Online Reputation Management
The Internet is now a medium whose influence equals other more traditional media. Two aspects of the Internet have to be taken into account when it comes to online reputation management:
Consumers increasingly use the Internet to collect the information that will help them make a purchase decision. What other consumers have to say about a particular product or brand, be it positive or negative, has more weight than what the brand themselves have to say. Users consider other users’ point of view more trustworthy.
The Internet is more and more made of consumer generated content: forums, blogs, message boards etc, and search engines easily index these types of media.
A brand or corporation image can easily be badly damaged on the Internet, that’s why listening and monitoring what is being said online is of paramount importance given how strategic a brand’s image is.
- Information spreads so quickly on the Internet that being proactive and reactive is critical. Ex employees and competitors too can be at the origin of negative or even destructive comments.
- Online Reputation Management is closely linked to search marketing in that search engines are Internet guides for most people. It is necessary to ensure positive content ranks higher in search engines’ result pages.
Monitoring
In their “Online Reputation Management” guide, Elixir Systems identify “3 steps involved in Online Reputation Management”: Monitoring; Analysing and Influencing.
There are various complementary ways to monitor one’s online reputation. There are a few online tools that can be used for online reputation management. Let’s try and elaborate a methodology to set up a monitoring system:
- Set up Google & Yahoo alerts based on specific keywords relating to you products and services, your brand name, your key employees’ names, your industry, your competitors. It is recommended to couple this with a frequent checking of the main search engine results against strategic keywords for you, including your brand name.
- Open an account with an RSS reader such as Newsgator.
- Create custom RSS feeds based on chosen keywords with websites such as Technorati or blogsearch.google.com to monitor blogs. You can then add these feeds in your RSS reader. You can classify these feeds according to categories such as “Brand terms”, “Industry terms”, “Competitors”, “Employees”…
- According to your industry or field of activity there might exist groups or message boards and forums it would be beneficial to track. You can identify such groups thanks to tools like Yahoo Groups or Google Groups. You can try and find interesting forums and boards with BoardReader.com, ForumFind.com or BoardTracker.com for instance.
Analysing the results
There are various elements to take into account when analysing the results one got after monitoring.
If negative comments or content were found in a blog, in a forum or a website, it is necessary to gauge the source’s popularity and influence in order to set priorities as to which source to churn. Tools like bloginfluence.net can assist you in this task. It is recommended to try and gather as much information as possible about the author or owner of the source.
As Andy Beal points out in his “Online Reputation Beginner’s Guide”, when dealing with a negative comment one should:
- Investigate facts internally
- Explain what has been done in order to rectify the issue in question
- Offer to resolve any complaint personally and try to take the discussion offline
- Always be transparent and honest
- If the post is not true, kindly request for it to be removed and ask for the possibility to publish a response
- Influencing the results
It is a proactive solution to be an active contributor to influential blogs, forums etc. within your industry. It is a way to build a positive image for your brand and to inspire trust amongst the community. In case a detractor posts negative articles or comments regarding your brand, it is easier then and considered as more legitimate to respond.
Your online assets should be optimised for search engines to see positive content rank well. Your online assets can reside in corporate blogs, employees’ blogs, partners’ websites, micro-sites, corporate communications such as white papers, articles, press releases, pay per click advertising…
Conclusion
Given the influence the Internet is gaining, online reputation has to be monitored and managed by any brand concerned with their image.
It is recommended to set up a monitoring system and to be reactive about any potentially destructive content. A lot of tools are available online. In an article entitled “34 Online Reputation Management Tools”, Andy Beal presents a few of them.
It is also recommended, as a proactive solution, to be an active contributor to the online community of one’s industry.
Finally, ones online assets should not be neglected as strengths and opportunities to develop a positive set of search engine results against strategic keywords.
By Natacha Colin
Source: www.interactivereturn.com