3 Core Qualities of a Reputation Manager

People spend hours learning about SEO from on-site optimisation to ways to build quality backlinks. People spend hours on Digg and StumbleUpon in order to be able to help clients get traffic for Social Media Marketing.

But, what do you have to research and learn to become a good reputation manager? In my mind there are 3 core qualities, and I actually think this industry is pieces of other strong internet marketing services; you just don’t need to be as advanced in each.

So, what are the qualities / skills required?

SEO

Search Engine results are one of the most common reasons people get in touch with us, they want to clean them up because there’s something negative they don’t like.

Some of the most important parts of Search Engine Optimisation to master:

• Understand quality links and how links affect rankings
• Knowing what on-site SEO factors are important to help a page rank
• Working out whether to help other pages rank or create new pages to work on (difficulty / competition / time)

Social Media

Besides search engines, you will also find a lot of negativity coming from blogs, forums and other places where people can create content online. It’s not a case of finding negative content and issuing a law suit, some of the most important things to research include:

• Knowing how and what to track the social web for
• Understanding why people blog and that the web is a two-way conversation
• Note all the ways and places people can talk negatively about a brand / company online

Staying Fresh

Just because you know how to do things now, you have to stay up to date on the latest developments in the industries, the latest ways people can communicate to an audience and more. Staying fresh includes the following:

• Staying up-to date on SEO techniques that develop
• Constantly learning new ways to engage in communities and understanding mindsets of people who write negative thoughts
• Sculpting best practices to help companies improve their image and helping it stay clean

5 More Things I think are important:

1. Being patient, results take time
2. Staying ethical, it’s probably easy to do a ‘dodgy job’ for the money, don’t be tempted
3. Don’t be lazy, keep track of what is going on regarding keywords in SERPs and in social sites
4. Be up to date on any new social sites that are taking off
5. Come up with documents you can give to clients if you want them to start blogging / twittering etc explaining the benefits and how to go about things

I don’t know that many reputation managers I would happily promote, if our 10 reasons to choose us aren’t enough check out Andy Beal or Brett.

P.S. A friend of mine has launched his Metrics / Analytics Blog, be sure to check it out

3 Comments / March 19th, 2008 / Reputation

The Final Word on Reputation Management Ethics

With a recent flurry of blog posts on the subject of Reputation Management Ethics, I thought we would have to take a look on this subject in our own unique, detailed way and try to ‘wrap up the discussions’. Lots of top bloggers have covered it, many in response to an article from Computer World, some with issues of their own regarding an actual product.

The reason a lot of people are asking whether reputation management is ethical, is because one of the ‘processes’ of the service is cleaning up negative search results. However, if those search results had of shown the company in a true light (which is negative for whatever reason) is it wrong to try and make them look good?

Examples - And What We Would Do

1. Zicam - Zicam has a few negative results when you search for Zicam tastebuds in Google, which you would probably do if you lost your sense of taste like Tamar. Even with a simple search for Zicam, results 4 and 5 cover loss of taste and lawsuits against them, but would it be ethical to help push them down and possibly have more people facing the issue?

What We Would Do - First of all, we would not try to create a ton of pages around the term Zicam so they can start ranking positively for simple information about their brand online, that is unethical.

What we would do is advise them to blog about the issues in an open manner, offer tips on how to resolve the issues or how Zicam can help you if you have been affected. This will probably get linked too by a lot of people, still show that they have issues but help searchers see how to deal with the issue, but let it all be on the Zicam site where they can ‘control the conversation’.

2. People that have been Convicted of a Crime - Not everything that people want ‘cleaning up’ is in regards to brands or corporations, many times it’s personal. A lot of people that want to clean up results for their name have been involved in some form of a crime that has been written about on multiple sources online.

What We Would Do - To be honest it depends on the type of crime, if someone is convicted of rape or murder then we certainly wouldn’t go near it. However, if someone is released after being found innocent to what they were originally reported it would often be a task of trying to increase the rankings of the updated news articles which document this.

We would probably also create 1 page that documents the whole situation and try to get that ranking as high as possible for the persons name.

3. Using Profile Sites for Positive Rankings - This is one thing that I have suggested to do in the past, although some people can use them wrongly. It involves creating articles or profiles on user-generated content websites in order to rank for certain terms.

What We Would Do - As stated this is something we do but some think of it as unethical so I want to make things a little clearer here. Although I’ve never created forum profiles for rankings, if I ever did I would make sure to contribute some very useful information to the forum and try to offer something back. Regarding content sites like Hubpages and Squidoo which we do use, I wouldn’t put together some small little page that offered nothing.

We make sure to use a large amount of quality information, and make use of any ‘modules’ such as Flickr photos or Poll’s where necessary to make it an interesting page no matter who lands on it.

To Summarise

We can’t guarantee that other companies are going to ever give completely ethical services, especially when it comes to helping ’shift’ negative search engine results. However, here are a few things we promise:

• Always advise companies to be open and honest about their practices. One of the best ways to start cleaning an online reputation is to simply be a more transparent company.
• Don’t help hide things that show dishonesty or things that people should be able to find. If you were a murderer and have just been released after a 30 year sentence and are looking for a job, google should probably be ‘allowed’ to tell people that
• We won’t take on a job when these aren’t met. Sure it can mean more money, and at the end of the day that is why people are in business but if it is against our ethics then it’s not worth it.
• Help our clients become real. Offering advice on such things like starting blog by giving advice to an actual staff member, get staff members conversing in the areas online where they can offer their expertise to known problems…don’t be the company for them.

There are many more examples of reputation management where ethics can come into play, but if theres something you would like our thoughts on directly, just leave a comment below.

6 Comments / March 5th, 2008 / Reputation

How to Deal with Negative Blog Posts

As part of our small series looking at 8 Types of Reputation Management Issues, we are looking at how you can go about dealing with each issue in the best possible manner for your brand.

Today we are looking at how you can deal with negative blog posts; you may be interested in the first post which looks at how to deal with negative search engine results. Now it’s estimated that there are 1.6 million new blog posts made everyday, it’s also a simple fact that people can write about whatever they want, whenever they want and very easily. Blogging is the revolution in the new media of the web and if people want to talk…they will.

Examples

Just so we are all clear on what negative blog posts entail, here’s a few examples I’ve found from around the web.

1. Apple

Big name corporations can certainly be affected in terms of sales and branding when big name bloggers such as Techcrunch here talk down your product. Duncan came up with a pretty interesting title for a whole post related to the high cost of the Macbook Air:

2. Wikia Search

Instead of looking at an offline property, let’s look at something that is solely online. Wikia search, the open source search engine from the creator of wikipedia launched recently to a lot of insulting reviews including this one over at Mashable which has over 150,000 feed subscribers.

It’s going to be difficult to be relevant to every single type of blog post here but if there’s something you aren’t sure of or would like more details on a certain situation just leave a post in the comments.

How to Deal with Negative Blog Posts

1. Know they are out there and keep tracking

If you aren’t monitoring feeds for reputation management then you should be, especially where your company or products are concerned. Part of being able to respond to negative blog posts is obviously knowing about them in the first place so keep track on all links back to your articles, all mentions of your name or the name of your brand.

The quickest way to do this would to be using Google Alerts or subscribing to feeds on Google Blogsearch.

2. Respond directly in the blog comments

Most blogs have the comment feature enabled so be thankful you get a chance to ‘make your case’. Do not use this section to insult the blogger or simply say they are talking sh*t because that will only make you look worse and might mean more negative blog posts are on their way. Instead try and help the person in any way (if they are having a problem with a product / service) or at least try to deal with their issue the way you would if it was sent directly to you.

Doing it in an open manner shows you care about what it is you are doing and are willing to stand behind what it is you are doing / offering. If you have made a mistake, admit it and make clear the steps you are taking to rectify the situation.

3. Add a response to your help area / support center

If you are a large corporation or just a company that spends a lot of time dealing on the support side of things then you may well see a lot of people using blogs to talk about their issues. If an issue is something you haven’t seen before, add it to the support center or help areas of your website and let the blogger know about it either by linking to it or emailing it to them.

This is generally a good business practice anyway, whether it’s someone who has blogged negatively or contacted you directly about an issue they have, it will save future issues and might prevent future negative blog posts being created.

4. Blog back and be transparent

If you don’t have your own company blog (why not?) then this isn’t really relevant for you. Some companies just aren’t willing to take the risk and blogging about others complaining or insulting them though (brings more attention to the issue) but surprisingly brings them more respect and more trust from product / service users.

The web is now a two-way conversation so why not let the whole world know your thoughts. Sometimes it’s a lot easier than going to multiple blogs to share your feelings if a lot of people have discussed the same issue and gives people a place to linkback to for help / support / answers.

5. Thank the blogger

Before you think I’m crazy and close this page, keep reading. The main positive about being professional and open (yes, even when someone has insulted “yo momma”) is that there’s always the chance they can go on to write something positive about you just as easily as it was for them to write something negative.

Jumping into legal threats or anything of that nature can just help make things a million times worse. Being professional about the situation, getting in touch with the blogger to let them know you are working on what they are talking about, solutions for what they are talking about or even just thanking them for having an opinion can really come back to your benefit.

17 Comments / February 19th, 2008 / Reputation

Step by Step Guide to Monitoring Feeds for Reputation Management

If you know how to use an RSS Reader and know what free tools you should be using online to track important keywords then this post is probably not for you. If you would like to learn the basics then keep on reading. This post was created so I have something to refer too in terms of Reputation Management in its simplest form and to help people who are quite confused about this subject.

Monitoring is a large part of Online Reputation Management and is the process of tracking keywords related to staff, products or even service names to see who is talking about you online, as a live service.

For this guide we are just going to be using two general sites and explaining how you can track updates to them, if you want more details on feeds to use check out our post on ‘5 Feeds we Monitor for Clients‘.

Let’s Get Started

Step 1: Sign up to Google Reader

Google Reader is my preferred choice; some people like to use bloglines or even something like netvibes. If you decide you don’t like the feel of Google Reader after this tutorial then this guide will still help you with acquiring the feeds you need to add.

You should see a page similar to this after you have registered:

Step 2: Decide what you are going to track

Because this is more of a tutorial on how to do this instead of actually working out what to monitor (tips on that here) we are just going to look at general terms.

For you or your company this could be the name of your CEO, the name of your biggest product or monitoring response to a service you offer.

Step 3: Tracking Google Blogsearch

Now you have signed up to a feed reader and know what terms you want to monitor we can now look at actually tracking them. The first site we are going to use for this is Google Blogsearch.

Simply enter the terms you want to track, then we are going to get the URL of the RSS feed for that specific term. To do that just click on the RSS button as in the image below:

Step 5 in this guide will show you how to add this into Google Reader, just keep note of the URL for now.

Step 4: Tracking Technorati

Technorati is another blog search engine similar to Google Blogsearch. It tends to have less spam in the results from what I have seen so I like to use them both together.

Once again, simply enter the terms you want to monitor around the blogosphere and then do the search. You can then get the URL of the RSS feed to watch updates for this term as shown below:

Step 5: Adding feeds to Google Reader

If you have already clicked on those URL’s you might notice they look a little bit funny. That is because they are not supposed to be read with a browser but with a feed reader.

Going back into Google Reader, you should notice a box in green to the left which allows you to add a feed to track, click on that and you should see this:

Once you’ve done that, you should now see the feed in Google Reader with the latest items displayed at the top. You can mark all these as read and keep track of Google Reader on a daily basis to see who is talking about you, your brand or your products.

General Tips

• Searching for something in quotes if it’s more than one word helps eliminate irrelevant results
• You may also notice a small RSS icon () in the top right corner of your address bar which you can click on
• Other sites you can use to monitor mentions include OMGili, Serph and Keotag.

7 Comments / February 7th, 2008 / Reputation

How to Deal with Negative Search Engine Results

Negative search engine results pages (SERP’s) can be a huge turn-off for people looking to use a company’s products or services. In fact, it’s estimated that 40% of people who do see a negative search engine result are put off completely and simply won’t use a company.

These are not search results that you aren’t ranking for, but search results that revolve around your brand name, staff names, product names or even service names. They tend to be ranking highly (otherwise they wouldn’t be much of an issue) and are negative in one way or another, something no business owner likes to have.

Examples

Before I dive in and explain the best ways to clear these things up, I thought I would share some examples of what you might not want to see.

1. Paypal

Paypal are a very large, eBay owned payment processor and are incredibly well known. Services like these have to be trusted if they are going to handle your money, yet there’s a high ranking website named ‘Paypal Sucks‘.

2. Telkom

Telkom are a major communications provider in South Africa (a bit like BT in England) and are a heavy criticised company throughout the county. A quick search on their name provides an unflattering micro-site named Hellkom.

How to Deal with Negative Results

1. Start Creating New Pages to Rank Higher

This one is simple and probably the most obvious. If somebody is ranking highly for a product or service name, create extra pages on your own domain. You should have the authority and relevance for those key terms so if you are creating more relevant pages (such as a Product FAQ) then those should start ranking higher as well.

This is not removing the negative search engine results but it is pushing them further out of sight.

2. Create New Pages / Profiles on Other Sites

Not only can you get more positive pages ranking on your own site but you can also get pages on other sites ranking well. Such ways to do this could be creating a lens on Squidoo and a page on Hubpages then sending some links back to them.

Profiles sites also tend to work well such as MySpace, Wikihow or even Twitter. These rank well because the domains have some authority but if the negative results have authority they aren’t going to rank on their own.

3. Respond to the Negative Issue if Possible

I’m sure if Paypal or Telkom got in touch with their negative counter-parts, a simple plea wouldn’t be enough to get the site owners to take down their domains. However, if the issue is a blog or forum post, try and respond to it in a professional manner and help the person if you can.

This is for the simple fact that one day, somebody will probably find the page anyway so if there’s something positive and you are showing good customer service then you might just save yourself from another person being put off what you have to offer.

4. Create your Own Negative Results

This might seem cheeky to some or a little crazy, but it works. Simple as that. Basically the thought process behind this is that people look for negativity before trusting to use a service. Therefore, terms like ‘Company problems’, ‘Company issues’ may be part of their search vocabulary.

To counteract this, you can create positive articles that cover those negative keywords i.e. ‘Company Name: No Problem lowering Prices’. If you get a little creative you can apply this to many keywords and really protect yourself from those inquisitive searchers.

5. Be a Better Company

We all understand that companies have their critics, who doesn’t. Often, those critics pick up on pesky details that is more their problem rather than with a company or its services. Other times, you have to be honest with yourself and think whether you could handle certain services or situations better to benefit the customer.

If you are getting a lot of people complaining about something, solve the issue and get back to them. Be transparent in your dealings or the negative search engine results you have now will only continue to get worse.

Negative search engine results are just one issue, you can find more in our post about ‘8 Types of Reputation Management Issues‘.

22 Comments / February 1st, 2008 / Reputation