Online Reputation

That’s the thought behind Darren Slatten’s post on an SEOMoz and it’s a valid point to consider.  If an individual is so good at what they do that they are constantly turning down new clients anyway, does it matter if the #2 result for your name says, Darren Slatten Sucks – Don’t Ever Hire Him?

Darren’s point is that as long as you come through for your clients, you will always be in demand and they will dismiss any negative information they find while searching for you.  In essence, Darren is saying that word of mouth and a referral from a trusted friend holds more weight than the Internet.   Assuming business is great and will stay that way, I’d say he’s right.

The trouble is, at some point, someday, business may not be as plentiful and easy to come by.  SEO is a huge topic and thousands of websites are clamoring for good people to help them rank higher in the search engines – and there aren’t enough people who can deliver real results to go around.  But at some point, either the need for SEO help will diminish or the number of good SEO experts will grow, making it more difficult to rely entirely on referrals to build a business.  That’s when your online reputation could start to hurt you rather than help.

You may not need Google now, but do you really want to risk the chance of losing business when you need it 5 or 10 years from now?  Seems like the quintessential “burning of bridges” to me.  Darren’s got cajones – I’ll give him that.

Tony Adam, in a rebuttal post, has some good points.

Online reputation also becomes an important consideration for family businesses.  Anyone who has plans of passing their company on to the next generation has an obligation to them as well to ensure they benefit from a solid reputation we have left behind for them online.  We die, but the bits and bytes we leave behind never do.

Update: Darren was right – his post is ranking at #2 on Google.  Yikes!

Darren Slatten

Tim Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management

Do you accept “friend” requests from everyone who asks for it through your Facebook and LinkedIn account?  I do.  Even people I’ve met just once at a conference. But lately I’ve started to think it may not be a good idea.  Consider the case of Bernie Madoff, the $50 billion dollar ponzi scheme mastermind.  There were probably, dozens, if not hundreds of investment professionals that worked  in the industry who now have to work backward to separate themselves from Madoff’s firm.  They took photos with him at events and probably sent business his way on more than one occasion.  And all thought they knew him as a friend.  Certainly they thought they knew his reputation better than a person they met one time at a conference.

Some people may argue that they way they use social networks is to connect with people – regardless of how thin those connections may be.  But keep in mind that there is no degree of friend designation on sites like Facebook or LinkedIn.  That person I met once at a conference is the same type of “friend” as my college roommate whom I’ve known for 20 years on Facebook.  It would be interesting to be able to categorize people as “friends” or “acquaintances” for people we don’t know very well.

I consider “friends” to be people I would trust to babysit my daughter.  Yet I have over 600 “friends” on Facebook that I probably wouldn’t even recognize if they walked into my office at this very moment.  And yet I “friend” them without a second thought – connecting them, if in just a small way, to my own online reputation. Heaven forbid they should do something awful, I might have some explaining to do when asked why they are my friend on Facebook.

Offline, you can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep.  Why should online be any different?

Tim Online Reputation, Online Reputation Monitoring Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management

The ability to control your corporate or individual online reputation is now largely a matter of learning effective search engine optimization.  The ability to push favorable articles, blog posts and message board threads higher in the search results and thereby pushing the unwanted links further down is the most efficient way of controlling what users see.   In other words, whoever is better at search engine optimization will win the battle of online reputation management.

Although there’s recently been a heavy emphasis on making corporate websites search engine friendly, most company websites still don’t do a terrific job and therein lies the rub.  These days blog and message board software that can be installed by just about anyone automatically “search-engine-optimizes” every single post and message thread – making them powerful information sources in all the search engines. It’s ironic, but the gaudy and unattractive free WordPress template blog will often blow away the the million-dollar website of a corporation in Google simply because it’s installed from the beginning with all the right tips and tricks to make it quickly searchable and available worldwide.  And the blog owner may not even realize it.

The next time you’re trying to convince the boss to hire an in-house or outsourced SEO expert for the website, be sure to remind them that is no longer just about brand marketing – it’s about being able to compete in a world where anyone can install a simple SEO blog and shoot straight to the first page of the search engine results using your own company name – without knowing a single SEO strategy themselves.

Tim Online Reputation, Online Reputation Monitoring Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management

A few years ago, Emile and I briefly worked on the idea of creating a dating reputation site, whereby you’d be able to search our engine for the name of your date and read comments left by people who had previously been on a date with that person.  As you can imagine, there were a host of problems right from the start that made the site difficult to execute.  The obvious issue of trying to ensure the comments you were viewing were for the right “John Smith” you had a date with that evening was just one of the many, many issues we tried to tackle.  Privacy issues were another.

But there were also a number of interesting things we came across that we didn’t expect.  When we floated the idea to several people in the digital identity industry as well as several people who study online ethics, one person’s comments struck us as odd.  She stated that such a site should include the ability to control every piece of information about the person being commented on.  In fact, she truly believed that everyone should have full control of their own reputation online.  This made no sense to me.  In the offline world, a person does not have control over their reputation.  Sure, you can act in a way that improves your reputation, but ultimately your reputation is controlled by everyone who knows you.  It’s something that can be tweaked and adjusted based on your own behavior, but full control?  I don’t think so.

So why should the online world be any different? Just as a poor reputation can cause you to lose out on a job opportunity (or a date) in the offline world, the online world can have the same affect.  With one exception – there is no central database of “reputation” that people in the offline world can go to.  Prior to the world wide web, you had to connect to someone who knew a person to get their opinion – and then it was just one person’s opinion.  Today, Google, Yahoo!, MSN and more offer a central database of information on people.  And it is a database that doesn’t forget, forgive or die.  That old friendship that soured five years ago could be forgotten as lives moved in different directions.  But the nasty comment you left on your blog and later regretted – Google never forgets that thanks to the magic of caching – even if you delete it.

It would be interesting to have two types of search results that I could view when I was searching a person – what they wanted me to see, and what the search engine thought was the best overall represenation of that person.  When I search for John Doe, another button perhaps would be added to Google’s home page under the search box: Google Search, I’m Feeling Lucky, and….”John Doe’s Results”, where I see the results that John wants the world to see when they search on him.

In the end, the online world operates a lot like the offline world when it comes to reputation.  Just like an offline jerk can begin to improve his reputation by being kinder to his fellow human beings, you can massage your online reputation by adding connections and content that pushes the past further into the past (and in this case, further down in the search engine results).

You do have control over your online reputation – to a point.  A recent article by Wall Street Journal reporter Julia Angwin is a good example of how a person can do just that.

By the way, we never launched the dating reputation site.  In the end, we felt that unless we required everyone who left a comment on their date to use their verified real identity, it wouldn’t be of much use.  Unless the goal was to ruin your date’s reputation.

Tim Online Reputation Online Reputation

Andy Beal gives us a video walkthrough of his onlline reputation monitoring system at Trackur.com

From the Trackur.com website:

“With Trackur’s online reputation tracking technology you can keep track of any web content that mentions your name. Not just your personal name, but your executives, your company brands, and even your competition.

The truth is, the web has made it possible for individuals to freely share their thoughts about you–and without much accountability. You should be made aware the moment your reputation is being discussed. Sure, you need to know about the attacks by your detractors, but you should also know when you’re receiving praise too!

The internet has given a powerful voice to consumers, bloggers, forums, and even users of MySpace. Arm yourself with Trackur’s intelligent online reputation monitoring and you’ll never get caught by a surprise attack on your good name.”

Emile Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management, Online Reputation Monitoring Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management, Online Reputation Monitoring

Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim did a guest post on Marketing Sherpa in which he details a 7 step process to avoid a public relations nightmare and protect your reputation online.

He mentions that the advantages of a company monitoring their reputation online are many and varied, and include nipping bad PR in the bud, customer likes and dislikes about your company, features to include in your next launch, ways to improve customer service, complaints about your competition and opportunities to move in.

The first step of his 7 step process is, in my opinion, the most important; Perform an honest self-analysis. This means that the current issue you are facing is most likely because of something you or your company did, or a weakness in your company’s processes. Once you can figure out why this happened (without blaming the consumer/customer), the closer you will be to making sure this type of problem with your online reputation does not happen again.

Also, part of step 5, Strategize Responses, is very important, and is often not your first instinct; Offer a genuine apology. In general, people who post negatively online are at their wits end and feel they have no other way to reach people at the company, and they just want to be heard. To be told by a personable company representative that they understand why they are upset, and are offered a genuine apology, you can quickly turn a hostile person into an asset to the company. Once they feel understood, they can often suggest ways this type of problem can be avoided in the future, since they have the best understanding of being a consumer of the company product. An employee of the company understandably does not have the same views of the company and its products, so the consumer viewpoint is extremely valuable.

Online Reputation Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management

In a Wall Street Journal blog post, Kelly Spors wonders if some of the companies that are monitoring their online reputations are going overboard with the whole thing. The people mentioned in the post think it is very “Big Brother” of companies like Comcast to reach out to individual bloggers when they post negatively about the company. My question to them would be “If you are blogging, are you expecting anyone to read it?”. I think bloggers have gotten into the mindset that their blogs are a place for them to vent, and no one will ever read it.

Fortunately and unfortunately, PR reps know the power blogs have in the search engines, as well as the power of word-of-mouth. As time goes on, this type of contact will become more and more commonplace, and PR agencies will begin getting more work as online reputation managers. It may be perceived as a bit of a stunt now, but I congratulate Comcast for acknowledging the online community, and it’s power in influencing the online reputation of a company.

Online Reputation Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management

E-consultancy.com has just published their Online Reputation and Buzz Monitoring Buyer’s Guide 2008. The 142 page guide has been written for those who are looking for technology and services relating to online reputation monitoring, with profiles of 16 leading suppliers. The report costs $299, or can be accessed with a one-year subscription to E-consultancy.com’s reports for $389 a year. A 17 page sample of the Online Reputation and Buzz Monitoring Buyer’s Guide 2008 can be downloaded for free, which includes a full table of contents, and gives a very good idea of what is in the full report. Although I have only looked at the sample of the report, $299 seems like a real bargain for a 142 page research paper, especially for anyone specifically looking to buy services or technology in the growing online reputation monitoring and management field.

Online Reputation Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management

Anthillz.com has just launched an online reputation site for professionals. Their taglines at the moment are “Share your reputation” and “Make a name for yourself”, and the site’s copy crrently lists the following reasons why a person would use the site to build their online reputation: “Share the good things people are saying about you”, “Strengthen your professional relationships”, and “Build a reputation that people know and trust”. It appears to be a bit like LinkedIn’s testimonial feature, but the entire site is focused on your professional reputation. It appears they’ve gotten around the tricky part of online reputation by only allowing trusted colleagues to leave a testimonial about you:

“The heart of your Anthillz profile is a series of testimonials and reviews written by colleagues you trust. Their words paint a rich picture of who you are and what it’s like to work with you.”

This begs the question ‘What about the people who have something bad to say about you?’ For outside researchers, this type of information can be more useful than just positive praise.

Online Reputation Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management

ReputationManagementFirm.com issued a press release about the sample reputation management strategy they have on their website. Of course, it’s fairly generic, but their expertise and details of the strategy are what you’d pay them for. Their strategy includes creation of social networking profiles, press releases, creation of and posting in blogs, industry association memberships and profile creations on those sites, article marketing, as well as many other methods for creating and keeping a solid reputation online. They have various (search engine optimized) pages for how Doctors, Lawyers, Celebrities, and Athletes would manage their online reputation.

ReputationManagementFirm.com is owned and operated by website marketing company, Brick Marketing.  Brick Marketing has over 12 years of internet marketing experience.

Online Reputation Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management