We propose few ways of REPUTATION FIXING FOR an INDIVIDUAL, BUSINESS, or BRAND.
The majority of people assume that online reputation management is all about suffocating, killing and removing negative digital content. Thankfully there is a lot more to BRIM and ORM than appearing on the doorstep like Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction.
Some our clients come with a request for a reputation to be created.
1. ONLINE REPUTATION CREATION.
An individual might want an online reputation to be built so that when the inevitable Google search is done, it is the individual related results that dominate rather than reading all about the namesakes.
There you are as an up and coming legal taxation genius working for one of the Big Six, and when a Google search is done on your name, what appears and dominates the front page is your namesake. He is an up and coming professional footballer, and the tabloid stories on page one of the major search engines results are all about your namesake’s promiscuity, drink driving, and allegations of him being a rapist.
It completely forgets to mention that your namesake is a professional footballer (everybody knows), and also fails to mention that these stories are not related to the brilliant tax lawyer (nobody knows) who is hoping to be recognized as being partner material.
A little bit of pixie dust, and a reputation fix can change that, to the point that all the followers of football just might become aware of a brilliant tax lawyer with the same name as their footballing hero – go figure! Both have an online reputation however one of them is being managed, whilst the other has his online reputation managed.
As for a new company, business, or brand, it is quite possible and reasonable that with a reputation fix we can create a perception that the very new company has been in business for years. The stories, articles, and supporting digital assets can all paint the picture of professional maturity thus overcome any reluctance that potential clients might have about dealing with a start-up in embryonic stages.
This of course must then be backed up by internal professionalism, and a branding that sweeps through everything from stationery to on page advertising to vehicle branding, signage, and community presence.
2. ONLINE REPUTATION REPAIR.
There are companies out there offering to do the impossible. They talk about removing bad press from the internet; they talk of neutralizing negative digital liabilities; they make claims of having super-snooper advanced software that will remove all negative publicity and restore your unblemished reputation. What a complete crock of equine bowel evacuation!
Let us make it very simple. Before you instruct a company – or indeed take on the task yourself of managing your online reputation, it is very clear and true to say that prior to this eureka moment, your reputation was unmanaged.
The bad press that might exist about you on the internet exists by some reporting by a journalist or a blogger or an unsatisfied or disgruntled customer. It is not (normally) because someone is managing your reputation to destroy you.
Your online reputation is the sum of the relevant digital assets published on the web.
Have you got your head around that?
In the absence of a focused developed plan to achieve your online reputation goals being put into action, you are – or at least your online reputation is, at the mercy of the disgruntled client ( that one unhappy one from the thousands of happy ones!) that bothered to publish a review on you, your brand or your company. Then the only other publicity on the web relevant to your online reputation might be a comparison site that shows you are not the cheapest for X,Y,Z, service or product, or your time to deliver is the worst.
So why is that your reputation?
Simply because you are not supplying that info guzzling monstrosity known affectionately as “the web” with anything else. It needn’t be rocket science, nor need it be earth shattering news. There just needs to be a well placed article “flow” – a regular one – that makes mention of all the most relevant keywords that would link to you, your name, your business, your brand. Of course it would help if those articles could be well positioned on the high power authoritative websites and on well constructed strong social media platforms and pages within them. More important is just relevant unique content on a daily basis – make yourself newsworthy.
So, to get back to our wild claiming counterparts who do nothing to help the reputation of our industry and who are named in all or some of the scam warning sites; they do not remove the bad news about you – they just make it less newsworthy because they will, once you cross their palms with silver, set up a new flow of more focused, more search engine friendly, more relevant, more positive (well just plain positive would do the job!) articles, posts, blogs, and any other way of mentioning your name, company, brand on the web so that future searches will bring up those new fabulous “you-friendly” results.
“THE BEST PLACE TO HIDE A DEAD BODY IS PAGE TWO OF GOOGLE RESULTS.”
No magic involved, no hocus-pocus, no abracadabra, no voodoo, and certainly no high power flux capacitors programmed with your identity that when pointed at the church clock at exactly 10:04 pm are going to rid the internet of all negative online reputation commentary about you, your brand, your company, nor your product or service.
So be very aware, just in case you choose to use an online reputation management company to sort out your reputation, and if you do, it would make sense that you choose us, be very aware that all the negative comments and blogs are still on the internet. They have not dissolved or suffered some temporal displacement. We would just have pumped the internet full of good stuff that would make you proud to be you, and make us proud of what we do. That good news is what the search engines would show on their first few pages. It has been said that the best place for a murderer to hide and never to be found is page 3, 4 or 5 of Google. That’s where your bad reputation will be dying. The bad news along with your bad online reputation would be booked on a journey to page 3, 4, 5, to infinity and beyond.
3. ONLINE REPUTATION management.
For larger entities, for businesses that find themselves in a virtual cyber war and constant battle for position and online reputation measuring contests, we recommend Online Reputation Monitoring. This consists of an assessment of exactly where you stand in the battle for online supremacy. We compile a report covering hundreds of online news feeds, search engines and authoritative websites. We scour thousands of blogs and basically look under every internet rock to find out what is being said about you.
To put this into perspective for you, we run this alongside your main competitors. We show you how much online coverage they are getting and compare it with your own online reputation and exposure. This report which can be commissioned monthly should enable you to see clearly where your competitors are getting best exposure, enabling you to go to the same places, and outshine your arch enemies – commercially speaking of course.
Then of course, this report, month on month would clearly illustrate your improving percentage increase on web penetration in online news coverage and your general online reputation construction.
This reporting is somewhat unique in that it goes to levels so deep, that if you have nothing better to do, we can supply you with a report so in-depth you can get analysis paralysis all on your own – assuming you have no other life!!! It gives you an opportunity to see the playing field in full technicolor, and we can show all your competitors on the same field.
