Online reputationmanagement entails a transitional shift from the bad to the good. Let us understand from the perspective of the consumer how online reputation management (ORM) can affect his decision making process. A consumer who is searching for buying something online or wants to read a review before making a purchase at a nearby store will log on to the net and check for some information. Quite reflexively, I must say, many latch onto Google or Yahoo to type in a few key terms or key phrases that give information about a product. A website gives only limited amount...
The post mentioned below talks about the power of online reputationmanagement and writing effective content to make good amount of information and positive news about your company feature on the first two pages of Google or any other search engine. Apart from writing good content and providing back links, there are many other steps that can help in online reputation management. Discussed below are some of the ideal methods to increase the presence of your business online: Social networking sites: You can make the most use of social networking sites for sp...
Online reputationmanagement is antidote to negative publicity online. A negative post or piece of information that comes on the first page of a search engine page like Google can be bad news to your online business. It is now easy for an customer or a lay man with even limited use of computers to post their views online in forum sites, blogs and other web 2.0 platforms. You may not be able to obliterate negative results disappear completely from a search engine. However, you can definitely impact the search engine results in such a way that only positive and relevant information about your product or service features in the ‘first two’ pages of a search engine. As we know
The concept of online reputation management shines glaringly bright as you see banks and financial institutions facing the whack due to negative publicity. In India, for the past few days, prominent banks have faced flak and considerable negative publicity thanks to a slew of online posts and news reports which accuse these financial institutions of mentally and physically harassing their customers. In India and many other countries, private banks outsource the work to recovery agents or companies for recovery of debt. Such banks or their recovery agents employ pressure tactics or use aggressive language to coerce people to pay their existing debt or outstanding loan amount. Many bore the brunt silently and painfully, until recently when a major tabloid laid bare the shocking news ...
No matter what reputation you command in the market, the truth is that everybody cannot be pleased every time. Sometime someone or the other is bound to be unhappy or displeased. Ten years ago, the manufacturer and the marketeer was the king. He dictated the market and in times where there was a monopoly, the consumer had to grin and bear it. But in the year 2007, the consumer grins and bares it. The year 2007 has witnessed a lot of ‘so-called prestigious’ brands losing their control over the market thanks to consumer power. Online reputation management is paramount to your business. Even one customer lost is bad news because it offsets a chain reaction which can spread its tentacles to a lot of other potenti...
Major airline companies as well as travel companies are gearing up to better their efforts at online reputationmanagement. Online travel sites are frequented and subscribed to by a lot of users because of the convenience factors. You can book tickets at subsidized rates and you also enjoy the convenience of booking your tickets from the comfort of your own home. However, though it is a hot online industry, it invites a lot of wrath and bad publicity if things go wrong. There are issues when the credit card charge is declined, tickets are not delivered at the right time, the seat numbers go awry or if there is a fraudulent charge on the account. At all of these times and more, the ...
Your company may be enjoying an impressive customer patronage and may be a name in the market to reckon with. However there is always a risk of a blog post reaching the first page of the search engine listing and causing damage to the goodwill that you’ve built steadily since a long time. A negative comment spreads like wild fire in the Internet and there are many who jump in the bandwagon, some doing it seriously while some adding a negative comment just for the kicks. Either way, your sales figure can pirouette and dip if you do not take concrete steps to resolve the matter. The answer is online reputationmanagement. Here are some ways to use online
We all know that gossiping is a universal hobby (hobby is called a pastime isn’t it?). Gossiping has been there in this world since the time man existed. It is just post 2004, the gossiping that was restricted to just the office corridors or college campuses, has extended multi-dimensionally in the form of blogs. Now what you gossip about, can influence millions of people especially when they appear on search engine results page. Review sites, forums, blogs, RSS feeds are the media available to consumers to air their thoughts in full color. Imagine the damage that can be done to a company as a result! Online ReputationManagement works on the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threat) basis. Th...
Online reputationmanagement and the power of social media are quite important for fortifying your company’s presence, and directing traffic to your website. What exactly is social media? Well it is the platform that allows each one of us the freedom to say what you want through blogs, message boards. You are able to share your views and opinions with a lot of people who agree, disagree or endorse your statements. Public relations are no more a domain frequented by professionals and journalists. Spreading the word is an attitude of the people, for the people and by the people. As close to democracy, isn’t it?Quite evidently, people will trust the junta(the common people) or high-brow PR experts or journalists...
Most companies have quite rightly hosted corporate blogs both in complaint boards like mouthshut.com and also as a part of their website. In this age of consumer generated media, corporate blogs are just what the doctor ordered. It immunizes your business against negativity, acts like a tonic to consumers who feel that their pain and anguish are being addressed, and makes your business grow in a healthy manner. While writing corporate blogs and seeing the absurdity and exaggeration of some of the posts, you may feel like flying off the handle and giving a fitting reply. Well, you may but in the end, you may be losing out on business purely due to the ‘tone’ of your content. You may be right and the consumer may have got it wrong this time but under...
Corporateblogging is a responsible move by organization that has to manage their reputation on the web. Most major players in the field are recognizing the power of blogs to empower people with the force to write about a particular brand. A single negative post that comes up on the front page of a search engine can cause immense damage to the brand and subsequently to the profit-earning capacity of the company. How does corporate blogging actually take place? What do these companies do, how do they keep track of everything negative that comes their way? Read on to know more.. Here are some steps at managing online reputation for a company which wants to steer ahead of comp...
Midday, the famous eveninger on 31st August, 2007 carried a front page story on how blogging can be a resourceful tool to every consumer who wants justice done. It told about how a person who uploaded the half-hearted job done by her interior decorator and uploaded it on You Tube. She shot a small video of the haphazard repair work done on the wall of her house and uploaded it on the video broadcasting site. The interior decorating company had no option but to complete the work free of charge, because it had its reputation at stake. We have been hearing time and again that consumer is king, consumer is everything..blah, blah …till the dogs come home, but in the end, the consumer had to pay the price. Until, the consumer decided to do something ab...
One of the potent weapons that can change or sustain public opinion are review sites. Whenever there is a new movie or new product coming up, people turn to review sites. There are so many movies which have taken a beating at the box-office and there are so many products which have not even been tried, purely thanks to damaging reviews. Nothing can be done much about reviews; you can’t stop them from happening, neither can you stop people from reading them and passing judgments. They say if you can’t beat them, join them. This is exactly how review sites can work for online reputationmanagement. Find out people who have genuinely liked your product or service. In this gen...
We all know that bad news travels faster than good news. A bad or negative consumer experience can affect a business ten times more than a positive experience. It can impact the decision of the buyer and make him shift towards a competing brand. Let me illustrate a real life example that happened with me. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to buy a new mobile phone for myself. I had a brand and a model number in my mind. However just before purchasing that particular cell-phone, I decided to do some online research. After all, as human beings, we are driven by user experiences. Well, what I saw changed my decision. The top ten online search results which popped up as I keyed in the query left me in a bit of daze. Pieces o...
Did you know that every second 14 blogs are added online? Blogs and forum based websites are becoming fast popular. Blogs cater to every taste and all genre conceivable. The reason why blogs are more popular than websites themselves are because of the fact that they are quite dynamic and can be operated by an average computer user. Of course, it is an unbeatable communication tool online, influencing opinions and fostering interactions. There is a strong connection underlying the concept of online reputationmanagement and blogs. Online reputation management is a developing field that encompasses public relati...
It is an obvious truth that 90 percent of consumers make use of Engine">search engines like Google, Yahoo, AOL, MSN etc to find what they are looking for. This means that when they enter the name of a particular product, service or brand, you hope that your company website or a positive review about your company ranks at least on the top search results page. In more ways than one, the search engine page is a barometer of the success of your enterprise. It is not just about a company but about an individual too. Everyone likes good things to be written about them, don’t they? The flip side to this whole thing is that is not possible to have a control on what people write in various blogs and article directories. Apart...
The world of online marketing is growing exponentially. No one can combat the reach of the Internet when it comes to spreading information. Information can be easily transferred in the form of text, images, competitions, video clips etc. The cost of sharing information is very low or negligible and quite evidently, it has become an outlet of people to express their emotions, feelings, views and opinions.Mom, dad, son, daughter, the gardener and the pet of the family-everyone turns to the Internet to check the review of the latest product, the latest gizmo, the funky outfit or the new movie which has hit the movie-houses. People form a verdict about a certain thing or service based on the reviews they read or the comments made by other people in blog posts. No wonder, my friend who wanted t...
Anyone who runs a business or a professional agency will swear on his or her last buck that a negative publicity can be quite eroding. If the first page of a search engine like Google has some not so good things about your company or the brand, it means that there is something you have to do before you clientele and customers head for the exit door. God has blessed consumers with the power of the Internet. Decision making has become easy for them because they can share their opinions, views and interests with a lot of like-minded people through reviews sites, forum sites and blogs. What do you do, if your company is the object of scathing attack and relentless criticism? A place in the front page of a search engine is important, but it is equally important that something good or posi...
We know that public reviews and opinions on blogs can be quite influential and overwhelming upon a company. However it can also have an impact on a person’s life. Success can be harmful at times. A celebrity, an influential person or even a layman is susceptible to bad publicity online. However, it is even more ruthless and embarrassing for someone who is in the public limelight to be shown in the poor light. People generally check the first page of results in a search engine. If something bad or embarrassing about a particular celebrity is mentioned in the first page, people actually start forming opinions and passing judgements. Tongues begin to wag and the celebrity’s maligned reputation begins to cloud around him like a ball of smoke. The ...
We all know that blogs are web-tools that can shape and influence public opinion. Every company online is wary about some negative post that can crop up in the first pages of a search engine like Google, and affect the business. In a manner, which is akin to an eye for an eye, companies use their corporate blogs to come clean and clarify speculations written about them. For a company that wants to have a positive image and favorable information written within the top 2 results page of a search engine, blogging becomes very important. The benefits are in the form of free advertising and clear information provided in the form of enriched and enhanced content. Secondly, blogs form a medium to forge a wonderful relationship with its customers. Thus all said...
Picture this. You have consciously built a brand image for yourself and everyone around is happy because you are on top of the world. But then as you become successful, you attract detractors too. One or more such animals with an axe to grind against you start spreading stories about you and most of them are not pleasant. Some of the posts appear on the first two pages of a popular search engine. You find yourself as the object of ridicule and contempt. You have been branded as an alcoholic rather than a workaholic. People read negative, exaggerated information and then spread stories adding their own dash of spice in their discussions about you, with their colleagues. You have to seriously safeguard your reputation before some more negative posts app...
The need for reputationmanagement online stems from CGM(Customer Generated Media) furore that has spread in the Internet. Ever had a bad experience while using your credit card? Has the bank treated you unfairly? Are you pissed with the callous attitude or indifference shown by customer reps on the phone? Do you feel that they just dumped the vacuum cleaner at your place and forgot about installing it properly? You do not have to keep your grouse within yourself or express your sentiments to the neighborhood. You can tell about the unfair deal to the whole world through blogs. Blogs are dynamic and can shape public opinion with the influence of something as trivial as a mere post. Unlike newspapers , magazines...
Online reputationmanagement is about setting the wrongs right. Whenever things go wrong, we should look at how we can use the negative bit to our advantage and make it a plus point. To throw more light to this, let us understand through a case study about how a bank worked toward some smart online reputation management, inculcating both search engine optimization and smart PR skills. There was a bank X which ran into some sort of rough weather courtesy disgruntled customers who were not exactly having a high regard for the company. One of them was my friend who was also ...
If you are under the impression that you are too involved in your business to care about the Internet, you are mistaken. Your online reputation can be at stake. With a lot of people turning to electronic media for news and gossip, you cannot undermine the power of online reputation management. There is a principle called karma in the Hindu culture, which says that every deed has its repercussions. If you do good, you are rewarded. If you do bad, you are punished. The consequence may take its own time but soon you do get your just deserts. There is a scientific rationale behind it too; as Newton said: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. As you sow, so shall you reap is another saying that typifies t...
It’s raining orkut, myspace, facebook, hi5,bigadda and countless amount of socialnetworking websites-all meaning business and justifying the cliché, ‘be in touch.’ Social networking sites are the hot places where people chat, refer, tease, congratulate and play the blame game. It is also the best place to recommend something that is pleasant or to warn someone against something that is unpleasant. There are occasions when a guy asks his online friend for a date and she agrees with a coffee joint that is known for its cool ambience and wonderful coffee. If that café happens to be yours, a positive remark like this can be quite encouraging. Being a member of a s...
Every single moment, someone or the other is talking about you, your product, your services, your business, your competitors or your industry. They may be complimenting about a particular aspect of your business, appreciating certain things or generating hype for your business. There are also people who do not think too high about your service. They are cribbing, complaining or criticizing about your service or your product. Let us say a much-hyped movie is on the verge of release. A lot of money, time and efforts have been spent in creating the magnum opus, and an equal amount of money has been spent on publicity. Can you imagine how much it can hurt both the distributors and creative team when the pre-release hype is countered by negative posts and scathing amount of criticism. A lot o...
