling the internet for everything being said about you helps to push forward the positive content and maybe even create an online buzz about something new. This is an important part of ORM.

Having a presence on different blog networks and social networking platforms, and maintaining them regularly  is another function.

ORM is a routine, on-going process that should be part of your advertising or marketing, if it isn’t already.

When crisis strikes: ORM, however, gets into overdrive when there is a crisis and this is when the PR side of it comes out in full force. The online entity is under attack and it needs to be done systematically like in any other media.

• Real-time searches need to be monitored and looked into and Facebook posts and tweets all add up to the quick re-bound in reputation.
• Blog posts and news and more so in the case of press releases all play an important part in minimizing a crisis.

ORM, in short, does all that you would do in the real world – show up at the right places, make statements, give interviews, go on chat shows, keep you in the spotlight and put you in the news as and when required.

The only difference is that, this is the virtual world and the blog posts, press releases, tweets and Facebook posts all do what you would have done physically in the real world.

With the power cyberspace has on this world having ORM in place to watch your back only makes good sense. ORM is here to stay, and may be called SERM or PR with a cyber twist, but its the one thing to have in place if your business is all about your good reputation!

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

There is one important thing most of the companies forget when they are in online business. The company owners, whether big or small often forget about their online reputation. It is important to notice that, even if your business is small the social media users talk about it online. They usually get into frequent conversations in the social networking sites and forums about products and services.It is really troubling that the blogs and forums often rank well in Google than your own web site. Its easy to ignore these kind of conversations but the impact it has on the business is really big. Online reputation can have a significant impact on your offline business relationships.

So when there is a negative impact on your business,and a considerable number of your customers searching on Google for your product , they may be getting this negative comment on a forum or in a blog about your product. Definitely he will think twice, and he will go for another product which does not give him a bad review.

Companies always think that their products or services are the best, as far as the quality and price are considered. They think they are always right and the customers know that. But what about the actual opinion of the customers? Customers think there are many choices for them, there are so many better products and services. They just want to know more and when they go online and find negative reviews they step back and go for better products.

So online reputation is very important for your business to do better.”You may not care about politics but politics cares about you.” is an old saying that also applies to social media and also the Web.

But don’t worry about the bad reviews. The world is not going to end! There are many ways to take care of the bad reputation. That is why professionals like us exist here to help you.