When somebody publicly praises you, you more than likely want the world to know about it. If this has been done online you can link to the positive comments and issue press releases and emails as a quick and effective way of spreading the good news.  However, if some says something bad about you, defamatory comments can fly across chat forums, message boards and blogs faster than wildfire. Suddenly having your online reputation management strategy worked out by an SEM company and ready to go doesn’t sound so bad.

With more companies using social media to promote themselves and their products and services, there is greater chance than ever for someone to post a comment on your company’s blog, Facebook page or Twitter account and you had better make sure that your online reputation management tools can keep up with all of it. Here are a few simple tips to help you get started with your online reputation management.

1. Determine a budget

You take into account the cost of advertising, PR and branding, but you may have to consider the cost of ensuring your online reputation is kept in check.

2. Outline your goals

Like anything you need to know what your aim is. Obviously you want to make sure that your name remains in a positive light in the online spheres, but you may also want to keep track of what your competitors are doing and use this information to your advantage.

3. What’s worth it

You need to decide what is worth paying attention and responding to and what isn’t. Keep in mind that you need to keep your customer- or fan base happy, as well as retain a positive image in the media. Either way you want to ensure a positive result in the SERPs. Even a negative comment or review can be made positive depending on your response to it.

4. Have a plan on the backburner

The vastness of the online environment provides fantastic space for you to promote your brand, and just as much space for someone to badmouth it. Having a plan to fall back on in such times is crucial to your online reputation management and can be the difference between a positive association with your company and negative one.

5. Keep the team informed

There is no point in paying for a company’s online reputation management services, getting a plan worked out for you, and then when the time comes to implement it nobody knows how to. Keep everyone informed and in the event of a crisis you will all be able to react quickly.

Keep in mind that online reputation management is a double edged sword and you need to balance the good comments with the bad so that people searching your brand, product or service are not mislead. To make sure your online reputation management is handled correctly, it is best to contact an expert. A reputable company that is experienced in SERM can help you define a strategy that will take care of much of your company’s online reputation management requirements.

Related posts:

1. Got a bad reputation? Online Reputation management can clean up your mess.
2. Avoid downplaying brand reputation management
3. What 2010 holds for Brand Reputation Management

The basics of online reputation management

In the era of social media businesses are constantly advised on how best to establish a presence on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and other networks. Experts insist that in this day and age no business can afford to neglect their social media strategy because of the nearly limitless possibilities for reaching consumers and liaising with other businesses.

Of course this is correct. But be wary of losing yourself in a frenzy of company blogging and company twitter feed updating at the expense of maintaining what is still the most stable and important part of your business’s web presence – your own website. Vibrantly engaging with consumers, participating in online conversations, and convincing people to click on your links are worthless pursuits if there’s nothing exciting waiting at your website.

Social media are a means to the end of drawing potential customers to your website, essentially the headquarters of your online operations. Blog and tweet your heart out but don’t forget to keep cohesion with your website, which must stay fresh and updated. As your business evolves, so should your website, so always include new products, promotions or major company news.

Your home page needs to make an impression. Remember that it takes mere seconds for a user to decide whether to exit a site immediately or stay and look around. The general appearance, design and layout of your home page are just as important as the copy on it in communicating information about your brand.

Your home page should tell users straightforwardly what you do, subtly how well you do it, and simply direct them where to go next. After the Home page the About and Contact pages are most important so details on these should always be accurate and up to date. In terms of SEO it is also good to ensure that copy on your website is optimised for commonly searched phrases, and that content is grouped on clearly arranged and easily navigable pages.

When thinking about your business’s online presence conversation on social media networks is crucial, but don’t forget your general housekeeping duties to keep your website clean and healthy.

Related posts:

1. How important is credibility to your website?
2. Don`t forget your Varied Anchor Text
3. Social Media Etiquette – Don’t forget to say Please and Thank You

Don’t forget your website!

Heap’s outfit demonstrated once again that the internet and social media continue to penetrate popular culture and our lifestyles at a rapid rate. While most stars opted for designer couture on the red carpet, the British singer wore a neck piece with a wireless router embedded into it which enabled a live Twitter feed, and her bag was a small television set.

Throughout the Grammys the outfit displayed pictures and videos sent in by Heap’s Twitter followers, enabling them to join their favourite artist at the awards show in a unique way. Despite being deemed a fashion fail, the ‘Twitdress’ is an interesting landmark as it hints at the possible movement of internet technology from our desks and briefcases to our actual clothing.

Heap’s Grammy get up is yet another piece of evidence indicating that our digital and real life personas are growing closer and that it may be only a matter of time before they are entirely one and the same.

And with this insight comes the realisation that online personal branding has never been more important. Who you are and how people see you on the internet has direct consequences for your relationships, both professional and personal. For this reason it is important to know how best to maintain and enhance your personal brand.

The following general tips are a starting point, but do some independent research to find out which methods best suit your particular brand.

1. Before you do anything you must establish the essence of your personal brand. Take time to think about what you want out of life and then do some research on how best to achieve it. Decide what kind of person you want and need to be, find your niche and set some goals. This process should be well thought-out, and may take some time.

2. Once you’ve discovered and developed your brand start marketing it online. Put your resume online and optimise it for social media by integrating it with your social network profiles and incorporating elements of multimedia where you can. This will make your resume both accessible and shareable.

3. Maintain a blog which you regularly update with content relevant to your personal brand. If you’re trying to establish yourself as a search marketing specialist, for example, then write about search marketing topics. If you do this well you will gain respect in your field over time. Also get recognised by posting insightful comments on other blogs in your industry.

Give it some thought, and put the thought into action so you can stay with the times in preparation for the day when we all step out of our Twitcars wearing our Twitsuits.

Related posts:

1. Online Corporate and Personal Branding in a Nutshell
2. Bing Social Search gets Personal
3. Building a personal brand

Why you need outstanding personal branding

2009 saw a mad dash for the social media real estate and even then uptake was tentative and haphazard, with many companies taking a stand just for the sake of it, simply because of all the buzz around social media, but without actually knowing why they needed it or what the return on the time invested was going to be.

2010 will see a more organised and planned approach to a corporations online presence as keeping a tidy shop window will no longer suffice. With public views so prevalent in the search results, strategies need to be focused around proactively engaging with consumers on all levels. This sounds similar to the plan for 2009, however this time we really mean it! The entire corporation needs to become self aware on all levels. All employees need to feel how they fit into the bigger picture and how they shape the way their organisation is perceived. Has anyone ever heard of any disgruntled Google employees? Or how about Fedex? What sets these companies aside is the company ethos. They are a community and they feel that theirs is one of the best companies to be working for.

With this attitude, the company transforms the way they deal with consumers. A deep sense of pride is attained and all staff strive to deliver greater value to consumers. It shifts the perception of the customer and of the company, and it empowers staff to contribute to the community, and the greater good.

Brand management then becomes an entirely different occurring for the corporation. The expertise and specialist skills of agencies in understanding social media channels are still essential to the organisation however now they fit in with what the organisation wants to tell the public and not the other way around. Agencies will take on the role of advising internal teams on how best to undertake their communication and how to monitor their reputation in real time. The organisation is no longer “outsourcing” its voice to an agency, rather they establish a strong strategic framework in which to execute social media activities.

The advice for 2010 is for brands to engage with their consumers on all levels, because the conversations are happening, whether you are a part of them or not.

Related posts:

1. Avoid downplaying brand reputation management
2. Got a bad reputation? Online Reputation management can clean up your mess.
3. The basics of online reputation management

What 2010 holds for Brand Reputation Management

Even ten years ago, if a customer was disappointed by a company’s bad service or products, a stern letter would be written and most of the time, a nice little package filled with the company’s goodies would be sent back. Now, with social networking sites, complaining just got that much easier. And now with real time results, complaining just got quicker. One complaint can have a ripple effect on a brand and this effect can spread faster than any pool of water. It begins with one person tweeting that X’s product broke on the first day of use. Others retweet this tweet because they too found that they experienced the same problem with that particular product. Others reply and retweet and so the complaint grows. Eventually, others want to know what the problem with this product is and so they search for it online. Soon, enough people are searching for this product and what do you know – when they Google “X” the SERP’s reveal a steady stream of complaints before the brand itself. Complaints equal a bad reputation and a bad reputation equals no sales. No sales, no business.

There are various ways in which you can personally manage your brand and make sure that your online reputation reflects what you would like to bring to the business table. Firstly, you have to take interest in your brand. That’s right, get involved. If there are people talking about your services or products, follow that conversation. Word of mouth is still as strong as ever and even though these days we seem to prefer to email a person sitting right next to us rather than lean over and say hi, word of mouth is still dominant, especially when it comes to complaints. Another important step is to interact with your customers, without communication within a business, what else is there?

No matter what the nature of the company is, there will always be one individual or a group of people who will give negative feedback about a brand. People complain – it’s in our nature. What a company needs to do is take it all in their stride and be able to deal with the damage in an intelligent way. Putting a personal spin on a brand is always a good place to start and you will gain some human trust. No matter what you do, don’t forget about personalised search. If you tend to click on that bad review just a few times, every time you search for that particular brand, that bad reviews will sneak its way to the top of the SERPS. So keep that positive marketing going and makes sure that you grab any bad reviews on the day someone posts them up. This way, hopefully the negative will fade into the background.

Related posts:

1. The basics of online reputation management
2. Avoid downplaying brand reputation management
3. What 2010 holds for Brand Reputation Management

Got a bad reputation? Online Reputation management can clean up your mess.

Proactive VS Reactive

Monitoring your brand online and responding when there are potential problems is a fairly reactive approach, however, it can also be proactive if actions are taken to ensure you are not just listening but engaging your target audience.

Think of your brand reputation management tool as a plugin or addition to your current analytics package. Reputation management tools bring metrics such as influence and even sentiment into the mix. These, together with your analytics metrics, start to offer more insight into your online footprint and brand/site performance. So, why can’t monitoring your brand online be proactive? With the tools available we are able to see the sources of brand discussion and feedback, so why would this be any different to reviewing the performance of your traffic sources or referrals within your analytics package and creating a strategy to improve results?

Engagement

This is the opportunity for anyone to take a more proactive approach to the management of their brand online. To draw a comparison, the same approach used by offline sales reps who call clients each month to keep in touch, make sure they are happy, and see if there is perhaps anything that they may need (proactive), can also be applied to monitoring your brand online. You are able to take a more proactive approach and engage directly with your potential or current clients online. Build it and they will come no longer works, competition grows on a weekly, even daily basis, and online every bit counts. Engage directly with consumers online, nurture client relationships and understand your target market demographics. Should you be spending more time on Twitter, FaceBook, or LinkedIn, or any other site where your brand is being discussed? Always keep in mind, taking action for your brand online is like walking a tightrope, always make informed decisions.

Proactively looking at the information and taking action will result in happy clients/buyers (even potential new clients/buyers) and, ultimately, increased sales or even recurring sales. Why should the online market be so different to the traditional sales market?

Search trends change, Search engine algorithms change but happy clients/brand loyalists are bound to stay.

Related posts:

1. What 2010 holds for Brand Reputation Management
2. Got a bad reputation? Online Reputation management can clean up your mess.
3. The basics of online reputation management

Avoid downplaying brand reputation management

Li Evans from Search Marketing Gurus says that you can’t manage your reputation, you can only manage relationships. So, what you have to focus on is building relationships. What relationships with reputable bloggers and consumers will give you in a time of crisis are support and positive reviews if you’re ever in the situation where your reputation is headed for a black hole of bad press.

When you learn that you can’t control the internet, you’ll soon learn that you can’t control people’s opinions either. Even if you offer the best prices, unrivalled services and high quality products, someone, somewhere will probably think or say something negative about you and, more likely than not, that opinion will find its way into cyberspace. Keeping your nose clean is one thing, but keeping yourself entirely free of negative criticism is a completely different ball game because, despite aggressive advertising campaigns, thought control is the stuff of fantasy fiction.

The positive spin on this, of course, is that people will also say great things and give entirely new and fresh opinions on your company, CEO or even logo design. The trick is to let what happens, happen and then respond appropriately. Manage bad reviews without legal action unless absolutely necessary and encourage and enhance good reviews.

Of course, in order to respond to reviews, you are going to have to be aware of all mentions made of your company, staff members or products. Evans suggests that you ‘monitor, monitor, monitor’. There are many free tools available on the web that allows you to find all mentions made of anything related to your company on the web. The most well-known is Google Alerts, although there are many similar monitoring tools available, which can monitor anything from forums to social media sites.

David Ingram suggests that you respond to reviews directly online (in a respectful manner) when appropriate, but if this may damage your reputation, rather try to contact the customer in an offline capacity and see if you can resolve the situation in that way and ask him or her to update the review when they are satisfied.

In a nutshell, be present, be involved and be interested but don’t be a bully. Nothing will destroy your reputation as quickly as being rude to a customer or client who is giving you an unfavorable review.

Related posts:

1. Got a bad reputation? Online Reputation management can clean up your mess.
2. The basics of online reputation management
3. You wouldn`t trust just anybody with your online reputation, would you?

Managing your Online Reputation to Conquer Bad Reviews

Stephen Baker (businessweek.com) explores the whole online free labour phenomenon with particular focus on ThisNext.com, a shopping site founded by “serial entrepreneur” Gordon Gould that is manned almost entirely by volunteers. The site has become hugely successful with around 3.5 million visitors per month and it’s all thanks to the hordes of people who seek out quirky, cool and interesting products and submit them for the purchasing public’s attention, for free.

Laura Sweet, one of ThisNext’s most successful volunteers, calls it a labour of love. Gould himself is a little more cynical, attributing the large number of contributions to vanity and the need to build personal brands. “In their niches, they can become mini-Oprahs,” he says.

And therein lies the rub, as the world slowly becomes more virtual and we live more of our lives online, a shining online reputation or personal brand is worth more than financial remuneration. In fact, in many cases it can lead to outstanding remuneration, depending on how successfully you manage your brand. In addition, people are looking for more meaning in their lives, meaning that is not necessarily purely spiritual, but that isn’t tied in to material gains either. It has to do with personal satisfaction and for many people, watching their hard work bear real fruit in a virtual environment is reward enough.

It’s also very addictive, not to mention ego boosting. For instance, before Laura Sweet discovered ThisNext, she used her spare time to create shopping lists of recommended items for all her friends and family. And in all likelihood that satisfied her altruistic ego, the one that likes to be helpful and appreciated. But as soon as ThisNext comes along, despite Sweet’s claims of a labour of love, it becomes a numbers game, and panders to vanity, which isn’t altruistic at all.

The first product that Sweet submitted (a fishbowl worth around $400!) was an instant hit – which provides a rush, as well as tremendous incentive to do it again. Sweet’s ThisNext status – because you have to have some kind of hierarchy for motivational purposes, it can’t all be about love – is number one in San Francisco, Washington and Denver, and I’m pretty sure that she’s willing to work her tail off to keep it that way. As are all members of the free economy who become addicted to success.

And the harder they work to maintain their status and build their personal brands and network, the more people like Gordon Gould profit. He’s not even worried when superstars such as Sweet lose their shine and fall back down to earth, because he knows that there are dozens more queuing up to touch the heavens.

While Online Reputation Management becomes ever more important for companies all over the world, so too has personal brand management; and there is very little to choose between the two.

Related posts:

1. Big brands approach to viral marketing video’s: don’t worry, be happy.
2. Building a personal brand
3. Why you need outstanding personal branding

Personal brands and the free labour economy

The search portal gives users advanced filtering similar to that of larger search engines, with ‘advanced search’ that allows one to specify date ranges, chosen sets of keywords, language, twitter members, referenced twitter members and location.

“This is pretty big”, I thought as I perused search results and discovered what people were saying about topics I had specified. I marvelled at the sheer bone-headedness of myself for not having ever really questioned if Twitter had had a search feature.

Sometimes, one just subconsciously decides that if something important happens on the internet, you will naturally discover it in headlines of your favourite industry news channels. I discovered Seth’s post a week or so ago, but I get the feeling Twitter’s search portal has been around for a while longer.

“If you use twitter, remember that what you say is not just seen by your few followers. It’s seen by anyone who searches.”

Thank you Seth, that is an apt warning. In the Web 2.0 era, we should all be careful of what we say. Five years ago, the only thing available in search engines regarding my full name, was an old page about my grandfather (of the same name) giving renewed life to a flying club in Port Elizabeth, back in the 1940s.

Now if I google myself, I see my Facebook profile, articles I’ve submitted to ezines, my forum profiles, my blog posts and more. My grandfather still out-ranks my abundant volume of online content, but then that goes to show how Google gives more trust to older domains.

As an individual, if you don’t want to be seen, you have to go to lengths to ensure your profiles on various websites are anonymous, or your information is well concealed behind encryptions and passwords; otherwise anyone researching you could find enough information to build quite a picture of who you are and what you are up to.

Since Twitter has established a user base of over 2 million, their database of messages or “tweets” has grown quite large. Because of this, one can use the search feature to see what average people are saying about a brand, product or service. It can be used as a tool to detect negative comments about a given company, so that PR professionals know when and where to respond. In other words, it’s a reasonable reputation management channel.

A given query’s results can be subscribed to in an RSS feed in much the same way as one might subscribe to Google or Yahoo alerts for regular index updates.

Twitter is growing, and it’s wonderfully half instant-messaging / half social networking style ‘TwitterFox browser plug-in application’ is an important factor in pushing its popularity ahead. I will definitely use the search feature in the near future to look up goodies related to my clients, as well as other interests.

Related posts:

1. 5 Important Twitter Tips for you and your small business
2. Twitter Tales: Tell the Story of your Life
3. Is a Twitter analytics package worthy of your time and money?

Twitter messaging: the awkwardness of being found out

This is a topic very close to my heart, as I believe that SMO, ORM and SEO are all interlinked and need to be used together to benefit the client. As an account manager, I always try to ensure that my clients are fully aware of what each of the services entail, how they complement each other and how the combination of these can rocket your marketing efforts sky high.

When a client comes to you to help them shape their online presence, they need a partner; someone who is going to work with them to achieve their goals. It`s not just about rankings, it`s about conversions, ROI and brand awareness. Online reputation is just as important as advertising your brand and increasing your sales, and working together with your client to explore every possible angle is not only great, it`s essential.

As an SEM agency, your service should never end. A successful ORM campaign does not mean the end of the need, it`s merely the beginning. Keep clients informed to ensure that they stay abreast of impending threats and understand the importance of constant monitoring and positioning. Proactive suggestions are needed from both sides and it`s up to us, as industry professionals, to ensure that constant mentoring and support is in place throughout the relationship.

As search specialists, we need to make sure that we spot the issues before they develop; prevention is better than cure. Social media is so dynamic that new accounts are opened every single minute, and bloggers are so ruthless that if you`re not on your toes you will fall into a marketing black hole.
Keeping positive press at the top of the search results is an uphill battle; constant interaction and response to negative comments is a part of the job. If you do this, not only will you maintain a level of control, but you will inspire respect, and brand champions will continue to sing your praises from the roof tops as long as you keep to your word.

Don`t underestimate bloggers` power; if you win them over, the benefits are priceless. A small effort goes a long, long way and if they like what you do, they will spread the word.

A client/ agency relationship is like a marriage of sorts. When it comes to social media and ORM, it`s important that both parties are involved, as the agency guides and supports the client and works in close partnership with them.

If the client responds to negative press personally, it carries so much more weight than if a 3rd party did it on their behalf. It`s critical that there is a brand evangelist within the organisation that can do this. It`s the client who needs to communicate with the consumer.

The agency is there to flag, guide and support the client, but the relationship has to be a two way street or else it will never work. Product quality and service excellence make the biggest impact on consumer`s perception of a brand. If you keep consumers happy, and do all of the above with integrity, this will rub off on others. Word of mouth is the most powerful marketing tool of all!

Related posts:

1. Got a bad reputation? Online Reputation management can clean up your mess.
2. The basics of online reputation management
3. Managing your Online Reputation to Conquer Bad Reviews

You wouldn`t trust just anybody with your online reputation, would you?