7 Steps to a Stellar Online Reputation

7 Steps to a Stellar Online Reputation

Presented by Andy Beal

Who is this guy?• Internet marketing consultant:

• Online reputation management

• Search engine marketing

• Business blog development and promotion

• Social media marketing

• Editor/Founder MarketingPilgrim.com

• Coauthor of reputation management book “Radically Transparent”

• Trackur.com for reputation monitoring

What You’ll Learn• What is Online Reputation

Management?• The Seven Step Action Plan

1. Identify your stakeholders2. Conduct a reputation audit3. Evaluate your online assets4. Determine your goals5. Craft your strategy6. Implement your plan7. Monitor and repair

What is ORM?

• 52% of individuals put their trust in what others have to say about your reputation

• 87% of consumers look at the reputation of your CEO, when judging your company's reputation

• 59% of hiring managers are influenced by your online reputation

People Are Talking

What’s Changed?• Marketing and PR are no longer a one

way monologue

• Your customers are discussing your reputation using the Web

• Identify, listen, and engage your stakeholders

• A single negative blog post can spark a reputation crisis

7 Step Action Plan

Identify your stakeholders

1

Look Who’s Talking• Identify all of your stakeholders• Customers

• First time customers - what are their expectations and how do you retain them?

• Repeat customers - how do you keep them happy?

• The Press• Traditional journalists• Citizen journalists and bloggers

• Industry opinion leaders

• Centers of influence

• Communities such as LinkedIn, ePinions, and TripAdvisor

• Detractors

• Disgruntled employees

• Competitors

• Legitimate complaints

Conduct a reputation audit

2

• Ask your customers to evaluate your reputation

• A complex survey

• A single question: “Would you recommend us to a friend or colleague?”

Surveys

• Company channels such as e-mails, comment forms, and customers service

• Online ratings

• Retailer ratings on BizRate.com

• Customer reviews on CitySearch.com

• Where your customers hang out

Online Audit

• Your Google reputation

• Search for your company name, brands, and executives

• Vertical search channels such as news, blogs, and video

• Sentiment analysis

google.com

Google Sentiment

• Multimedia content

• How many views and the number and sentiment of comments

• YouTube and Flickr

• Social relevance

• Links on Technorati, votes on Digg, and friends on MySpace

• Number of social bookmarks on del.icio.us and Reddit

technorati.com

Technorati Links

• Web site popularity

• Visitors and referral data

• Number of external links

• siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com

• Individual profiles

• CEO, executives, and spokespersons

• Zoominfo.com, HealthGrades.com, and RateMyProfessors.com

Improve your online assets

3

Spring Cleaning• Your own web site

• Up to date?

• Bios, corporate info, and stock images

• White papers, testimonials, and multimedia

• Your online press room

• Social media optimized press releases

Social Press Releases

•Links to multimedia content

•Social bookmarking links

•RSS feed for company press room

shiftcomm.com/downloads/smprtemplate.pdf

• A company blog

• Executive, team, updates, or crisis only blog

• Build your thought leadership, engage customers, and reach journalists

• Search engine optimization (SEO)

• Optimize web content for your reputation-building keywords

Determine your goals

4

Goals?• What is your desired outcome?

• Improve a tarnished reputation?

• Raise the profile of your CEO?

• Increase awareness of new products?

• Attract new clients?

• Find a better job???

Craft your strategy

5

Your Objectives?

• Create a company blog

• Develop social networking profiles

• Set up online monitoring system

• Compile reputation crisis plan

• Improve your search engine sentiment

Example• Strategy: Build a highly differentiated thought

leadership niche online. • Objectives for the next 12 months:

1. Add 3 white papers to the company site for visitor download.

2. Answer 5 questions a month at Yahoo!Answers.

3. Review 2 books a month in my field on Amazon.com.

4. Identify 20 important blogs in my industry and subscribe to the RSS feeds. Read them daily.

5. Display my expertise and add value to the social media by commenting on at least 5 blogs a month and editing a Wikipedia article.

Implement your plan

6

How?

• What tools will you need?

• Google Reader for RSS

• WordPress for company blog

• Google Analytics for Web stats

• Trackur.com for reputation monitoring

• What policies and procedures will you use?

• Who will collect and act on data?

• Who will monitor social media?

• Who will manage blog and social networking content?

• Who has authority to respond?

1. Always be honest and tell the truth

2. Clearly explain your intentions, who you work for, and who you are

3. Make sure your writing is accurate, high quality, and spell checked

4. Be honest about any mistakes you make and correct them promptly

5. Never delete a blog post

Radically Transparent Blogging Guidelines

6. Don’t delete comments left by readers

7. Respond to emails and blog comments

8. Respect the opinions of others, even when disagreeing

9. Link to original sources of information

10. Always disclose conflicts of interests or business relationships

Monitor and repair

7

Monitor• Early awareness is crucial

• Use freely available tools to monitor 80%

• Email?

• Google Alerts

• RSS?

• Technorati, Google News, BoardTracker

Email Alerts google.com/alerts

Mainstream Media

news.google.com/

Forumsboardtracker.com

Outsource Monitoring?

Trackur.comConverseon.com

buzzm.worldbank.org

Prepare• Plan now for a reputation crisis

• Who is on your crisis team? List their names, titles, and all contact numbers

• Who is your online media spokesperson?

• Who will be your advisors, for seeking counsel before reacting to a crisis?

• Who are your key offline/online stakeholders needing information during a crisis?

• Do you have a crisis-blog ready for deployment?

Repair1. Check the facts

2. Determine the impact

3. Bring together trusted counsel

4. Understand your detractor

5. Decide on the appropriate response

6. Host the conversation

7. Continue to monitor

Three Little Words

•Sincerity•Transparency•Consistency

Thank You

• Andy@MarketingPilgrim.com

• 919-816-2106

• Twitter.com/andybeal