I have helped several brands with their online reputation management (ORM) during my digital marketing career.
Unfortunately, most of this work involved trying to help brands recover from a crisis.
Even more unfortunate was that the damage to his reputation could have been largely mitigated by proactive effort.
What follows is a basic three-pronged approach to a proactive ORM strategy.
1. Own your name
Often what looks like a reputation issue is more of an SEO issue related to entity optimization. As search engines seek to understand brands as entities, it’s important to amplify the signals that help them know who you are and what you do.
For most companies, using Organizational chart it’s an important first step in letting search engines know who you are.
This simple tagging system is hidden in the source code of a page on your website and acts as a data source to display information about your brand or business.
At a minimum, the following information must be labeled:
Name.Address.Link to your logo. Links to official active social media sites (and Wikipedia if you already have a page).
Another aspect is to claim your business name on major social media sites. Even if you don’t use a channel, it’s a good idea to take your brand to prevent someone else from trying to impersonate you.
If your brand is big enough, it would be beneficial to make sure your Wikipedia page is correct and up-to-date, or if you don’t already have one, create one.
Making and editing pages directly by brand representatives is frowned upon and problematic, so hiring an agency that specializes in this type of work would be better.
If you are part of a brand with well-known leaders, you should also consider claiming domain names and social media sites under their names.
Politicians, especially, seem to forget this step and often have to contend with parody and impersonation sites created by their opponents.
Finally, owning the .com, .net, and .org versions of your main website is a great idea.
Global brands may wish to extend this to ccTLDs where the company operates or may operate in the future.
For even more insurance, it’s helpful to buy domains with negative messages like:
ihatebrand.com or i-hate-brand.comboycottbrand.com or boycott-brand.com
You might think these last examples are a bit extreme, but I’ve seen brand detractors go out of their way and spend a lot of their own money to set up hate websites on domains like these.
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2. Own your story
In SEO, we say, “content is king.” This concept is also true in ORM.
Owning your story often means creating content on your website that will potentially trump any negative content others may post online.
The more content you can rank in branded searches on your own, controlled channels like your website or social media accounts, the more you can move negative content off page 1 of search results and out of sight for most of the search engines.
As the old joke goes, the best place to hide a dead body is on page 2 of Google search results because no one will find it there.
In extreme cases, it may be necessary to create content to address a specific topic around which a brand detractor has generated a lot of content.
When this happens, bringing in an ORM and SEO expert would be helpful if you don’t have that expertise in-house.
What seems completely innocuous to the casual website visitor is a barrage of negative content. For example, don’t respond directly if a hater has created content around alleged food poisoning targeting your restaurant.
Create content on your website that highlights the brand’s commitment to food safety and the number of passed inspections performed by health officials.
3. Own your reviews
Some companies revolve around reviews. For them, this can be life or death.
I have worked with many brands that had trouble recruiting. The reason? There are too many negative reviews on Indeed and Glassdoor.
If you think your business doesn’t live and die by reviews, I encourage you to pay attention anyway.
One of the main keys to reviews is to respond to each one. Respond to positive reviews with a quick “thank you” and move on. Negative reviews take a little more work.
Many negative reviews are the result of missed expectations. You can often diffuse the negativity of the review by how you respond. A simple apology, an offer to make things right, and an invitation to give you another chance can mitigate the success of a negative review.
It is important not to be too defensive or to shift the blame for the problem back to the complainant. This will almost always backfire.
Hint: Don’t reply when you’re angry!
Some companies, especially those in regulated industries, need to be careful how they respond.
Therefore, a response guide is critical to helping everyone stay within the guidelines while responding effectively to reviews. An invitation to contact a customer service representative by phone or secure message would be appropriate.
Prepare for a crisis
Another critical process in proactive ORM work is preparing for a crisis before it starts.
Establish documented procedures to guide the entire company when a situation occurs. At a minimum, the plan must include:
Who will monitor potential crises? Who should be informed when it occurs? Who will do what during the crisis? MonitoringReportsResponse
If you can also include potential scenarios that might arise, all the better.
The more you prepare, the easier it will be to get through a difficult time.
Are you already in crisis? Please don’t panic
A vital part of any ORM strategy should include reviews of all written content about the brand. This information can be an invaluable part of a business.
Your customers are the best focus group you can get. They don’t have to pay to tell you about your business.
You can do this efficiently by setting up Google Alerts to alert you whenever your brand or key people are mentioned by name.
Collecting reviews and feeding them back into product and service improvements can help ensure your reputation stays positive.
According to speaker and author Jay Baer, even some brands reward his detractors for the valuable information they offer.
A great resource to help you get started in a proactive ORM program is Repped: 30 days to a better online reputation by Andy Beal. Considered by many to be the “godfather” of online reputation management, Beal’s book is full of great information and actionable advice to get your business moving in the right direction.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
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About the author
Elmer Boutin is vice president of operations for WrightIMC, a full-service digital marketing agency based in Dallas. After a career in the US Army as a translator and intelligence analyst, he has worked in digital marketing for over 25 years doing everything from coding and optimizing websites to managing management efforts of online reputation as an independent contractor, corporate webmaster and in agency settings. He has extensive experience and expertise working for companies of all sizes, from SMBs to Fortune 5 sized corporations, including Wilsonart, Banfield Pet Hospital, Corner Bakery Cafe, Ford Motor Company, Kroger, Mars Corporation and Valvoline; optimization of websites focused on local, e-commerce, informational, educational and international.
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