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Posts Tagged ‘Reputation Management’
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 »
Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011
Online marketing is no longer an option. You’re either doing it or you’re not, and if you’re not, then you are falling behind the competition. The only question to ask, really, is what kind of online marketing are you going to do?
You can do link building, focus on SEO, engage with your target audience through social media, specialize in Facebook, pay for clicks, or use a combination of all of the above or add some other channels into the mix as well. But it all really boils down to one thing. Online marketing is reputation management.
There are really two kinds of reputation management. There’s proactive reputation management and reactive reputation management. The first is what you do every day, and how you do it. The second is what you do when you need it. But here’s the catch: If you’re doing the first kind of reputation management well, then you’ll need the second kind less often, maybe never.
Proactive online reputation management is staying active. It means you update your website on a periodic basis, you engage with customers through social media, you write articles and publish them online. In effect, you always have something going on.
Online reputation management is about more than building links, conducting effective SEO, or branding yourself through social media. It’s about creating and maintaining a positive image across all channels. Are you doing that?
Tags: link building, online marketing, Reputation Management, SEO, Social Media
Posted in Reputation Management | 3 Comments »
Thursday, December 16th, 2010
Reputation management is important. But it’s growing in importance every day, and I think very soon the average person will spend a lot of time thinking about managing their reputation online. It won’t be just for businesses any more.
An article in WebProNews illustrates that 90% of Americans want more control of information about them online. There’s no doubt this is true. As more and more people go online, real world conflicts will also go online. People will use the Internet to make accusations, pass on bad information about another party, and generally wreak havoc in the lives of people they don’t like. It’s an easy thing to do with minimal access to the Internet.
Of course, the reverse is also true. You can say a lot of good things about people too. But most people won’t bother to present the good; the negative gets far more airplay. That’s what makes reputation management important.
If you find yourself having to combat negative untrue statements about you on the Internet, learn how you can combat those statements and the perception of you that they create among people you’d like to interact with. If your reputation is being damaged, you can do something about it.
Tags: internet, Reputation Management
Posted in Reputation Management | 2 Comments »
Friday, November 5th, 2010
Social media marketing is the current rage and while it can be highly effective in building a business’ reputation, it can also be a one way street to damnation. Small business seems to be taking one of two approaches at present. They are either taking the softly-softly approach, or they are going in blindly with all guns firing. The first approach, while slow, is starting to see results. The second approach has seen businesses lose any credibility, almost overnight.
Like any ‘social’ situation, there is some form of decorum expected. Online social media is no different. For example, befriending every Tom, Dick and Mary is no longer the best approach. It’s fine to have the masses following you, but you need to remember that every person you follow could have some effect on those following you. Look only for those that can provide some benefits to you directly, or to your followers.
Being selective is the key, and this is now true of any information that you pass onto your followers. Don’t auto Tweet or auto post information that is irrelevant. There are individuals that are promoting across several niches and there’s nothing wrong with that. However, if you are in this situation, you need to develop profiles and followers for each niche. Having the one profile where you push everything is no longer acceptable.
Most importantly, social media sites are built on one principle – being social. If your presence is all one way, then most of your followers will soon be ‘on their way’. You need to reach out to followers, talk to them, answer questions and generally provide them with a reason to follow you. The more interaction you can generate, the stronger your influence will be.
Social media marketing is all about connecting on a social level. If you cannot be a little social, then this may not be the best marketing channel for your business – you are better off having no presence than a presence with a poor reputation!
Tags: Reputation Management
Posted in Social Media | 8 Comments »
Wednesday, October 27th, 2010
Do you ever feel like you are given a choice between two seats in heaven? Would you rather sit on the right or left of St. Peter?
OK, silly as it sounds, there is some seriousness to that facetious response. What’s better – SEO, traffic, or reputation? The answer, nearly obvious I think, is all of them.
There are some things you just can’t choose between. SEO is a necessity in today’s marketing culture. If you want your website to rank in the search engines then you should spend some time optimizing your web pages, but don’t think that SEO will solve all of your problems. Many a website have ranked No. 1 for their keywords only to fail to get any business.
SEO leads to more traffic. Do it right and you’ll land at the top of the search results. That will increase your traffic. But you can get traffic in other ways too. Social media is one way to drive traffic to your website. PPC is another way. If it works and closes sales then I say do it. Don’t ignore SEO just because PPC is working for you. Use them both together, if possible.
Reputation is a bit more murky. There are all kinds of ways to increase your reputation. One of the best ways is to just provide a good service. But, make no mistake, your reputation is very important.
Sometimes, marketers ask questions that have no easy answers. They don’t have to have answers. But they can make you think. When it comes to SEO, traffic, and reputation, they’re all important.
Tags: internet marketing, PPC, Reputation Management, SEO, Social Media
Posted in Small Business Internet Marketing | 2 Comments »
Saturday, October 23rd, 2010
Last week we talked about Quora, a relatively new service that presents a great reputation management opportunity for small business owners. This week I’d like to discuss Yahoo! Answers.
What advantages does Yahoo! Answers have over Quora? Actually, a few:
- It has a lot more traffic going to it.
- Yahoo! Answers is one of the forerunners in the Q&A space so it has built up a reputation for being a place people can go to for answers on just about any topic.
- Answers provided by experts like you often show up high in the search results.
- Yahoo! Answers has more topics.
- It’s an older site so has earned more trust among questioners and askers alike.
I’m not saying Quora isn’t a good opportunity. It is. I’m not even saying that Yahoo! Answers is a better opportunity. In some ways it is and in some ways it isn’t. I am saying that it has a built-in reputation element to it with a lot of traffic that you can tap into. And you can use it to boost your reputation as an expert in your field.
If you are the type of person who likes to provide answers to others’ questions then try Yahoo! Answers.
Tags: Reputation Management, yahoo
Posted in Reputation Management | 1 Comment »
Saturday, October 16th, 2010
There’s a new service online called Quora that looks like it can be a great site to help you establish yourself as an expert in your field. Marketing-wise, it can do a lot to help you manage your reputation.
Quora is a lot like Yahoo! Answers and Answers.com with a few differences. Once you join you’ll be able to ask questions and answer them along with all the other users of the website. However, unlike other websites of a similar nature, anyone can edit a question posed by another user. You can add a description to the question or even edit the question itself. You can also add and delete tags.
Perhaps one of the most valuable aspects of Quora is the ability to connect to your Facebook and your Twitter accounts. You can ask questions then answer other questions and have them broadcast to your followers on the two most popular social media websites online.
From an SEO perspective, Quora has some value as well. In your bio you can add links to the websites that you own and manage. Those links will be permanent inbound links for those sites, but just like any other social network, if you link to your sites then you’ll have to use Quora on a regular basis and become an active member in order to get the full benefit of your links. Quora’s profiles are crawlable and search engine indexable – though you can opt out of that, I would not recommend it – making your profile itself an SEO tool and another possible way to be found in the search engines for your name.
These tools of Quora make it a valuable new Internet marketing tool in two ways – as an SEO and link building tool and as a reputation management tool.
Quora, being only about a year old, still isn’t as popular as Yahoo Answers! or Answers.com, but it has the potential to reach a respectable point of popularity and it at least holds some value for Internet marketers who want to be seen as an expert in their industries. Follow topics related to your niche and answer them. You will receive notices by e-mail when someone answers your questions or a question that you are following and re-enter the conversation.
Tags: Reputation Management, Social Media
Posted in Reputation Management | 4 Comments »
Thursday, July 15th, 2010
If you are new to online marketing and new to social media marketing then you might be wondering just what the benefits are to marketing your business through social media channels. It’s a legitimate question. Here are 5 ways that marketing your small business through social media can benefit you.
- Increased Traffic – Social media can send you more traffic to your website. That’s not say you’ll automatically see an increase in sales, but if your website is optimized for conversions then you should see your sales go up as well. Using social media like Facebook pages, Twitter, social bookmarking and LinkIn can help you drive new traffic to your website and if it doesn’t increase your sales then you need to rewrite your sales pages.
- Establish New Relationships – You can often forge new relationships by engaging people through social media. Not only can you gain new clients for your business, but you’ll find that you’ve made new friends.
- Branding – Social media branding is a new method of online marketing that involves using the social media channels at your disposal to create and strengthen your brand.
- More Sales – Yes, many social media marketers have increased their sales through social media. You can too.
- Broader Reach – Through social media you can expand your company’s presence further and wider than you’ve ever imagined.
- Reputation Management – With social media you have greater control of your reputation online. You can monitor what other people are saying about you and your brand and respond much more quickly to potential problems. You can also control your talking points so that your audience knows what you stand for.
There are more benefits to social media marketing, but these 6 benefits are basic and within anyone’s reach. I highly recommend that you start using social media to market your small business today.
Tags: Branding, online marketing, Reputation Management, sales, Social Media, traffic
Posted in Social Media | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, May 4th, 2010
I’ve talked about both SEO and reputation management numerous times on this blog, and a few times I’ve even combined the two. That’s why it is particularly gratifying when a magazine of the caliber of Search Marketing Standard agrees with me.
Exaggerations, lies, and malicious spin are all legitimate to the SERPs and it can take a comprehensive SEO strategy to combat them. Setting up corporate blogs, micro-sites, customer complaint forums, corporate social profiles, and sister sites are just a few ways to help control the top listings for a company’s branded terms in the SERPs. Properly optimizing a portfolio of web properties can help push down the fraudulent and irreconcilable pages that can bring a company to its knees.
The surest way to combat negative SEO campaigns against you is to go on the offensive with a multiple Web property strategy. No longer is wise to simply rely on a single website for all of your SEO and reputation management needs. But note that multiple properties does not necessarily mean that you have to own them all. You can use other sites that you do not own, for instance:
- Social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook
- Blogspot and WordPress.com
- Associated Content and Helium-type sites
- Squidoo and HubPages
- Guest blogging on sites within the same niche
- Article directories
- YouTube and other video marketing websites
- Social bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon
- Podcast directories
- Press release websites like PRWeb
- Forums
The list could go on.
When it comes to SEO and reputation management, there are often multiple ways to approach an objective. More often than not you should employ a variety of methods simultaneously, or subsequently. Diversification is key to online marketing. It always has been.
Tags: diversification, Reputation Management, SEO
Posted in Reputation Management | 3 Comments »
Friday, April 30th, 2010
If you do any business online, at some point you’re going to come across someone talking negatively about you or your company. Most of the time this negative publicity will come in the manner of anonymity. You won’t know who is attacking you or why and therefore have no way to redress the points in private. You’ll have to deal with it publicly.
That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to address the attacker’s points in any way. You most certainly should not engage him or her on websites that post his negative publicity. That will only help his cause, not yours.
If you find your adversary using third-party sites that offer a chance to respond to negative reviews then you may provide a short response – note, I said short – that attempts to invite others to discuss any issues with you in private. Don’t give ammunition to those who are against you. And you might also ask your good customers – the ones you know who will defend you – to counter with a positive review.
Beyond that, however, there are specific online tools that you can employ to wage a positive PR campaign that will combat negative publicity you find about you and your company.
Positive Reputation Management Tools You Can Use
I would recommend 5 primary online reputation management tools to help you defeat negative publicity about you online.
- A Network Of Blogs – Always start with your own properties. The more you own, the better off you are and the more secure your reputation is. One blog is good, but five blogs is better. Try to use blogs that use keywords associated with your negative publicity. You are trying to push the negative publicity pages down in the rankings. Blogs might take some time, but they can provide you with some ammunition to control the positive information flow about your company.
- Your Own Network Of Microsites – A tightly controlled group of microsites that target key phrases you want to defend can give you plenty of ammunition to combat negative propaganda about your company and defend your reputation.
- Press Releases – Press releases are good because you can submit them to third party sites. Often, those sites are authoritative websites that can get your well optimized press release some high exposure. Target the right keywords in your press release and you can gain a prominent position in the search engines for your keywords. Plus, you can drive traffic to your website.
- Social Networking – Use prominent social networks like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Use them often. Set up a profile in your name and a Facebook page in your company’s name. Be active in your social networks. The more active you are on the networks the more they will start to rise in the search engine rankings.
- Social Bookmarking – Social bookmarking is different than social networking. You are submitting your blog, social networking profiles and website pages to well trafficked sites like Digg and StumbleUpon. Sites with a high authority rating and lots of traffic will get you additional exposure and potential rankings. With many of these sites, the more positive reviews you get of your bookmarks the more chances they have of ranking well in the search engines.
You want to be careful not to spam the search engines, but you do want to defend your reputation with positive stories about you and your company. Use the tools effectively and you can win the battle over your reputation.
Tags: blog, Reputation Management, SEO, Social Media, website
Posted in Reputation Management | 2 Comments »
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