Online Reputation Management

Nowadays, online presence and brand visibility is not automatically considered a good thing. In fact, having a huge online presence and getting negative feedback is worse than not having one at all. Not only is your brand’s reputation tarnished, the sheer numbers involved on the Internet means the negative reputation is amplified to levels that are beyond your ability to control. Very few small to medium-sized companies have the ability to recover from a negative online reputation. This is where Online Reputation Management becomes important.

 

What is Online Reputation Management?

As the name implies, Online Reputation Management is basically a company’s means of protecting its image and branding on the World Wide Web, where it is at risk of being tarnished by smear tactics or minor incidents being blown out of proportion. At the base level, Online Reputation Management consists of Monitoring, Optimization, and Engaging of potential threats.

 

Monitoring of Potential Issues

You can use various online tools (such as Google Alerts, RSS feed subscriptions to popular aggregators such as Technorati or Blogpulse, and Social Media sites such as Facebook and Google Plus) to look for feedback and mentions of your company, plus context sensitive keywords like ‘scam’, ‘sucks’, ‘deceptive’, and other words that people may use to denigrate your company.

 

Optimization as a Means of Prevention

While it is true that optimizing the content of your company website and building satellite sites to corner problematic search strings will work better if employed as a preventive measure than a means of damage control, you still need to continue using it as a reactive measure by way of displacing current search results and maintaining control of the situation.

 

Engaging the Problem

Bear in mind that Online Reputation Management is not a one-time activity, and a company must constantly monitor the web and protect their brand visibility. This involves a lot of research, SEO, brand promotion and participation in online activities that may help groom their reputation to the online community.

It is best to be proactive and not be overconfident in your brand. As the case with any industry, a tarnished reputation will destroy any chances of success of a product or service, regardless of how effective and authentic they are.

Contact Me By Clickling HereĀ  : SEO Consultant!

Sincerely,

Malaysia SEO Consultant

 

Steven Yap

Internet Marketing Specialist