How Reputation Management Drives Small Business

How can a small business recover from a bad reputational incident, particularly if it was an issue that wasn’t their fault?

The best defense, Pierre recommends, is to make it a practice to resolve customer support issues as soon as they occur, before a customer becomes upset enough to post a negative review. Don’t argue, he suggests. Offer a discount or a refund instead, to avoid as much as possible the risk of getting a potential negative review. A single bad review could cost a business to lose dozens of new customers each month. The flipside, of course, is that happy customers can refer business to you through positive online reviews.

If an incident is severe enough, consider reaching out to the media directly to explain the situation and if necessary, to apologize publicly to customers affected. For example, one of Pierre’s clients was forced to work through a story of a shooting at the company’s establishment that resulted in an employee’s death. The situation was tragic and the business also lost a great deal of money in the aftermath. As part of its recovery, the client increased security at the business through video surveillance, and with the heightened security in place, issued a press release to announce the improvements.



Do negative online feedbacks serve any kind of a productive purpose?

Although every company is unhappy to see negative feedback online, the experience can provide a business with valuable insight about the way the operation is viewed through the eyes of your customers, and can alert you to problems.




What is the role of reputation management agencies, and do they really work? Are they worth it?

If they are responsible and reliable, reputation management agencies can do much to repair a damaged reputation on search engines by helping to remove disparaging information or helping push it further back so that it doesn’t continue to appear in the first pages of results. As experts, a good agency can also guide you through the process of acquiring a skilled attorney, when necessary, to have negative content legally removed. As I have reported before, however, take great care to speak to other customers of any reputation management agency to assure yourself of their reliability and credibility before getting involved.

Read more

5 New Reasons CEOs Should Maintain Stellar Online Reputation Management

In today’s world of social media, CEOs are extremely visible. This week I’ve received some input from online reputation expert Don Sorensen, president of Big Blue Robot. Don’s advise to entrepreneurs: “There has never been a more important time for CEOs to actively manage their online reputations. A positive reputation can establish credibility and trust with shareholders, the media and customers. Conversely, when there is a personal or company crisis, a CEO’s online reputation can fall quickly. Without the proper management, it may be impossible to recover.”

When something goes wrong in a company the CEO’s reputation is directly affected even if there’s nothing he or she could have done. For example, consider Target CEO Gregg W. Steinhafel: If you search his name online, hundreds of results appear about Target’s recent data breach. Even though many of the headlines don’t include his name, his reputation is implicated. The breach, and his reactions, have become a part of his personal online reputation that will remain on the Internet forever. Anyone at all including customers, potential hires, investors and even competitors, can find and use that information from now on.

1. Customers may consider a CEO’s reputation before buying from or endorsing a company. This is especially true if your business offers long-term services, if you’ll be working with the client directly, or if you support controversial causes or policies. A CEO’s personal opinion can quickly turn loyal customers against them and the fallout can live forever in search results.

For example, Lululemon’s founder Chip Wilson was popular enough he had a veritable cult following until he uttered the infamous words about his customers’ weight being the possible problem with his company’s yoga pants. Stock has tumbled and Wilson is looking for another job. No future investor or company will miss the controversy that now accompanies his name.





2. A CEO’s online reputation can help establish them as thought leaders and industry experts. Business leaders should strive to be thought leaders to help their companies and consumers, and to create a solid image for themselves online. Every executive should work to improve their expertise, credibility, and authority and to communicate that value to others on a continual basis. Says Sorensen: “Because you’re an executive, people expect you to have an opinion, to analyze trends, to predict changes, to publish research and case studies, and more. Don’t be afraid to use your unique voice, style, experiences, and point of view to your advantage.”





3. Shareholders may consider a CEO’s reputation before investing. How someone appears online could influence how much and when a potential investor chooses to invest, and even whether they invest in your company at all. If the CEO is creating a start-up, will manage the investment funds, or will have a large influence on how money is allocated, investors will most likely consider the individual’s reputation before getting involved.




4. A CEO’s reputation affects how they’re portrayed in the media. Journalists consider a CEO’s reputation to determine who to interview for a news story. Reporters use both practical information as well as a CEO’s reputation to gauge how well they might fit their stories and how important a quote from them might be. They don’t just consider a CEO’s work on the job, but also the causes they support and even how friendly they are to the media. A CEO’s reputation can even influence what angle a journalist takes when writing. It can mean the difference between a scathing business review and a positive story. For example, Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos has a reputation for being visionary. This journalist even called him a superhero. When Bezos has an announcement, the press listens.




5. Search results can fulfill or kill a potential hire. With information from a job interview and an online search, a potential employer can get a pretty good idea of who you are, what you do, and how you react in certain situations. If you seem like a good fit with their values, mission, and culture, you’re more likely to be hired.


What should a CEO do to protect their online reputation? Ideally, you would never have anything negative written about you. But that may not be realistic. Sorensen recommends a proactive approach, starting with monitoring.

Read more

Top Online Reputation Management Tips for Brand Marketers

Many marketing executives fail to understand how poor online reputation management can damage their company’s sales. To that end, I spoke this week with Don Sorensen, president of Big Blue Robot, who has been working with companies and executives for the past 10 years to improve their online reputations. In the process he’s had a direct view of the impact negative search results can have on a company’s bottom line, whether the enterprise is large or small.

You should never underestimate the cost of a poor reputation. For example, Sorensen notes he once consulted with a company that had a severe online reputation problem. When potential customers searched the company’s name, 7 of the top 10 Google results were negative. After careful review of their rankings and prior-year revenues, he estimated the venture was losing nearly $2 million a year in sales because of negative search engine results. The company confirmed his estimates were accurate — but low.

Online reputation management clearly has a big impact on a company’s revenue. I spoke with Don this week about what marketing executives can do to protect their company’s good image online. Here are his answers, advice and insight based on more than a decade of managing online reputations for clients in a wide variety of industries.

What are some online reputation issues a brand might experience?

Business owners are often taken off-guard by online reputation issues. Many don’t even realize they need to be concerned about their reputation online. A common question I hear is: “Why are people saying bad things about us on the Internet, and what can we do about it?” Executives can spend long years developing a strong brand. It can be beyond unsettling to wake up one day and see defamatory remarks appearing online, particularly when the items move beyond constructive criticism to include outrageous accusations and even slanderous or libelous remarks. Even worse, the negative reviews are often on websites that rank high in search engines, so anyone doing a search on the company name will probably see them. Whether the comments are true or not, these negative search results jeopardize the company’s online reputation.




Do you see executives’ personal reputation affect their companies’ online reputations these days?

Definitely. Top-level executives’ names can become synonymous with the brand, especially CEOs, so their personal reputations can affect the company just like corporate reputations do. Shareholders might look into executive reputations before investing, and well-known customers sometimes do that before buying from or endorsing the company. Executives’ reputations can also affect the amount and kind of press the company gets and the angle journalists take. Executives with strong personal reputations often become known as thought leaders and industry experts, which has major benefits for the company.





Won’t positive Google results stay where they are and serve as protection against reputational hits?

Just because the results are good today, doesn’t mean they’ll be that way tomorrow. Search engine results can change at any time based on recent news, social media, algorithm changes or a number of other factors. Creating and keeping a positive online reputation is a continuous, ongoing process that all brands need to be involved in.



How should companies consider expanding their crisis communication plan to handle reputation issues?

In today’s online-focused world, any crisis will shortly be an online reputation crisis thanks to the real-time nature of social media. Even if a major news publication doesn’t report a negative story about a company, blogs, tweets and other social media can do great damage.The first step is to do everything you can to prevent a problem from becoming a reputational crisis. That includes planning how to best use every online platform your brand is on, not just jumping on the hottest new trend because everyone is doing it. It also includes constant monitoring of online brand mentions and sentiment, and strong threat detection and protection.





What are the key reputation management tactics you recommend and employ for your clients?

1. Own Your Search Engine Results Page (SERP)

Don’t be content with only a handful of links at the top of a search engine results page for your brand. Take full advantage of your SERP by working to control as much of it as you can from top to bottom.


2. Be Social

Claim your brand’s social media profiles and use them. Some of them will have more benefit for you than others, but you still want to claim your brand name on all the major social networks and update them regularly. This prevents others from hijacking your brand name, gives you a bigger presence online, and helps you control more spots in SERPs. The major social profiles that do well in Google results include: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, YouTube, SlideShare and Pinterest. Be sure to link all of your social profiles together.


3. Blog

Blogging is another way to get your brand out there on the web. Buy a domain that includes the brand name, and then develop your blog with professional, positive information about the company, products, industry trends, support issues and other topics. In addition to showing up on your SERPs and publishing positive information about your brand, blogging also attracts more traffic than static websites, so it helps your reputation and your lead generation.


4. Think Outside the Box

Opportunities to get noticed on the web abound. For example, encourage customers to show how they’re using your product through YouTube videos. Videos tend to rank very well on Google and other search engines.


5. Have an Active PR Strategy

Don’t simply rely on “company news” for your press releases. Look for unique ways your products are being used. Publicize partners you’re working with. Sponsor events that may get press.




Is it worth developing an in-house department to tackle online reputation management issues?

It is possible to do some of the top-level ORM work within a company. Some of these tasks include:

public relations campaigns
social media updates
content development
development of company-related websites like blogs and support forums




Is online reputation management help expensive?

It can vary greatly depending on the unique factors of each reputation. When I give a quote to a potential client, I consider if the ORM work to be done is proactive or reactive. Maintenance and preventive measures are generally less expensive than trying to repair an online reputational problem after it’s happened. I also consider the size of the company, the scope of the work, the specific countries they are doing business in and the estimated return on investment.





What should a company look for when hiring an online reputation management professional?

A reputable professional should be able to show a successful track record with other clients. This should include “before” or baseline Google rankings (before the ORM work began), and “after” results. Negative web pages should be moved down in the results, being replaced by web pages with positive or neutral information about the company. If the client company does business in multiple countries then ask to see country-specific search engine results.

Read more