online reputation management ethics webpr

WebPR, online reputation management

Landscape of PR

Traditional public relations (PR) has focused on crafted news releases and company image.

Provided controlled information (news releases) Internet changed this model Information is freely available to more people Internet provided variety of tools for listening and

engaging

However, a 2010 experiment by Oriella PR Network showed that 75% of journalists find a well-targeted news release useful (Oriella PR Network).

What is PR?

LISTENING (telling what they want and how they are receiving your message)

RESPONDING (engaging in conversation)

BUILDING YOUR OWN VOICE (you cannot control the message, but you can lead the conversation)

Online article syndication

• writing articles that are in no way a direct promotion of your site

• articles are submitted to online article directories, where they are picked up and republished on other sites

• as the articles contain links and keywords relevant to your site, the benefits for search engine marketing are excellent

• attract links naturally

webPR tactics

Establishing long-term trusting consumer relationships through:

– online article syndication, – news releases – blogging

aids a company’s ability to craft online credibility, placing it in a better position to respond to future criticism. These tools also help build links to a company’s site. And, of course, links increase traffic and have search engine optimisation (SEO) benefits.

Example

You are selling holidays to Vilnius, your online marketing efforts will greatly benefit if you target market considers you a leader in this field. This is where 'value-content' comes in. Articles containing information for the potential travellers are value-adding and therefore attract links naturally. And, if published on a third party site, should carry a link back to your own website. This drives visitors to the site that are automatically predisposed to the brand, and are therefore are more likely to engage and buy the products on offer.

BUT the strategy won’t work unless people want to read your articles - so they need to be broad, informative and not just thinly disguised advert

List of article syndication sites

www.ezinearticles.comwww.goarticles.comwww.articledashboard.comwww.amazines.comwww.articlerich.comwww.isnare.comwww.articlesbase.com

These directories all allow three to four links, they all give statistics on how the articles are doing and they all allow you to preview the article before you publish it – it is important to be able to preview it to ensure that no mistakes were made during the HTML conversion process.

From here people who are interested in republishing the article on their own sites/blogs can do so as long as they reproduce the content exactly as you have submitted it.

If the article is well-written and informative it has the capacity to go viral which is the ultimate goal, as the more times it is republished, the more links you will acquire – and all at no cost to you.

News releases

Originally intended to provide information to journalists, increasingly news releases are being read without going through the journalists first.

• PR has also realised the tremendous impact of bloggers, and many PR professionals are using the same news releases in their communications with bloggers. And today, journalists are also bloggers, and bloggers are the new citizen journalists, so the lines are becoming even further blurred.

Newswires, like article directories, allow for online submission of news releases. In turn, these are syndicated via RSS, and so are picked up by the news engines, such as Google News, Yahoo! News, and MSN News. Many people pick up their news via these online news engines, which aggregate news from a number of publications and newswires, so the news release is becoming an ever more crucial means of reaching a growing audience.

Benefits of online news releases

• Online news releases allow for almost instant publishing of news online.

• A well-written news release can garner top rankings in the news engines (Google News, Yahoo! News, MSN News etc). Adequate optimisation can also result in SERP rankings.

• Content is syndicated quickly via RSS.• Links are built naturally and effectively from online publishing.• Distribution is increased beyond your contact list.• Reach is far greater than that of a traditional news release.• Reach and distribution can be easily tracked online.

some news release siteswww.i-newswire.comwww.pr.comwww.pressexposure.comwww.1888pressrelease.comwww.sanepr.comwww.pressbuzz.comwww.pressbox.comwww.pressreleasepoint.comwww.amazines.com

• news releases should also be distributed to bookmarking sites and social networks.

Social Media News Release

Blogs and other consumer generated media (CGM) are sometimes referred as citizen journalism. The reach and influence of CGM means news releases are often finding their way to the inboxes of content creators. While many journalists are becoming disillusioned with the standard news release format, THE NEWS RELEASE CAN BE SEEN AS OVER-HYPED CORPORATE SPEAK BY TIME-SENSITIVE AND TRANSPARENCY-FOCUSED BLOGGERS.

blogging

Writing a blog is one of the best ways for a company to build its own voice in the new world of social media and citizen journalism. Not only do blogs play a role in SEO (with fresh, key phrase rich content creation), they also play a strategically important role in reaching out to customers.

Online Press Room

A Nielsen Norman study found that when a journalist uses a corporate website to find basic information, they are successful only 73% of the time (Nielsen).

Journalists often work to tight deadlines, and having the required information to hand could make the difference between being written about and not

Online press room must have• Company history• Key executive biographies• Pertinent background information• Logos and images in a variety of sizes, resolutions (for web and for print) and

formats• All news releases• Multimedia gallery (video, audio and visual)• Contact information

– PR representative– Company

• Search function• RSS / email alerts• Tagging capabilities• Information in a variety of formats

Free samples and gifts

Journalists are generally restricted in the value of the gift they are allowed to accept, and tend to reveal when reviewed products are free samples. The publishing houses need to maintain an unbiased reputation. Bloggers, however, are self-publishers and can make up their own rules as they go along. Some of them accept lavish gifts in return for coverage – coverage that can ironically appear more authentic as it comes from a blogger and not a journalist.

Review of ORM toolsOnline reputation management

http://www.smartinsights.com/online-pr/reputation-management-online-pr/online-reputation-management-software/


Category 1 - Wide scope analytical and reporting tools for all aspects of monitoring customer opinions and campaign effectiveness:

– Radian6, Infegy Social Radar, Trupulse, Scout Labs, Nielsen Buzz Metrics, Feedback Ferret, Interwoven

Category 2 – Blog based influence assessment tools, designed to gain access to influential customers/commentators

– Nielsen BlogPulse, Market Sentinel, Buzz Logic

Category 3 – PR and media management tools for reputation management and assessing opinion forming influence

– Cymfony, Marchex Reputation Management, Reputica, Jodange

Category 4 – Social media tracking and intervention including free tools– Converseon, Who’s Talkin, Social Mention, Trackur, Viralheat, NetBase Consumer Insights

Category 5 – Fraud protection, security and threat detection– Envisional, KnowEm, Reputrace, Mark Monitor, FiltrBox

Category 6 – News media tracking– Newssift,NewsLive

Category 7 – Social media within sales management – for identifying B2B prospects

– Inside Viewhttp://www.smartinsights.com/online-pr/reputation-management-online-pr/online-reputation-management-software/


Assignment

Choose one company and describe their online presence by doing research on the Internet:

– Which channels they use to communicate with the customers?

– Have they had any crisis recently? If yes – how they resolved them?

– How they are treating negative comments and opinions?– Do they have a blog, online press room, other tools used

in webPR?

Reviewing your Online PR options is through these 4 types of strategy:

Online reputation management

• Do your potential clients see negative reviews, bogus claims, and rip-off links when they look for you by name on search engines?

• Negative reviews can cost a lot and permanently damage reputation of business

• Getting these negative links removed from the search engines can be next to impossible. The best strategy is to move them to page 2 by using SEO to dominate page 1.

Recent survey by Cone show that 80% of those interviewed have changed their purchase decision based upon a bad review they read.

http://www.slideshare.net/chrisabraham/an-online-reputation-management-orm-primer-and-howto






• in this example, we see pissedconsumer.com website showing complaints for Safelite Auto Glass.

• If Safelite can get their Yep results, their Twitter pages and their City search results to rank better than pissedconsumers.com, it will be moved to page two where fewer potential clients will see it.












What business can do?

Short term

SEO and Social media displace SERP.

• Make brand optimization a process

• Optimize all digital assets: text, image, audio, video

• Optimize across departments: PR, marketing, HR, investors

• Result = more branded SERP's

Long term

Identify, qualify and engage dissenters

• Is there a merit to the issue?• If not, offer facts and ask for

correction• If yes - offer to discuss• Be ready to respond via blog• Result can be loyal brand

fans

Building more websites

• A business can also build more than one website. There are ten organic spaces on Google's page one. You're more likely to own more of the real estate with more websites.

Building social media sites

Web 2.0 and youtube

You can place content on Web 2.0 sites like Squidoo and Weebly or upload videos to youtube for another shot at a slot on page one of Google

Reviews

• Increasing positive reviews on sites like Google Places, Yelp..

Great example: Southwest airlines

Their own properties are ranking - including their blog and social media profiles. Some Web 2.0 properties are rankingEven their iPhone app

Online reputation management:DELL HELL

• Blogger Jeff Jarvis has write about failure of his computer and bad customer service at Dell

• The series of posts began on 21 June 2005, in a post that has elicited over 250 comments to date. The laptop Jeff Jarvis had just bought was clearly not functioning as it should. What irked him even further, though, was that he had “paid a fortune for the four-year, in-home service” yet he was told by Dell that if they sent someone to his home to assist him, the person would not have the parts necessary to fix his machine.

• Eventually, he worked out the email address of Dell’s Chief Marketing Officer and Vice President for US Consumer Business and sent him an email detailing the ongoing saga that was not being resolved. Predictably, Jeff Jarvis received a phone call, and eventually the matter was resolved when he obtained a refund in July 2005.

ORM USES DIGITAL MEANS TO MONITOR AND ANALYSE A BRAND’S REPUTATION ONLINE, AND ENGAGE IN DIGITAL CONVERSATION SO AS TO INFLUENCE ITS REPUTATION AND GAIN STRATEGIC INSIGHTS TO GUIDE BUSINESS DECISION MAKING

ORM keywords

You can research whatever you want, but most commonly searches include the following main focus areas:

COMPANY: Brand name, Key products, Key personnel (names, job titles, etc), Key campaigns and activities

INDUSTRY: Conferences, Patents, News

COMPETITORS: Brand names, Product launches, Website updates, Job vacancies, Key people

4 different types of searches which can be performed

1. Broad match – i.e. Apple Computers. This is when any of or all words must be found in the mention for that result to be found by the ORM tool.

2. Direct match – i.e. “Apple Computers” This is denoted by quotation marks and dictates that the ORM tool should only find mentions where the phrase appears complete and in order in the content.

3. Inclusive match – i.e. Apple +computers. This is denoted by an addition sign directly before a word or phrase. This will direct an ORM tool to search for any mention which contains both Apple AND Computers although not necessarily in that order.

4. Exclusive match - i.e. Apple –fruit. This is denoted by a subtraction sign directly before a word or phrase. This will instruct an ORM tool to include only mentions which contain the first word or phrase but not when the second word is also in the same mention.

Applying this theory to the groupings, some keywords for Apple used might be:

Company– “Apple computers”– “www.apple.com”– Apple +Macbook, “iPod nano”, “Macbook Air”, “iTunes” +music -

radio– “Steve Jobs

Industry– “Consumer Electronics Show” +“Las Vegas”– “CEBIT”

Competitors– Microsoft– Micro soft









Elements of strong online reputation: creative social media

win• Tickets hidden across Sao Paulo with

locations shown on Google maps• Locations only shown when people

shared hashtag #foxatplanetaterra• Became trending topic in Brazil in 2

hours

fail• ended up generating online

backlash and negative coverage

Elements of strong online reputation: unified approach across multiple venues

General principles

1. Prevention in less expensive than treatment2. Aim to control as many search results as

possible (diversity is important: choose several types of sites)

3. Empty search results create vulnerability4. Avoid clicking on negative/critical websites

(because it increases it's relevance)5. Be proactive with online reviews

http://www.ted.com/talks/jason_mccue_terrorism_is_a_failed_brand.html

ASSIGNMENT

Aurora shootings BP Oil spill

Should We Call The Cops?

Article 19 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

But there are certain boundaries

Some of the negative content online actually is illegal. Why?

– It uses defamatory language– It reports false information– It is aimed at damaging the company’s reputation

Ethics and Legal Issues

Ethics and law are closely related.Ethics concerns the analysis of what is right and wrong and how we judge the differences.Modern technology presents a challenge to marketing ethics. Critical issues include:– Ownership of intellectual property– Freedom of expression– Use of data and its collection– Status of children and digital networks

• How far can you go in marketing? (Sony Ericsson cameras, taking pictures at Empire State building, talking up the product, pretend tourists)

• Can you sell customer information? (people leave all kinds of data in e-shops, can this info be sold to partners?)

• Should you recall a flawed product? (recalling cars - may affect sales A LOT - but crucial in long term)

• What is appropriate in comparison marketing? (acne products - one face side/one product)

Questions to discuss

1. What is Sprulock’s argument against product placement in TV programming?

2. What Spurlock’s purpose in creating the film?3. Identify Spurlock’s argument about schools and advertising.

Defend, challenge or qualify his point of view.4. Spurlock argues that modern films rely on product placement

because they need money to fund their creation. Explain the moral/ethical dilemma in such decisions.

5. Is entertainment that’s a “commercial” such a bad thing?6. Identify one question that should be posed to Spurlock that

Tavis Smiley omits. Explain your reasoning.

CAN A CRITICAL FILM ABOUT MARKETING USE BRANDING TO MAKE

ITS POINT?

consider whether or not big business sponsorship changes the purpose of any documentary.

http://vimeo.com/33741794

http://vimeo.com/33741794

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online reputation management ethics webpr