Reputation management<\/strong>\u00a0refers to influencing and controlling an individual’s or business’s\u00a0reputation. Originally the expansion of the\u00a0internet\u00a0and\u00a0social media along with reputation management companies, have made it primarily an issue of\u00a0search results.\u00a0Online reputation management, sometimes abbreviated as ORM, is primarily concerned with managing the results on websites that evaluate products and services and make recommendations and referrals.\u00a0Ethical grey areas include\u00a0mug shot removal sites,\u00a0astroturfing\u00a0review sites, censoring negative complaints or using\u00a0search engine optimization\u00a0tactics to\u00a0influence results.<\/p>\n

What are people saying about you? Good online reputation management is not only about reacting well to what people say about you, your brand, or your products and services, but also about whether to react at all and, if so, when. Sometimes a reaction is not necessary, and sometimes a reaction that is too late can cost you millions.<\/p>\n

A proactive approach to the matter consists of monitoring your public reputation on a regular basis, and not just when you come to know about a specific event to deal with. How do you do this? The magic tools invented to solve this problem fall under the name of \u201csocial media monitoring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simply put,\u00a0social media monitoring<\/strong>\u00a0allows companies to gather public online content (from blog posts to tweets, from online reviews to Facebook updates), process it, and see whether something negative or positive is being said affecting their reputation.<\/p>\n

What if someone googles your brand name and finds defamatory content? Let\u2019s see what they are:<\/p>\n

\n
• Negative reviews<\/strong>: Review sites allow users to express their opinion on your brand. Did they like your service\/product? Would they recommend it? Negative content can affect your sales, and addressing the criticism on the site may not be enough. Websites like Ripoff Report and Pissed Consumer provide the perfect platform for this kind of negative content.<\/li>\n
• Hate sites<\/strong>: Some people go beyond simple negative reviews and create ad hoc websites with their opinions, some of them containing illegal content. So-called \u201chate sites\u201d sometimes address companies and public figures with insults and false information. Needless to say, a search result like \u201cThe truth about NAMEOFYOURCOMPANY\u201d or \u201cNAME scam\/rip off\u201d will make your potential customers run away!<\/li>\n
• Negative media coverage<\/strong>:\u00a0Phineas T. Barnum\u00a0used to say \u201cThere\u2019s no such thing as bad publicity.\u201d That may be true for controversial public figures like Paris Hilton, but many times unfavorable TV, print, and online media coverage impacts negatively on companies and brands.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

   <\/p>\n

  How do you react to all of this? How do you defend yourself or your company from this kind of illegal behavior? Depending on the scope of the problem, several paths can be pursued in order to restore your online reputation:<\/p>\n

  \n
  • Aggressive SEO<\/strong>: If someone googles your name, appearing on page 1 and 2 of the search results will be much more important than your business card or website. They will show at a glance several high ranking web sources talking about you. If they display false information, the first thing that you or your online reputation management company should do is devise a search marketing strategy that increases the ranking of positive content, owned by either you or third parties. The search engine game is too important to be ignored, and it is the first step in restoring your image.<\/li>\n
  • Review removal<\/strong>: Did that user claim something false about your company? Is that review clearly aimed at destroying your reputation rather than providing feedback? Does it contain improper language? Legal liaison and speed of reaction will make it possible to remove the negative review.<\/li>\n
  • Online investigations<\/strong>: In case of serious attacks to your brand image, it may be necessary to hire skilled online analysts to investigate untraceable threats and attackers via email tracing, data cross-indexing, and other information collection techniques. Cyber investigations are the definitive path to get to the bottom of difficult reputation management cases.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Reputation management\u00a0refers to influencing and controlling an individual’s or business’s\u00a0reputation. Originally the expansion of the\u00a0internet\u00a0and\u00a0social media along with reputation management companies, have made it primarily an issue of\u00a0search results.\u00a0Online reputation management, sometimes abbreviated as ORM, is primarily concerned with managing the results on websites that evaluate products and services and make recommendations and referrals.\u00a0Ethical grey […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[30,21,28,27,20],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webigg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webigg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webigg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webigg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webigg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.webigg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":525,"href":"https:\/\/www.webigg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521\/revisions\/525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webigg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webigg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webigg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}