Online Reputation Management
What is online reputation management?
Why online reputation management is the need of the hour?
Understanding the ORM scenario
How to deal with criticism online
10 Online reputation management commandments
15 ways to create a positive brand image online
Understanding tools for monitoring online reputation
Step by Step guide to overcoming a negative online reputation
Best examples of online reputation management
What is ORM?
Online reputation management is the process of removing negative mentions, monitoring brands image and creating a positive reputation.
Understanding ORM
There are a lot of misconceptions about online reputation management. Some people think it’s just social media monitoring, while others believe it has something to do with public relations, and still others literally have no idea how it can impact business and sales.
In this guide, I’m going to explain the role of online reputation management in today’s business and media landscape. Companies of every size can benefit from having a clear outline of its main concepts. What are people saying about you? Good online reputation management is not only about reacting well to what people say about you, your brand, or your products and services, but also about whether to react at all and, if so, when. Sometimes a reaction is not necessary, and sometimes a reaction that is too late can cost you millions.
A proactive approach to the matter consists of monitoring your public reputation on a regular basis, and not just when you come to know about a specific event to deal with. How do you do this? The magic tools invented to solve this problem fall under the name of “social media monitoring.”
How to deal with negative comments online
In the online reputation management scenario, there are two types of negative content that companies should be aware of. One is represented by complaints on social networks. They need to be addressed properly, but unless your company has serious problems, they do not pose a real challenge to your business.
The other is what I define as “online reputation bombs,” which affect your reputation and sales long term and can severely damage a business. They are very powerful because, unlike social network content, they are prominent in search engine results. What if someone googles your brand name and finds defamatory content? Let’s see what they are:
• Aggressive SEO: If someone googles your name, appearing on page 1 and 2 of the search results will be much more important than your business card or website. They will show at a glance several high ranking web sources talking about you. If they display false information, the first thing that you or your online reputation management company should do is devise a search marketing strategy that increases the ranking of positive content, owned by either you or third parties. The search engine game is too important to be ignored, and it is the first step in restoring your image.
• Review removal: Did that user claim something false about your company? Is that review clearly aimed at destroying your reputation rather than providing feedback? Does it contain improper language? Legal liaison and speed of reaction will make it possible to remove the negative review.
https://support.google.com/legal/troubleshooter/1114905
• Online investigations: In case of serious attacks to your brand image, it may be necessary to hire skilled online analysts to investigate untraceable threats and attackers via email tracing, data cross-indexing, and other information collection techniques. Cyber investigations are the definitive path to get to the bottom of difficult reputation management cases.
10 Online Reputation Management Commandments
Calling it “online reputation” really is redundant. Your online reputation simply is your reputation. In the digital era, nothing is protecting you from criticism anymore. This is good from a freedom of speech perspective; bad if your company has been defamed and attacked.
To conclude, ten practical tips that sum up what we have covered in this guide. The world of brand reputation will change in the coming years, but following these simple “commandments” definitely will benefit you and your brand:
1. Become well respected
According to several business experts, trust is a perishable asset and it is hard to gain. Making people respect you and your work is more important than any other online reputation management commandment.
2. Be radically transparent
After years of hiding critics, Mc Donald’s publicly forced egg suppliers to raise hens’ living standards according to the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals request.
3. Monitor what they are saying about you
Apart from the aforementioned reasons to monitor your online reputation, social media monitoring also can bring business! These days, lots of people ask questions via Twitter and Facebook because they are evaluating whether or not they should buy from you.
4. React quickly and politely
In the case of a customer complaint via Twitter, for example, a prompt and simple “We are aware of the problem. We are working on it and will get back to you as soon as possible.” is better than a late reply with more information.
5. Address criticism
In 2009, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey’s WSJ op-ed on Obama healthcare reform caused a controversy among WF customers. Two days later, the company provided a response statement recognizing there were “many opinions on this issue, including inside our own company” and invited people to share their opinion on the matter.
6. Treat your Google page 1 as your business card
First impressions count, and we do judge many books by their cover. If the words “scam” and “rip off” are associated with your brand, then that is something you should worry about.
7. Understand your detractors
Criticism can be the chance to learn more about your audience and craft a better message in the future. Motrin’s controversial “babywearing moms” commercial sparked a lot of criticism. It did not come from competitors or illegitimate attackers, but from people in Motrin’s target audience who felt offended by their promotional content.
8. Attack your illegitimate attackers
Sometimes we simply have to fight illegal behavior. In 2009, Domino’s Pizza employees who posted disgusting videos of themselves playing with food were fired and arrested. Another example is people who post false information on the internet. Sometimes, if you don’t sue them, they might do it again.
9. Learn from your mistakes
Sony certainly learned a reputation management lesson back in 2005. The company placed copy protection (XCD) on its CDs which created computer vulnerabilities that malware could exploit. Instead of being upfront about their mistake, Sony stonewalled criticism and lost millions in class-action lawsuits.
10. Ask for help if necessary
If your online reputation management efforts are not enough to protect or restore your brand image, you have the choice to request help from a professional.
15 ways to create a positive brand image online
Own Your Own Website
Your first goal for creating a positive online image is having a website. Chances are, you already have one for your business like yourbusiness.com. Be sure to also protect your personal brand by having one for your own name, i.e. firstnamelastname.com. Websites with an exact business or person’s name in the domain generally rank first when someone searches for the name. If you have a website you control at #1 in search results, it will get the most amount of clicks and prevent most people from continuing to look through the rest of the search results.
Own Related Domains
If you want to take it to the next level, build up some other domains for your business or yourself. Hosting companies are notorious for having negative information pop up in search results from bad reviews to anti-their-company groups. GoDaddy tackled this by creating a crop of additional websites with their brand name in the domain.
Any business can do something similar by creating a separate site for the following:
Your blog such as blog.yourbusiness.com or yourbusinessblog.com.
Your customer support such as support.yourbusiness.com oryourbusinesssupport.com.
Your store such as store.yourbusiness.com or yourbusinessstore.com.
Your main products such as product.yourbusiness.com or yourproduct.com.
Your apps such as apps.yourbusiness.com or yourbusinessapps.com.
Start Multiple Blogs
Your main personal or company blog doesn’t have to be your only blog. Thanks to Google+ authorship and Google Direct Connect, you can tell Google a blog on any topic is related to you.
Here are two great examples. Danny Sullivan is well known for being the editor-in-chief
Be Active on Social Media
Notice that I didn’t say create a whole lot of random social profiles that you may never touch again. There’s little point to doing that when reputation management is concerned. Instead, you want to create several strong social profiles on prominent social networks and keep them active and up to date. You will also want to build a strong audience on these networks as well – you could almost consider your number of connections like the number of links to your profile – the more you have, the better they will rank. Some of the best social profiles to create and routinely maintain that will generally rank well in search results include the following.
Google+ – Profiles for people, pages for business. Make sure you occasionally include your name or business name in a status update or two as well.
Facebook – Profiles for people, pages for business.
Twitter
LinkedIn – Profiles for people, company pages for businesses.
Biznik – People only.
Pinterest – Make sure one of your pins includes your name or business name too!
Myspace – Don’t laugh, it still ranks well in search.
Quora
Flickr
YouTube
Vimeo
Create Online “Business Cards”
Want to create an online business card of sorts? Several websites allow you to create a personalized page that displays a short bio about you plus links to your website, blog, and social networks. About.me is probably the most popular one.
Claim Your Local Profiles
If you have a local business, be sure to claim your local profiles and local directory listings, or create them if they don’t exist on sites like Yelp, Merchant Circle, Yahoo Local, and similar sites. This is also good to help with your local search marketing campaign so local customers can find you easier online.
Write Guest Posts
When it comes to reputation management, you’re not looking to do one-off guest posting opportunities where your name will barely be in the by-line. You will want to write for sites that have author bio pages crafted for you or allow you to create custom profiles like SEOmoz. Basically, the bigger the website, the better the chances of your author page showing up in search results. While any site can be good, highly authoritative sites like TechCrunch, Mashable, Forbes, and Entrepreneur are great examples of ones to strive for.
Do Interviews
If you or your business is asked to do interviews on blogs, videos, or podcasts, definitely say yes. Typically people will include your name and/or your business name in the title of the resulting content which will rank well in search.
Place a Lot of Images of Yourself Online
This is easily done when you’re creating social profiles and getting guest posts. Having lots of images of yourself online might sound like vanity, but it can trigger image search results for your name or business to pop up, further pushing down potential negative search results. Easy ways to do this is through profile photos on your social networks, author bio pages on your websites & blogs, avatars on forums, and so forth. The key is to always make sure that your photo’s filename isyourname.jpg or similar, not something non-descriptive like profilephoto.jpg. If you’re embedding your photo on a website, be sure to use applicable image SEO optimization in the code like this:
<img src="yourname.jpg" alt="Your First Name Last Name" title="Your First Name Last
Name" />
Make Videos
Another great way to dominate search results is through video. YouTube is usually the most obvious to go for as they are owned by Google and therefore are likely to appear in search results. But don’t forget other popular video sites such as Vimeo as it also shows up often in search.
Write Press Releases
Press releases still make a dent when it comes to getting your name or your business name out there. If you’re looking at a real-time reputation management crisis, try submitting your responses through social media and through press releases. Legit services might charge you a fee, but they are worth it when it comes to making sure your press release is optimized for search. Some good examples of press release services include PR.com, SBWire, and PRWeb.
Create an App or Podcast
Apple.com is a highly authoritative website, so it is no surprise that any apps or podcasts rank well in search results. As a matter of fact, your app or podcast is almost guaranteed to show up on the first page of search results for your name or your business so long as you include it either in the title or the description.
Get a CrunchBase Profile
If you are the owner of a technology company, you can submit yourself and submit your company to be included in the CrunchBase database. These entries tend to rank as high, and sometimes even higher than Wikipedia entries.
See if You Qualify for a Wikipedia Page
Wikipedia pages are tough to come by thanks to the rules. But if you qualify to have a Wikipedia page created about yourself or your business, it is generally a guaranteed page one search result. Learn more about Wikipedia pages for yourself and for your organization.
One thing to keep in mind about Wikipedia pages is that they are publicly editable. This means if there is major news about you or your business, it will likely end up on your Wikipedia page too.
Creating a post about yourself-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Autobiography#Creating_an_article_about_yourself
Creating a post about your company-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:FAQ/Organizations
Respond to the Criticisms in a Constructive Way
Once you have a presence on the top social networks, local search directories (as applicable), and other sites, it will make it easier to respond to any negative press when it arises. Be sure to think before you speak/type and make your responses as professional as possible. You’re not just trying to defend yourself – you’re also trying to prove to people how awesome you really are.
Understanding tools for monitoring online
Reputation:
Now that you’ve done all of this work to build a positive reputation for your brand, you will want to keep an eye out on any news about you or your business. The easiest (and free) way to do this is through Google Alerts. Google Alerts lets you set up searches for your name or your brand name and sends you emails when new results come up. Other sites that provide similar services include Social Mention (free), Trackur (paid), and Reputation.com (paid).
Categorize results into three groups:
1. Positive – These are easy to spot and also the easiest to take action on because
there is very minimal action for these findings. You will, however, want to make note
of some positive feedback because this will help you identify some of your strengths
and will leverage your sharing power on social networks.
2. Neutral – These are the middle of the road comments, reviews, opinions where users
were neither ecstatic nor displeased with your products or services. Just like negative
feedback, this will serve as insightful information.
3. Negative – These are the most detrimental and the highest priority for getting your
business reputation back on track. Make a list of the different areas of concern. This
will help you sort out where to begin. For both negative business reviews and
negative content on the search engine results pages (SERPs), put strong websites as
a higher priority because they have more visibility and will be harder to fight. Assess
the strength of a website by checking its domain authority.
Build an Action Plan
How you plan to improve your reputation- kindly refer 15 ways to improve your online
reputation
Execute an Action Plan-
First Phase
It never hurts to ask. Many times, website owners will be happy to remove the content...If there is a failure to remove results, the next step you may want to consider is to actually move forward with legal action (depending on the situation). If it’s a client review that doesn’t meet the review site guidelines, you can write an email to the legal or customer service department. If it’s content showing up in the SERP, you can use this link to request that Google remove the content:
https://support.google.com/legal/troubleshooter/1114905?hl=en.
Second Phase
Find strong websites with high domain authority (DA) to share positive content like the BBB, Chamber of Commerce, and social sites like Google+ and Facebook. This gives
you an opportunity for increased credibility and more importantly an opportunity to push
down negative results in the SERP. The trick is to fight back with higher DA websites
than those that are showing the negative content in the SERP.
Here is an extensive list of 500 sites with high DA that you can start using right away:
http://moz.com/top500.
For example, if you have negative content coming from hubpages.com (DA 88), you can
fight it by placing content on blogspot.com (DA 93). This is not a guaranteed method, but
it works a good majority of the time if you create better content, promote it, and have
patience waiting for it to kick in. It works even better if you build some links to your new
content.
Third Phase
Address negative feedback with real-time responses on all review sites, blogs, and social
accounts. Whatever you do, do not get into a commenting war, become defensive, or
offer ill-informed responses. This only digs a deeper hole and will worsen the situation.
Even if the person making the claim is inaccurate with their information, it’s your job to
amend the situation, regardless of who is right. Maintain composure and review the
following pointers prior to responding.
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