How reputation management forms the first line defense of your company

Building up your company's reputation might have taken many years but a few negative consumer generated media buzz can damage it very badly. With the online shopping options getting more popular, customers browse through online posts and forums to find out the good and the not so good companies and products. Posts that are placed on blogs, forums, and social media sites reach large audiences in no time. Viral in action these negative blogs or comments can do a substantial damage to the brand repute and the painfully built up reputation. In many cases these could be scandalous posts made by an unhappy customer or your ex business partner to settle scores with you.

Statistics show that around 80 percent of adults are more likely to buy a product based on online comments or recommendation and an overwhelming majority of customers trust the reviews and feedbacks of other users. 87% of people believe that the reputation of the company plays a decisive role while availing services or buying products. Should the customers find negative content while searching, it could have a disastrous effect no matter whether the complaint is genuine or not . Considering the ease of posting such defamatory content and the viral nature of its propagation it has become critical for companies of all sizes to implement reputation management tactics protect their brands.

Most of the customers seldom go beyond the first two pages of the search engines while searching for information/ products or services and if bad report come popping up in these pages chances are that the customers will never bother to come back t you again. It is estimated that On RipOff Report there are more than 300,000 complaints filed and these get a preference on search engines and enjoy priority listing, which makes it all the more important for companies to resort to fool proof reputation management techniques to ensure that their brand is not vandalized.

Reputation management- the dual edged weapon that protects your repute and salvage you from crisis

Reputation management not only helps you to keep up your brand image and online presence but also forms part of your crisis management strategy. The negative posts and forum postings about your business online are warning signals that you need to get things in order to retain your position. By ignoring these facts and playing a proverbial ostrich, you will only by inviting more trouble.

As with any element of business management, the mode and time of response play a crucial role in ensuring the reputation of your business and to turn it into a positive tide. Setting alerts is the smartest way to measure the pulse of things being told about you in the online space. Never ignore creeping crises and negative rumours about your business, even if that means slander or orchestrated smearing campaigns unleashed by your business rivals. Positive comments could be used in your marketing and are great tools to gauge your popularity and to keep an aye on the competition.

Negative comments are not something that you should run away from and there are lots of ways to respond and tackle these. Do not waste time in the hope that it will go away with time as whatever posted in the internet remains there forever and these will come back to haunt and tease you unless you root these out diligently.

If the comments are on blogs that allow comments, make sure that these are not bogus and try to respond to the genuine comments. Never belittle anybody who has made comments. By engaging with the unhappy customers in this way, you will have the opportunity to clear any misunderstandings that they might have and and even to gain new customers. Market studies show that many customers who complain turn out to be the most valuable customers if you win them back in time.

So, keeping an eye on what others are doing online and comparing it what you are doing would be a great way to get started in reputation management,. It is a meticulous exercise that requires patience and time and there are many professional reputation management agencies that will relieve you of the hassles of reputation management.

How quick can Online reputation management be?

Online reputation is the buzz word in the virtual world these days. Businesses, celebrities and even ordinary mortals have been under the scathing attacks in the cyber space these days. A few defamatory remarks are all that it take to ruin their carefully built up online reputation. Professionals or businesses that have been under attack by defamatory remarks will be eager to regain their lost reputation at the shortest possible time. Online reputation damage could mean loss of revenue, a slump in sales and above all an erosion of the customer base, which could have long term adverse effects in the prospects of the organization.

To even off these negative effects, companies and individuals opt for reputation management strategies that would remove the negative publicity and portray a favorable internet reputation to the public.However, online reputation management could be a time consuming process. It will depend on the amount of negative content posted against the concerned company or individual. By systematically posting SEO articles, and blogs the negative content will be pushed back to the inner pages of the search engines that would remain out of the glances of the discerning customers thereby ensuring brand protection.

Realization of positive results may take time to materialize; so the safest option would be to monitor your online repute and brand image regularly by using tools like Google alerts that would help you to keep a tag on what is being said about you in the virtual world. As you get the wind of the adverse comments in the air, you need to get on top gear to face these comments head on. Timely trouble shooting is the golden rule in reputation management. Never ignore these bad posts and forum postings as it could snowball into a major scandal in no time. Virtual world is viral and it wont take much time to reach these bad posts into your customers as well. The mere fact that over 86% of internet user depend on online inputs and feedbacks while shopping for products and services, would drive home the significance of online reputation in present day business scenario.

Effective tips for a good reputation management

People are talking about you, your product, your company and its time you started taking care of what others say about you. It might either be good or maybe some slanderous postings that could visibly destroy your company image. So what you need to do at this juncture is truly important. Check out some of our reputation management points and make sure that you implement it for a good corporate image.

• If you need to keep your critics from not being too powerful, you need to not respond to the complaints in an exaggerated way.
• Being able to speak directly to your audience through blog post or being an active member in the Internet will increase your reputation management skills.
• SEO/SEM are the two most important tools for a great online reputation management.
• It is tough to damage a firm that has a good reputation management and has a favorable position online.
• A poor review can be responded with courtesy in an apologetic tone.
• Reputation management will be of great help for your company or industry if the right tools and languages are used in a proper way.
• Start by tracking your online reputation with the various online services like Google Alerts, Social News Sites, Social bookmarking sites, Social Networks, Blogs, Media sharing sites.
• Put your own profile photo rather than pictures that doesn't allow others to figure you out.
• Make a list of the top sites that are bringing in good results for your company.
• If you are posting any contents or posts in a public site, be sure that you do it in a professional way.

Both clients and employees play an important role in nurturing a company's reputation

The most important thing to have is people knowing that your firm has a good reputation. But on the other side if it all goes wrong you need to find a suitable solution. To erase a negative comment or a bad review is a difficult task. Reputation management is the only remedy that can take your company to the top stages of being entitled as the 'best firm with a good reputation'.

Reputation management is indeed very essential and it matters the most when a customer needs information about your company and looks for it online. If the information they find is not what they expected or wrong, then you may lose the sale. The dissatisfied customer may post a negative comment and bring down the reputation of your company with a single negative review. So your company's reputation on the web matters and you need to remember that bad news spread faster than good news.

So you need to take some valid steps in order to bring your reputation on the front and in the best possible way. One needs to always check how your firm's reputation is perceived online. Through blogs, forums and other social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter or Digg you can find what is being said about your company online. You can even subscribe on the Google sites and set up alerts in order to help you to know which keywords hit the top.

It is also crucial to remember that a company which strives to build strong relationships from inside out has more chances to withstand the damaging blows of a bad press. It is seen that most of the companies keep good relationship with their customers or clients omitting out the best resources like employees, board members and even suppliers. In times of facing problems, a solid support from the insider base can be critical in emerging unscathed from a public relations challenge.

Reputation management- tackle online slander head on and protect your brand image

Reputation management involves the smart application of certain tools that help to repair and manage your public perception. There are many online tools including blogs, social networking, SEO, SEM and many more to tackle online slander and to rip off bad press.

Blogs are strong media to communicate with the public who might be misled by erroneous media reports. Regular postings of blogs and articles can aid in better page ranking and improved visibility. The best part is that the search engine optimized content in the blogs help you to be in constant touch with your prime consumer groups with no or little effort. Social networks like Twitter and facebook are effective in building up online communities and platforms apart from producing link backs towards the client pages. These are also ideal tools to convey your ideas and to clear the misleading information doing the rounds in the web.

Remember, your repute is highly vulnerable to external influences and a few angry posts of a handful of dissatisfied customers or disgruntled elements well within your organization could do a lot of damage to your carefully built up online reputation and brand image. The problem is that anything negative that gets into online remains there for a long time and only reputation management services can help to bring back the positive pages and conceal the offending sites deep into the search result pages.

Once you track what is being discussed about you on the web, a search engine optimization might help you to promote the positive pages, thereby pushing the damaging references of the first pages of the search results. Today, reputation management services have grown to be popular crisis management tools for organizations, which help them to be always ready to combat negative publicity should it occur. So, in case you are being bullied by baseless allegations propagated by your competitors, it is high time that you have a solid reputation management plan in place to safeguard your online reputation and goodwill.

Reputation Management system and its benefits

Reputation management system has become one of the most dynamic tools for all, whether its a brand, product, company, business or individual. Reputation has always been something which remains the key area in almost all fields. Whatever you are doing your reputation remains something which is of the most value, whether its a small business or a fortune 500 company.

With so much of competition out in the market, its really become a big task to stay in the rat race, competition sometimes do end in a foul play, where your competitors or disgruntled customers target you. Above all, with the advent of the social networking sites, it has become very easy for anyone to air their views online. Well any such negative comments can ruin your reputation online, but reputation management helps to fight back and chuck out those negative comments from search engines. What more? The tools of reputation management also helps you to retain your lost image online and helps to keep all the negative comments and bad press away from top searches.

This reputation management system also keeps a check in what all is being said or written about you online. Which means you are well informed on what all is being going on behind your back, its pro-active approach is what makes reputation management system different from the rest and a key factor for all.

Monitor your online reputation management regularly with the services of top firms

Your company's popularity is one of the most beneficial assets and reputation management is an important aspect of running the success of a business. Properly managing your reputation can be done effectively and efficiently with proper steps. With a good solid reputation for your company, you can find your company growing and building good relationships.

All audiences whether it is consumers or employees to partners will seek and trust the organizations that has the best relationships. So it is very important to monitor and manage its reputation so that it always remains positive.

Controlling your business is important because it directly affects your brand name, services and products and indirectly affects the revenues of your business. Competition in the online business is very hard and everyone is fighting hard to be on the top in this race. Therefore if you are not monitoring your business it means that you will never come to know if anybody posts negative comments, file a complaint, create a blog post, promote your competition etc.

So it is highly recommended to continuously monitor your website in case you want to stay on top and be in that position for a long time. So it is very important to hire the services of online reputation management firm who will search for information about your business, destroy any kind of inappropriate information by removing negative listings or any other comments related to destroying your company's brand image.

Reputationmanagementfor.com offers services of experts in the field of search engine optimization who are completely aware of the processes of search engines and develop appropriate methodologies to remove all the negative listings thus giving you complete control over your company.

Proactive Reputation management – a sure fire strategy to beat negative publicity

Though Reputation management is often seen as a typical damage control exercise that is required only in the event of something bad, the fact is that it should be set up first to counter an attack in future. Companies that follow a proactive reputation management policy run a better chance to build and protect their reputation well before any kind of attack.

The brand building process is time consuming and slow and hence you cannot afford to take a chance when the company comes under attack. There are many tried and tested methods including search engine optimization and SEM techniques that help companies to bolster the defense lines of the company against possible attacks from its competitors or other disgruntled elements. A skillfully implemented SEO and marketing plan will get companies on the first page of the search engines, often with multiple listings. By positioning a company on the top pages of the search engines, the companies can keep the negative content at bay. Reputation management will prevent the negative pages from getting ranked so that these content do not make it to the top pages of the search engines. Having dodged the first stage attack, you cannot afford to be complacent as only a continuous monitoring of negative blogs and contents will make sure to filter the negative content from the search results corresponding to the key words of your company. Any negative content should be dealt with by deploying potent counter attacks using not only with the existing content on the web but also by creating new positive content, which will even off the impact of the negative posts targeted against you.

A negative publicity and smear campaign is damaging to the repute ; however the best part is that it can always be reversed and the time required for a full turn around might depend on the extent of of negative content that has made its way to the front pages of the search engines. Higher ranked content, be it negative or positive will enjoy greater viewer ship and this is what makes it difficult to rip off the ranked negative content than those information that are in the inner pages of the search engines. A well devised online reputation management will prevent that kind of content from being seen at all thereby ensuring brand protection! By weeding out these pesky issues you will be more focused on running your company effectively and by engaging a professional reputation management company you will be relieving yourselves of all these responsibilities. Online reputation management techniques are thus essential tools to enhance your sales and brand image rather than just crisis management tools that work in the event of a disaster.

Do your online reputation reflects to your business?

Reputation has a lot to do with you and your brand value, reputation and business is in many ways inter-related to each other, if one goes wrong it shows off on another. It is largely seen that reputation has always been a vital part for everyone, whether its about your business, brand, product, individual or firm. In todays context online reputation is one of the major factors to decide the fate of your company, it can either make you or break your business.

Being the face value of the company, reputation means a lot, it gives your business that trust and credibility which people looks for in every company. Positive reputation always earns you more profits, while negative just have the reverse effect. So, its really essential for you to consider your reputation above everything, as its your reputation which reflects about your business.

But the major setback which mostly five in every ten companies face is attack on their reputation by the so called competitors, ex-employees and disgruntled customers. Any such negative comments or impressions can be fatal, if it shows on in the social networking sites. If people are positing negative things about your business online, then you are suppose to face the burnt of that for sure.

Now how to tackle this creeping danger, well experts have always suggested to analyse your market position regularly, where you stand, what people think about you, what changes you tend to make and all. But only few companies adhere to these principles, but another way to keep your company reputation safe is from the effective tools of reputation management. This tested repair system works really well to repair your image online and make sure your reputation remains on the positive side always. It even keeps a check on what people are saying about your company or brand online.

What more? It is good to see a major section of the small and big businesses resorting to reputation management for their online reputation. Its better to stay prepared, rather succumb.

How your behaviour effects your reputation

Reputation is one of the most vulnerable factor which can easily get effected by even a small mis-conduct by you. In one way or the other your behaviour do plays a role to decide the fate of your reputation. It largely applies in case of celebrities, politicians and sports personalities who remains in the lime light every now and then.

To be precise any single mis-behaviour or mis-conduct can lead these so called celebs to a turmoil. So its necessary to play safe in order to manage your reputation. But along with all this, a strategic reputation management plan will also help you a lot to shield your image from any online bashing. But first and foremost is to watch out while being in public and try to behave cool when it comes to your fans and mostly media, many celebs to lose out their cool while dealing with media. Such kind of attitude can ruin your well built reputation, but to rebuild it take a lot of hardwork.

So manage your behaviour and reputation in order to keep yourselves always in the good books.

It is necessary to take a good look at your reputation management

A difficult task to execute well, reputation management is either ignored by many people or they aren't exactly sure how to repair or create their reputation. With nearly every business having an unhappy customer from time to time, it is very essential for any businesses to opt for reputation management. A reputation management service will help you to bury your negative blogs or posts, remove bad links and rip off reports.

Image and reputation are not the same thing. A great image and a terrible reputation can destroy the business as a whole. Reputations aren't built overnight- they take time. They are built upon honesty, transparency, trust and accountability and is regularly supported by integrity and character. Anyone can buy a good image for a week, month or a year, but however it takes years to build your reputation properly.

The main concern with online reputation management is that the comments make their way to the top of the search engine results and when people search your name, they will come to see the negative listings ranking high. Its no longer safe to think that you will be able to make a single comment that will be googled eventually. So as such, you need to take action and the goal of reputation management is to make your business look better on the search engines.

If your online reputation is tarnished, you will lose sales and clients, so you need to choose the right outlets. Its always important to know what social outlets work, what blog voice will work and what search engines to focus on. As there are various forms of blog software like word press- you need to chose that which is best for you.

Toyota recall- the cost of being unprepared in reputation management

Toyota recall issues are far from over as reports of snags and problems still trickle in. When the US government sought a staggering $16,375,000 as penalty from Toyota for its delayed response in notifying the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration regarding the defective
accelerator pedals, the world class car maker chose to pay up readily. Was it in a way admitting its mistakes?.

As Chris Woodyard of USA TODAY wrote in "Toyota PR blitz plays catch-up after storm of problems," apologizing to customers "may be whistling in the wind as more reports of problem vehicles surface."

Did Toyota for a while misread the whole issue as an engineering problem rather than a reputation management problem, or is that a tried and tested crisis management was not place? It is too late now to analyze the probable causes for the debacle and now what Toyota should be doing is to formulate plans and policies to restore public trust and to protect its brand image as one of the favorite family cars yet again.

The public apology by the company president, Akio Toyoda, and the setting up of a task force headed by he himself has gone a long way in instilling confidence in the minds of millions of Toyota car owners. It succeeded in sending out message loud and clear that the company is is finally responding to the true nature of the problem. Toyota sat on the issue for pretty long and that cost it dearly. The problem snowballed into a full blown controversy because the company didn't try to rebuild the trust first as it was busy fixing the technical snags.

The recall without a full fledged reputation-management campaign to fall back on, proved ineffective in stalling the angry backlash and the plummeting share value of Toyota in the car market. Probably if a reputation management plan had come soon after the recall and the redress of the designs flaws, it would have landed Toyota on a safer ground!

Brand Reputation and its importance in your business

How essential is brand reputation for your business is one of the key question for all business concerns. Brand is something which remains one of the most essential part of all businesses, whether its about a small company or big, brand is the face of your company. If you lose your brand value u lose everything. Brand can make or break your company, so then the question arises how can u protect your brand.

First of all we have to understand and analyze that how vulnerable the brand is and where do the credibility of your brand stands in the market. With the mounting competition in the market its really important to shield the brand's reputation before its too late. Any negative comment or bad press can push down your brand's reputation. Here comes the need for a reputation management system which will safeguard your brand from being flayed by any bad press.

Brand reputation management is a perfect solution to keep your brand always in the good books, it also keeps track on the status of your brand online, helping you to keep a watch on what is being said or written about your brand online. It even helps to repair your lost brand value with the effective tools of brand reputation management. So play safe and keep your brand's reputation positive with a well structured brand reputation management.

Reputation Management -lend an ear to what the world talks about you

Reputation management is all about using the tools and platforms to control and manage the public views about you , your company or your services. More than just a communication or a technology issue it is a multi faceted approach in stalling online slanders and to retain your brand. Posting a few blogs or press releases alone wont help you to come out of the rut you have landed into! Only a smart blend of the most effective ORM tools that will help you to repair and manage the public image about your company.

So, ultimately it’s important for all businesses to perceive what other people are saying, tag along the customer trends, analyse the competition in the market before coming up with a most appropriate plan to even off the damages caused by bad press and negative publicity. Make sure that all the company information such as directory listings, is accurate and updated. Though large companies might have a team of communications specialists to do this monitoring, small- to medium-size businesses either end up spending a lot of their quality time in monitoring online comments, or ignore it altogether, which could be even worse.

However, ORM is not a complex crisis management tool, which needs to be considered only in the event of a catastrophe; on the other hand it is an ongoing process, which becomes part of any corporate administration policy. A few simple steps would make sure that you are always prepared for the worst.

Make sure to update all your online listings to keep in touch with your customers. A phone number that fails to connect or a website URL that shows errors are the last things you expect. Engage, communicate and converse with your customers through online communities in case of any crisis. Keeping them in the dark by remaining mute might damage your repute very badly. Never ignore the customer feedbacks as these can greatly help in your decision making and planning.

If by any chance a negative review does pop up, waste no time; set out on a vigorous reputation management by SEO and SEM techniques to make sure that the customers are guided to the positive content. Remember, according to a research study, 35% of small businesses gained new customers from positive reviews while a staggering 84% of consumers decide what to buy and where based on customer reviews!

Essential strategies for online reputation- SEO and link building

One of the most important factors of modern day optimization is link building. Fortunately link building will allow one to manage their online reputation and so it is important to know the various link strategies. While many of the individuals, who have only a vague idea about SEO, are aware of the fact that mass link purchasing figures is an example of ill-advised activity, performed by ineffective and unethical link building services, it shows that knowledge about the case seems to be a bit sketchy in certain cases. Although it is important to know that what seems to work for one site may not be effective for another.

A common conception, quality counts more than quantity helps in linking with the keywords used in the content. It is of greater importance that an association with a good and high ranking site is advantageous than an irrelevant site. However many of the clients seems to get the help of SEO consultants, a very sensible division of labour, but a bit more interest should be taken in the different categories of links which will have a diverse effect.

Keywords is one of the crucial steps in link building and so gain a clear advantage by the many type of links which is very helpful in aiming higher ranking of site in the search engine results, thereby increasing the reputation of your company. Widely used reputation management tools like blogs, press materials, Twitter and Facebook are important to generate links to the appropriate websites.

How vigilant you are for your online reputation

What is the biggest blunders people do when its about their reputation? You might be having a big business, may be having a big work force, might be making huge profits. But have you ever thought about your online reputation? If not, then you are really missing out of something quite essential, being vigilant about your online reputation is something most important.

Its really a smart thing to keep an eye on what is being said or written about you online, any negative review or comment can jolt your reputation badly. So one has to be vigilant to all these comments which can either make or break your online reputation. Remember folks your online reputation is very much important for you and any threat to it can bring down your brand value with fall in business.

So, don't risk your online reputation, be smart and vigilant and enjoy a positive online reputation. There are so many tools to make sure your online reputation is safe without any threat. So, its time to reduce the vulnerability of your online reputation with the effective tools of reputation management. Being pro-active is one of the most essential and necessary aspects for holding a positive online reputation.

Whether its your company reputation, brand value or individual reputation, reputation management will be something you will need always. So power yourselves with the dynamics of reputation management system and enjoy a positive reputation.

How to keep your online reputation positive

There are many parameters to decide the fate of your online reputation, and in this new age where online industry has become one of the most standardized and looked after segment, one can't undermine its importance. With so much competition out in the online industry it has really become a big ask to maintain and keep your online reputation on the positive side. But with the effective and advanced tools of reputation management, you can push up your online reputation.

Not to forget the fact that your online reputation remains vulnerable to a large extent with so much space these social media sites and networking sites offering to all. Anyone can comment or post review about your company or brand online and in case its negative, then your reputation is at risk. So, why to take any chance when you have got the dynamic tools of reputation management to safeguard your online reputation.

It is quite evident that most of the people draws an image about the company or brand by its online reputation status, which means, no matter how much your brand scores in the market, if its online reputation is poor, then you might end being a loser. So, be smart and bring in the online reputation management system into the act and enjoy a flawless online reputation for your business.

Your Reputation and effects of blogging

When first started, blogging was a harmless trend where people shared information on various events or activities or simply just their thoughts with the online world. Bloggers kept us entertained, updating daily, weekly or on a monthly basis just a little bit like an online diary. Now blogging has become more than an online diary, bloggers are there to educate us, disagree with us or sometimes even shock us.

As blogs have become much popular and exists on a vast proportion these days, it is seen that a massive increase in people blogging on the current activities within both social and business sense relates to whether they are conscious about search engine optimization benefit or not.

The factors that have made blogging a success has also been responsible for its downfall in terms of the effects it can cause on certain companies, industries and even specific people. Freedom of speech is wonderful but when it comes to blogging, it has its own problematic side when people literally say whatever they like. This is an important thing to remember when considering your online reputation.

Of course there is also a positive side to it when positive posts become a factor for free advertising and publicity. However positive comments need not be managed in the same way as that of negative comments. All it takes is for somebody to run a standard search in the search engines and if you are on the top with any negatives, then whatever is being said about you can cause you danger. This is when SEO can work against you.

Crucial to your company and an integral part of SEO strategies, search engine reputation management, does not only recognize new pages but also covers any customers’ feedback and reviews on the various products and services. Not just a case of researching and identifying the blogs or comments, it also responds quickly and puts a stop to any negative press going further and causing lasting damage.

However blogging still remains an informative part of the social online world and a modern way of knowing what is said about you online, so that you are not taken by surprise and shocked with the unexpected.

How good is your corporate branding online?

Gone are the days when employee or employer conversations whirled around the tea sessions and the cozy corners of their offices; today these are being beamed all around the world live. HR and recruiters are watching all your conversations and are very much part of the dialogue. Does that sound pretty awkward? May be. But according to a study conducted by Microsoft earlier this year, 70% of surveyed HR professionals in U.S relied on online reputation information in selecting or rejecting a candidate. No scope for any surprise here as the candidates are doing just the same on the other end to choose their employers!


As the recession blues are slowly getting blown over, the corporate rolls are once again buzzing with new recruits. That’s why it might be a perfect time check out your company’s digital employer brand and business reputation. All you need to do is to key in your company name and see what comes up in Glass Door , Yahoo Answers, or Vault. Want to see how your competitor is performing on the same scale? Follow the same strategy and see for yourselves where you trail. This could be a handy comparison tool too and you can use this information in your head hunting drive.

The best thing is that on the forum posting you can see what the past employees tell about your company and if the negative comments are getting a bit too hot for you to handle, then it is the right time to set out on an urgent fire fighting exercise to ensure brand protection . Online reputation management needs a highly disciplined and professional approach and is becoming a big business, as companies track precisely on what’s being said about them and tune their marketing strategies and social media presence accordingly.

You can also deepen the scope of your investigation by signing up for Google Alerts, Trackr, or Social Mention. These updates come right into your inbox! A well managed online corporate branding can make or break your company's repute and legacy. So, make sure that you gather your acts smartly to handle the negative campaigns of your competitors or ex employees and guard your ground properly. In case you are pressed on time, you can engage a professional reputation management company to maintain and to enhance your online reputation.

How to fight back negative comments and protect your online reputation

Online reputation is something which has been an essential factor for all, whether its a business enterprise, brand, product or individual, online reputation values a lot for everyone. There are many aspects which plays a deciding factor to value your online reputation. From the quality, goodwill, services, trust to PR, everything together decides your reputation. But we can't undermine the most key factors which can ruin your online reputation, they are the negative comments and bad press, which could ruin your reputation online. There has been a lot of debate on this, as to how to reduce the online bashing and how to safeguard your online reputation.

You can shield your well earned online reputation with the help of a decisive and strategic reputation management technique which will safeguard your reputation from being damaged. Reputation management helps you to overcome the negative comments with the help of a well structured plan. You can even take the help of social media websites to highlight the positive side of your company. Blogs, micro sites, google sites, social networking, bookmarks and all can help you to regain that lost reputation.

PR too remains a key area for establishing a good repute for your company and repair your damaged reputation. So, let the tools of reputation management help you to build a positive reputation online.

Reputation management and public relation

Reputation management and Public relation might seem two different terms but they are inter-linked to each other. Public relation has become one of the most essential factor to measure and monitor the company's reputation. In the corporate sector public relation has come up as a vital tool to manage your reputation.

Public relation acts as the mirror which reflects the real image of the company. It helps to identify corporate issues like negative comments, rumors and many such incidents which may effect your company's reputation. PR helps to build a good communication and clear picture about the company making sure your reputation always stays on the brighter side.

It won't be wrong if we say that PR is the first step towards building a positive reputation, no matter you are a small company or big company, PR always will be a necessary factor. Not to forget that, even before the emergence of RM (reputation management),PR was working out plans to build positive image of the company.

From the professional front its really necessary for a company to have a strong PR and a positive reputation to sustain in the rat race.

Brand Reputation- Key Element of any Business Model

Brand reputation plays a great role in keeping up the organizations honesty and forces them to take definitive actions rather than simply making public statements. Increasingly the key element of any business model, brand reputation has much power because people view brands as means of personal identification. Due to the differences in the cultural and geographic interpretations and now Globalization has further complicated branding. To sum up, the primary catalyst for all these changes is the ever increasing prominence of the Internet.

All you need is a Google real-time search for your brand to see what's being mentioned in social networking sites about your company and brand. Inc.magazine has reported that almost 90% of the purchases are made by online research. When your consumer is online to research about you, not only are the informed analysis brought to the front but also the comments made by all including your competitors.

So are you protecting your reputation?
If not, start doing it now. One negative comment can take off a potential customer. Your brand is to be valued to someone to hijack it.

What should be done, check out..
1. Make sure the names of your company, product, key executives, etc are all claimed on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.

2. Either through Google alerts or Radian 6, set up a “Listening Station”, if you want to know what is said about you.

3.By creating your own messages, you can tell about your company and product.

4. Have a crises marketing plan so you have a proactive solution ready if someone starts to attack your brand.

Be prepared, it’s not too late, but you need to start now.

Online Reputation management helps you stay ahead in social networks

A badly managed online reputation can cost you a fortune and ultimately your job and goodwill. Social media as they say is a good slave but a bad master and if you use it properly and keep it under your leash, social network sites can do you lots of good. Anyone who doubts the influence of networks on finances will find a perfect example in the Kansas City Chiefs football player Larry Johnson who lost a whopping $213,000, and ultimately his job, by the negative anti-gay tweets that left a dent in his online reputation! To avoid any damage to your security and repute it is very important to stay clear of these treacherous pitfalls in the virtual world.

Reputation management is the key to survival in the online world! See how the social media can damage your employment and promotion scopes all because of a few negative forum posts slapped on you by some envious co workers or a disgruntled spouse.

It has become a routine affair for the employers to track the online credentials of the prospective clients to make sure that nothing is amiss. Social media profiles almost always make it to the top of the Google searches and hence all they ever need to do is to just do a Google search for the candidates names to get a complete run through of their profile.

If any objectionable content or pictures are posted in these social network sites, which are public platforms, the candidate might land in trouble. Any negative talk about the prospective employers is sure to get more wind in the virtual world that will reach the employers in no time, which might cost the candidate his job!

Even those employees with a secure job in hand might be sabotaging their future by revealing too many private and confidential information about their personal or professional lives or by posting their opinion and thoughts on their boss, clients, colleagues or the company for which they are working. Beware, it might reach where they never wanted it to!Make sure that you use your common sense and discretion while posting anything on social sites as these are bound to leak and reach the wrong ears! Anything that appears in the web will have a viral effect and spread quickly far and wide and if it something negative or a piece of gossip, it can have a devastating effect on your repute!

Manage your online reputation wisely

Is managing your online reputation become an uphill task? Don't worry companies like Reputation Management For.com have got the perfect solution to manage and shield your online reputation from being thrashed. Managing and protecting your online reputation or brand has become quite essential nowadays, as people tend to believe all what is being presented about the company or brand online. So it becomes vital to have a good online reputation.

Online reputation management (ORM) incorporates techniques to make sure your brand or company's reputation remains protected from the bad press and negative comments online. It involves a constant monitoring and public relation along with a decisive search engine optimisation to analyse and rectify the online content. The actual goal though remains a higher search engine indexing with good and positive publicity with elimination of negative comments.

Reputation Management experts help you to sustain a good reputation and a positive web presence making sure you own the top spots in search engines. It will also conduct a constant monitoring on your company and brands repute online and will keep a track on what all is being said about you online. We bet ORM will surely be the best tool to enjoy a good reputation online. Even the rise in competition in the market has made it hard to sustain a good reputation. Amidst all this chaos online reputation management is something really important for all to stay ahead in the rat race.

Ways to manage Online Reputation Crisis

One day you discover that your online reputation is being attacked. You may be a celebrity, or own a reputed company or service. You'll feel like you've been kicked in the ribs to see someone wage an attack on your good name. In this situation, it's important that you don't panic. It can happen to anyone, not only to bigger companies or celebrities.

What’s important is how you react. You need to take enough precautions and have an online crisis communication plan–that you can quickly follow when the inevitable reputation attack occurs. Or you can get the help of an online reputation crisis managing service company. Even before getting the help of a reputation management company, you need to take your own adequate measures. Some of the steps you can take as precautionary measures are:

1. Check for facts:- Gather all the facts and evaluate with appropriate response.

2. Determine the impact:- Respond, if you have found that there is a need after checking the impact. The response should be authoritative and from someone accountable within your company. Also seek advise from those around you.

3. Identify your detractor:- Whoever has acted behind the scenes to spread the malicious rumours to spread, What’s important is to identify your detractor, so that you know whom are you dealing with and what is their motivation.

4. Decide on the appropriate response:- If you discover that the report is false, then you have every right to approach the detractor and request the retraction of malignant content. What you require at this point is Sincerity, Transparency, and Consistency.

5. Host the conversation:- By publishing a post to your company blog, or broadcasting an apology, you’ll ensure the public that your sincerity, transparency, and consistency, are not lost in the noise.

7. After the problem is settled:- You need to constantly work to ensure bloggers, forums, and other social media sites are an integral part of the PR efforts. Whether you as a company or celebrity, need to continue monitor that any negative contents are still hovering over the internet.

In this age of transparency for details, your online reputation is just as important as any other component of your marketing efforts. It can be years efforts spending millions of money building your good name. Without proper care and attention, a simple blog or rumours can bring it crashing down. Make plans now and then if you can't do it your own get the help of a good Reputation Crisis Management Company, instead of hitting the panic button.

Social Media and its role in Reputation Management:

Well, it is common knowledge that the consumers of today say around 70 per cent of them, before even they set out to buy a product or service do a lot of research about it as well as the company on the web. And so, if you want your business to flourish (who wouldn’t), it is absolutely necessary that you move all the way up search engines and make yourselves visible to others. Now, it does not stop with that. You still have got a long way to go!
Just as it is important for you to make yourselves visible, it is also essential that your consumers find positive reviews about your company and product. Consumers look for chatter and conversations between previous customers and if they have nothing good (or rather something bad) to say about you, then buddy you have screwed up the whole thing!
Now, where do customers look for chatter? Yes, you know the answer – the best place where conversations are most frequent, most frank, most lively and of course most visible is the social media network like facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube.
According to Marketing Sherpa’s “2009 Social Media Marketing and PR Benchmark Guide”, “At least two-thirds of consumers agree that recommendations and information from other people online are valuable, relevant, and influence their purchase decision.”
What can tweets with just 140 characters do to your product? A whole lot - remember consumers can read a 100 bad things about your product in a matter of minutes.
What can a facebook message do to your online reputation? Again a lot - remember these messages became a campaign and brought back the original Pears soap formula in recent times when the company tried to make new fragrances.
Now just imagine a case where the customer buys your product but he does not read the instructions and the experience turns out to be a bad one. The result – plenty of tweets and face book messages narrating his/her experience and with people joining the conversation, the issue snowballs. You can sense the problem right? A serious reputation management issue.
While 70-80 per cent of the people are out there doing this, 60 per cent of the companies scoff these negative reviews which can do a lot of harm. In short, if you are not monitoring these networks, you are in for trouble as regards your product. Switch to reputation and crisis management techniques and save the face of your company.

Malicious attacks on reputation – a disaster waiting to happen

All you need is a business entity online and what follows however big or small regardless of whatever area you are planning to work in is that as soon as you create a buzz online you are prime target for attacks on your reputation. Before you know it your name or your business name being followed by words like “scam” , “rip-off” or “sucks”.

Even reputation management companies are subjected to such attacks and most often from malicious elements who scour the Internet in search of up-coming companies. Quite like the hacker who scuttles a whole website the reputation attackers hit where it hurts the most. Usually on domain names the very words that prospective clients and customers use to read up about you.

These attacks are purposeful and done to hurt you and their effects can be damaging till Internet users are able to identify from reviews and comments whether the horrible words posted are malicious or not. After reading up so much on reputation management let's hope in the future people will stop depending on comments and forum remarks before giving your company their business.

However, this kind of discerning knowledge is probably years away but with companies and celebrities all investing companies like reputationmangementfor.com for effective reputation management the word is indeed getting around and soon people are going to be sceptical of review sites and forums.

Online Reputation Management- What is the need?

The recent surveys have found out that most Internet users use search engines to find information on products or services before making a buying decision. But what you get as a search result may be often disappointing or embarrassing. Because you may find your product or service ranking nowhere in the priority page. And, the embarrassing part is that you may find some negative search results, if you are a reputed company. So, knowing what others say about you is crucial for effective Online Reputation Management.

So, its time for you to search or use the services that offer services in managing your online reputation. The online reputation management agency will search the websites, blogs, and forums and see whether there's something that may affect your company reputation. Then, the agencies will estimate the possible impact on your business. A comprehensive program requires constant monitoring of the online media in checking the diverse opinions and reviews on the brand. Here the role of an expert Reputation Management Agency is to identify websites and contents that pose threat to your service and then promote positive contents. Even though, at times it is difficult to completely eliminate the harmful contents, putting positive items above them can improve the situation. As most online searchers won't go past the first search result page, pushing the harmful contents behind is an effective solution.

Another part of online reputation management is creating and posting positive contents that will show up at the top of the search engine page results. The major role of the reputation management companies is the promotion of the resources containing positive content to make them rank higher. Thus, it will help you establish a long-lasting favourable impression, not to simply conceal your problems. The success of any reputation management campaign is fully based on the PR, marketing, and search engine optimization skills. All measures should be implemented on the regular basis to produce positive results. Still, sometimes the abundance of negative publicity all over the Internet may postpone the results even of the most professionally implemented campaign and you’ll have to wait for months to regain spotless reputation.

Now, you might think you don't need all these. But, keep in mind there will be some blog posts or contents that might hover over the web pages to ruin the good name your company built up over the years. Take good care to protect your company from all the negatives with the help of Online Reputation Management.

Online Reputation Management's importance overtakes other kinds of RM

ORM or Online Reputation Management has come up as one of the most effective type of reputation management, says a recent study. The study was conducted to know the state of reputation management globally. With the need for reputation management in almost all spheres, it was noted that in recent years reputation management has become one of the major key factor in every concern.

Though the other types of reputation management including business reputation management and personal reputation management that have got acceptance, but it is online reputation management which takes the major share. The study has also revealed that, these days many social networking sites and business are opting for online reputation management. All credits to ebay, which was the first company to bring ORM in the limelight.

With so much going on in the online industry, ORM has proved to be a great help to all those companies which are finding it quite hard to cope up with raging bad press. It is learnt that ORM holds a major share in the reputation management industry and will continue to drive more and more business in coming years.

Well I think in the coming years ORM will surely be a great way to make sure you or your company would never have to face the wrath of online bashing.

Tips for reputation management

With the advent of social networking sites a lot many online tools have arrived people welcome them with open hands for the simple reason that with their tough jobs, information sharing and meeting up with new people have become all the more easy. In this light, reputation too has taken a twofold dimension – no matter whether it is Celebrity Reputation Management, Hotels Reputation Online or anything falling in the similar lines all need to be doing some reputation watch.

Be it an individual or a celebrity, he can be quite concerned about maintaining his reputation and goodwill in the real world than in the virtual one. But this is no longer true. And while the virtual world shouts out “Beware”, you can work towards guarding yours or your businesses online reputation quite cleverly by equipping yourself with a few tips.

To begin with, the best and the simplest test to keep a check on your company’s reputation is to Google yourself. You are what you are shown in the top search results for people out there. And if it is something you don’t like, you have got a plenty of work to do.

When it comes to individual reputation management be very careful of your words if you are a blogger, if you have a website or even in your social media profile. One can read stories of famous personalities landing themselves so easily into trouble, in the midst of controversies and losing out on their public image – all because they did not choose their words properly. The same goes for company’s brand protection as well.

Carry out monthly checks and keep a close eye on your online reputation. Monitor what is being said about you at regular intervals.
And if people are talking about you online, don’t let them just get away with it. You can curb this to a great extent by creating your own online official profiles and by talking more about yourself and what exactly you are.

Stay ahead of the game and act fast once you know something unwanted is being said about you.

Fighting negative comments on forums

Something that keep coming up in searches are comments in forums, so if there are a few negative comments you will find that it keeps coming up on the top of search results. Comments in forums can be kept open for a long long time. This is why getting rid of

A thread is begun about a company, product or service and in to time it can get ugly and malicious. Airline companies, hotels and food and beverages companies are always on the target list. Companies can usually have disgruntled employees and customers who can damage the reputation.

So what can you do to remove negative comments from forums?

Step 1: Find out who owns the domain: software like whois.net are available to track down the owner.
Step 2: Find out their procedures for removing negative comments, contact owner directly through e-mail.
Step 3: Make sure that the e-mail is a confidential one and inform them if the comments are deliberately malicious or libellous, you will be in touch with your lawyers.
Step 4: If this does not work the DNS provider can be contacted to force the domain owner to remove the post.

One thing that works all the time is to have daily good content being uploaded on the net. This works by burying the negative comments deep within the inner pages on Google search results. For routine reputation management it's always better to hire the services of experts.