Online Reputation Management and Business Blogging
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(www.businessandblogging.) Everyone knows how damaging gossip can be. Whether it’s true or untrue, gossip can hurt.
Now the gossip has gone online and it can hurt your company. It can hurt a lot.
Yesterday Liz blogged about Steak and Shake and mentioned how unfortunate it was that Steak and Shake didn’t already have a corporate blog in place.
The Steak and Shake incident is just one example of how an online reputation can get out of hand.
Online reputation is so important to businesses and business professionals, that a number of companies have sprung up to help businesses and others manage their online reputations. Newsweek recently published an article titled “Google Yourself-And Enjoy It” that describes the new industry of online reputation management. The reputation management industry is also described at Yahoo News.
Already, there are quite a few online reputation management companies. Here are just a few (Note: Business and Blogging is not endorsing any particular company):
(I found it interesting that at least one company also advertises reputation management for children - a need that has perhaps sprung up from a series of online bullying incidents.)
Considering that anyone anywhere can write anything about any company simply by posting to a personal blog, it’s easy to understand why reputation management companies exist.
But, is reputation management ethical?
Apparently some think that it is not. Those that are concerned about the ethics of online reputation management include search engine giant, Google. The Newsweek article quotes a Google representative as saying that Google might take action on “manipulative techniques.”
The ethics question is echoed by this post at Computerworld, which also asks whether or not using online reputation management is ethical.
Personally, I can see both sides. While I think that individuals and companies should be allowed to address and combat negative information (particularly if it is untrue), professional reputation management can be quite pricey. The high price tag for professional services could lock out those companies and individuals that don’t have the resources to pay and make reputation management the sole privilege of the wealthy.
What do you think? Is professional online reputation management ethical, or not?
I couldn’t leave this topic without giving you a few resources about some inexpensive precautions that you can take to protect your online reputation. Not surprisingly, at least one precaution that you can take includes blogging.
- This Computerworld article from Thomas Hoffman lists some cheap ways that you can protect your reputation.
- At Blog Business Summit Jason Preston lists some ways that you can use blogging to clean up your search results.
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POSTED IN: Public Relations, Reputation Management
8 opinions for Online Reputation Management and Business Blogging
Mihaela Lica
Feb 13, 2008 at 10:00 am
When our reputation is damaged what are the choices? Hire a lawyer and start a time consuming trial which in the end will not erase the damage, but eventually get solatium - which will never cover the real damage as online people can read the bad stuff every day, for as long as the pages remain indexed.
I think hiring online reputation management firms as as ethical as hiring a lawyer. When you are not “guilty as charged” you need to find a way to protect your name. Those who say that it is not ethical to hire such firms were probably never in the position where they needed to. I hope they’ll never get to a situation when they have to act against their convictions.
Laura
Feb 13, 2008 at 10:17 am
Thanks Mihaela! That’s an interesting perspective. Why should hiring an online reputation management firm be any different than hiring anyone else?
Stephen Hopson/Adversity University
Feb 13, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Laura:
I’ve never heard of reputation management. Very interesting. It kind of reminds of what PR firms do or a group of “damage control” people do when a company or individual is in a crisis of “unmanageable proportions.”
Thanks for enlightening us on this subject. It’s new to me.
Laura
Feb 13, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Hi Stephen Hopson!
I really think that it’s a fairly new PR specialty. No doubt, the power of blogging and social media has sparked a specialized need that was not there before.
I was particularly interested to see that some firms were targeting this service to children and teens as well as to businesses.
Reputation Manager - Ken
Feb 25, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Thank you for a thought provoking article regarding this industry. We agree with the comments here regarding the hiring of a firm to assist in a reputation management matter being likened to hiring of any professional.
While I can’t speak for all organizations we are and I believe numerous others are whitehat organizations and do not and will not prescribe to techniques that are not approved within the various search engine guidelines.
We tend to look at the reputation management industry in the same light that as that of a Public Relations firm. For instance when an automaker has bad publicity for a recall a PR firm can educate the consumers that it was the automaker that discovered the issue and took proactive steps to fix the current problem as well as prevent the same from occurring again.
Further it’s not always about guilty vs. not guilty. Many of the companies that have reputation issues are indeed guilty many times of poor customer service. But often they have systems in place to handle those customer concerns that aren’t very visible. They don’t intend to be guilty and most often the companies want to help their consumers that are unhappy with them.
We have helped companies develop online consumer complaint resolution centers and then publicized the positives.
The point also should be noted that sometimes a company can have hundreds of thousands of satisfied customers and but a few unsatisfied customers. A single blog posting from one unsatisfied customer can rise in the search results and cause an in-proportionate amount of public relation damage to a company than the purported “crime” is deserving.
Reputation Management can also be broken into two distinctive types. One type contacts the offending site and asks them to remove the content, but cannot guarantee that the site operator will be cooperative, the second type may do a combination approach where they contact offending sites, but then works on general SEO or content creation to overcome sites that won’t remove the content. Providing at minimum an equal balance between positive vs. negative content in the search engines.
Lastly, Reputation Management methodologies for search engine results will sometimes include blogging and press releases, but will most often include content creation to be posted on the company’s own Internet resources.
Laura
Feb 25, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Thanks Ken, for providing some more background on the specifics of what reputation managers actually do. Do you think that perhaps, in the future, this role will become routine for public relations professionals?
I think that the one of the discussions about ethics actually deals with cost. Like anything that costs, not everyone will be able to afford it. What’s to become of those whose reputation is damaged online, but who don’t have the resources to hire a reputation manager?
I don’t have the answer - I just included it here for discussion’s sake.
Anyway, I hope that you continue reading here and providing your valuable input.
Reputation Manager - Ken
Feb 25, 2008 at 3:51 pm
I think it’s somewhat routine for PR pros do now they just struggle with what it means in the Search Engine Environment. For instance lets say that a client has a negative posting about thier business, should they respond to the negative posting? Normally, a thoughtful response would go a long way in building customer confidence. Responding to an editorial in the newspaper could get your side of the story out. People reading that day might find it so compelling they want to do business with you. But the next day the article in the paper is gone, in a few weeks it’s forgotten. Posting a response to a blog or customer complaint site works in the reverse. Instead of the article fading away a response builds the content even more. Take for instance this page, a lot of comments makes the article even fuller, and more desirable to the search engines. Further on some sites it even puts the particular article on the “most popular” list, making it even more exposed to the search engines. So the negative headline gets read over and over, perhaps the initial blog gets even more attention and more inbound links before long you may have a blog posting that ranks better than your own company site (a problem that is VERY difficult to correct)
Speaking to the concern of cost, you’re correct SEO reputation management may not be affordable to everyone. Then again general search engine optimization isn’t cheap either. As an individual who may be having problems with social networks and the reputation issues that can arrise there, there are good resources for fairly affordable rates (39.95 / mo) for a company facing much more difficult problems, the measurement becomes one of ROI (Return on Investment).
Let’s say for instance that we’re talking about a car dealer who has upset a customer over the replacement of a windshield wiper (yes this is based on a real story) and that customer goes out and creates an entire website called dealershipnamesucks.com and tells his story about how unhappy he is with the windshield wiper problem. If that site causes the dealership to lose 1 sale a month at say an average of $28,000 per car. then that site is costing the dealer $336,000 in revenue a year, potentially return customers who would have bought again next year and if this goes on for 3 years then it’s cost the company well over a million in revenues.
It may take quite a bit to overcome the problem, especially if you’re going to insist that the solution is a whitehat solution (the only solution we will provide). But’s what’s it worth? We charge an hourly rate, we establish a predefined set of goals and we work with the client to overcome the problem. Sometimes it’s straight forward other times it takes a lot of work. Yes it can be expensive. It’s definitely not a solution for an individual unless all other avenues have been pursued and the issue is so bad that its going to cost them long term earnings (another ROI to consider)
Obviously there’s some tips for preventing the issue in the first place.
As an Individual:
1. Don’t get into arguments online in forums (as much as you may want to speak your mind don’t unless you understand the potential consequences)
2. If you do get into some kind of conflict, let it go. Don’t continue building more content for the search engines by continually replying.
3. Own your own name everywhere your can. Yourname.com, yourname.blogspot, yourname.facebook etc. etc. Once someone else registers it you can forget getting it later and it may be used against you.
4. If the postings are truly slanderous (absolutely false) and are clearly not opinion. For instance “Bob LastName is a thief” is significantly different than “Bob Sucks” AND you believe you can identify the person who made the posting, seek legal counsel. If they can’t clearly identify the poster you don’t stand much of a chance.
5. On the sites you own/ control (yourname.com, blogspot, other social networks) write articles about yourself, for instance write a simple biography under an “about the author” section. Use your own name in the Third Person. Repeat your name in the article several times (a good rule of thumb is repeat your name 4-5 times in a posting that is 450 words. If you want a search engine result for your name you have to write your name in the posting.
Hope this helps and I hope I answered some of your questions.
Laura
Feb 25, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Hi Ken!
What a thoughtful and thorough response! Businesses certainly have a lot more to think about in today’s environment than they did 15, or even 10, years ago.
You’ve got some good advice here.
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