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Posts Tagged ‘Reputation Management’
Monday, February 6th, 2012
What sort of business owner are you – the complete extrovert? Do you have hundreds of people in your network with whom you only have a passing knowledge? There is nothing wrong with developing a broad network of contacts. However, it is often more beneficial to develop a sound relationship with a group of individuals.
Generally speaking, a network is a one way operation. You make contact with a wide range of individuals in the hope that one day they could be of help to you. A relationship is a two way operation. You’re there to help them when required, and they are there to help you when required. Networks are easy to develop. You can do a little research, discover all the movers and shakers who could be of use to you, and you add them to your list of contacts. You may even add them to your social media accounts.
Relationships require work. They don’t happen overnight. In many cases, relationships are one sided – you’re doing all the helping, promoting their cause, even through social media. Relationship builders are by no means selfless. In fact, the art of building relationships still revolves around promoting yourself and building your business. The difference between a relationship builder and a networker is longevity – relationship builders are looking at the long term benefit to their business.
In the long term, relationships will survive the ups and downs of the business world. People in a network will come and go whenever it suits them. They generally don’t stick by you during troubled times, or help repair your reputation when a dissatisfied worker or customer goes on a social media rant. Those you have built up a relationship will, and where possible, help you to negate the effects of that hit to your reputation. Why? Because they know you, and they care – as you would if the same happened to them.
There is room for both, and it’s certainly a good idea having a strong network of people who could be of use to you. While networking, consider taking the next step and developing a strong relationship with those who really matter – it may only be a handful, however, the benefits will far outweigh a hundred in a network.
Tags: relationships, Reputation Management, Social Media
Posted in Networking for Small Business | 6 Comments »
Friday, December 16th, 2011
Many tend to think that branding and logos are one in the same. It is and it isn’t. Branding encompasses so much more than just your logo. Logos are a part of branding to the extent your customers recognize who you are by seeing the logo. But branding is actually who and what your company is about in all things.
The correct definition is from The American Marketing Association AMA, which states that the “name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers.”
What this basically means is that it is the building of an image that is specific to your company, that customers will quickly identify as your business. Besides the logo, it will be the customization of your website along with your mission statement, design and colors of the website. An example would be Apple Corporation. The logo is a large part as everyone knows about the big red apple. But it is also more than that if you really look at their website and core values.
You will want a website that will reflect your business and beliefs and will be easily recognized by your customers. For instance, let’s say you sell western riding accessories, your branding would be a western style website with perhaps a horse or a lasso as the logo.
If you already have a website but are not happy with the way it looks, then it’s time to try something different that will pull in more customers and reflect your business better. Your brand must reflect the type of business you have. Otherwise all of your hard work will have been for nothing.
Tags: advertising, Branding, internet marketing, Reputation Management, web design
Posted in Branding | 6 Comments »
Saturday, December 3rd, 2011
It looks as if Facebook has gotten its hands slapped. The Federal Trade Commission announced on Tuesday that a settlement has been reached in regards to Facebook’s privacy practices.
Facebook will now have to conduct privacy audits every two years for the next 20 years. This is a result of the mishandling of Facebook users’ private information back in December 2009. Facebook had made some changes to its privacy notices and did not give user’s a choice if they wanted their information used or not. Facebook was sharing user information with outside developers. This infuriated many users and complaints were filed.
Only the audits are required at the moment, no fines or fees. But, if it happens again, Facebook will be fined $16,000 a day for each time it happens. Also, Facebook will now have to make sure there is a link for the user to use in order to confirm any changes to their profile. It looks as if Facebook better be careful in the future.
Facebook is wildly popular around the world with an estimated 800 million users. You can’t go anywhere anymore without someone asking “are you on Facebook?” Even businesses are jumping on the bandwagon with Facebook pages for their business.
With so many users, it will remain to be seen if everyone will be happy with the stepped up security.
Tags: facebook, publicity, Reputation Management, Social Media, social networking
Posted in Social Media | 3 Comments »
Monday, October 17th, 2011
One of the best ways to improve your reputation and your stature among your peers is to become an author. Write a book.
But don’t just write a book for the sake of writing a book. Instead, come up with something important to say to people about your niche. If you can do that and do it well, you’ll become an instant expert in your niche and your reputation will shine far and wide.
So let’s get down to a practical level. How do you do that?
Start by asking yourself, “What do people in my niche want?” You must identify a need in the marketplace. You did that when you started your business, right? You’ll have to do it again when you write your book. What questions are people asking?
After you’ve identified the needs of readers in your niche area of business, make an outline. Keep your book tightly focused on a single topic. Your book doesn’t have to be a tome to be successful. It just needs to be good.
So the three most important things to identify before you start writing are these:
- The questions people are asking about your niche area
- The target market for your book (who is the ideal reader?)
- The narrowly focused subject matter of your book which deals with the first two points
Get these three questions answered and you’re well on your way to writing your first book and improving your stellar reputation.
Tags: authority, Reputation Management, writing a book
Posted in Business Writing | 5 Comments »
Saturday, September 3rd, 2011
There’s been so much written about social media that you might think my question – What’s the point? – a little absurd. Actually, there is a point to my asking. It isn’t whether or not social media has a point. We all know that it does. The question, rather, is, What exactly is the point to social media?
Let’s rephrase it: What benefit is the most important benefit to social media? Is it reputation management? Is it audience engagement? Is it SEO? Traffic? All of the above?
It’s important question because without the proper answer you might develop a social media campaign with no direction. You could get lost trying to be found.
Social media actually has many points. That is, it has many points of entry and just as many exits. The real question is, How effective are you in using them?
Your use of social media should make the most of all your opportunities. It is for reputation management. It is for audience engagement. It does have SEO benefits if you do it correctly. And it can, and will, drive traffic to your website. But you have to have a strategy that covers each of those points.
Strategy. It’s the beginning of success. Are you ready to talk about your social media strategy?
Tags: Reputation Management, SEO, Social Media, traffic
Posted in Social Media | 11 Comments »
Sunday, August 28th, 2011
Seth Godin, a veteran Internet marketer and one of the first business bloggers, is well known for his short bursts of blog content. They’re only about 200-300 words each, if that. But many other bloggers these days tend to write longer blog posts. Some bloggers won’t write one less than 1,000 words.
So that brings up the question, Does size matter? Are longer blog posts better than shorter ones?
In general, more content is better than less. In most cases. In fact, Google has recently penalized content pages for not having enough content on them. But what constitutes “not enough content?”
More important than lots of content is the idea of quality content. You can get by with shorter blog posts if your content is high quality and original. Seth Godin, after all, isn’t hurting in the search engines and his blog posts are some of the most read blog posts in the world. But he does have a reputation, one that he built both online and off line.
You are I, of course, are not Seth Godin.
For most of us, we cannot rely on reputation. We have to use all the tools at our disposal, and that means SEO. Long blog posts might be better than shorter, over all, but high quality original content trumps all. If you can write high quality original long blog posts, then your content will be golden.
Tags: blog content, blogging, content, Reputation Management, SEO
Posted in Blogging for Small Business | 4 Comments »
Monday, August 1st, 2011
Article marketing is generally thought of as something that takes place off of your website whereas blogging is generally something thought of as something that takes place on your website. However, you can publish articles on your website and you can blog apart from your website.
However you look at it, both forms of marketing can fit nicely into what we call “content marketing.” Here are 5 things blogging and article marketing have in commong:
- High quality content is very important. If you are going to publish articles that promote your website and drive traffic back to your website, then you want that content to be the highest quality possible. The same is true of onsite content designed to gain search engine rankings.
- Speaking of traffic, they both have the potential to deliver high quality targeted traffic to your website.
- Consistency is key, both with article marketing and with blogging.
- Both article marketing and blogging have the potential to affect your reputation online in both the short term and the long term and for better or for worse.
- As with any type of content marketing, articles and blogs both have huge SEO and social media benefits. Be diligent in your efforts and it could pay off big time.
Forget the hype and just focus on the benefits – both for article marketing and blogs.
Tags: article marketing, blogging, content marketing, Reputation Management, SEO, website traffic
Posted in Article Marketing | 9 Comments »
Saturday, July 30th, 2011
Remember when Facebook first opened up personal domain names? You could get your own name and it was on a first-come, first-serve basis. Well, recently, HubPages has decided to give you your own subdomain and you better hurry if you want it to be your name. Otherwise, you might have to settle for your name plus a few numbers, or a variation that you’ll be forced to live with.
Let me say that I think this is a good move – for HubPages and for you. Subdomains will likely be considered a higher authority since you’ll have control over all the content in your domain name.
Another benefit to you is reputation management. If you’ve noticed that your profile pages on your most active social networks rank highly for your name, then I expect that your HubPages subdomain will rank well for your name as well. That is, if you keep your subdomain active, and that means writing articles on a regular basis.
Article marketing has long been a very good way to get new traffic to your website and build links. HubPages is one avenue for your articles to get you traffic, links, and an increase in your authority and reputation. Now you can do it with a branded subdomain.
Tags: article marketing, HubPages, Reputation Management
Posted in Article Marketing | 8 Comments »
Saturday, April 16th, 2011
Neil Glassman has a great article at Social Times titled “10 Measures Of Social Media ROI For Your Brand.” I highly recommend you read this article.
Rather than write a synopsis of the article or reveal the 10 measures, I’m simply going to highlight three of them, which I consider to be uncommon uses of social media. That is, these are ways that social media can be leveraged and provide metrics for success, but which social media marketers often do not use or, if they do, do not do effectively.
These are three of 10 uncommon uses of social media. I recommend reading Neil’s article for the rest.
Tags: customer service, Reputation Management, roi, SEO, Social Media
Posted in Social Media | 7 Comments »
Sunday, April 3rd, 2011
GoDaddy has been the center of controversy before. Their Super Bowl commercials with scantily clad women have upset some people despite the Web hosts increasing business as a result of the advertising. But recently, the company has taken controversy to a new level. Bob Parsons, GoDaddy’s CEO, filmed himself shooting an elephant in Africa and posted the video online. Was that a good move?
Believe it or not, Parsons is defending it. Here’s his defense:
“Most Americans understand that people need to eat,” he says.
Are you wowed?
Parsons so believes in his mission of killing elephants that he is on the prowl for interviews just so he can defend his actions, but those actions have a lot of people “up in arms” if you’ll pardon the pun. PETA, the very visible animal rights group, has pulled its websites from GoDaddy as have several other animal rights groups and even many people who are not associated with animal rights.
So here’s the question: Would any amount of reputation management help GoDaddy at this point? Did Bob Parsons screw up badly or can he convince people that his concern for farmers in Africa is genuine and that his desire to help them by killing the elephants was necessary?
The lesson to learn from all this is this: If you are going to step into controversy deliberately, be sure to count the cost. This kind of “charity” is going to make you enemies. If you can live with that, go with it. If not, you’d better think twice about what it is you do and what it is you allow the world to see you do.
Tags: GoDaddy, marketing, Reputation Management
Posted in Reputation Management | 4 Comments »
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