The Basics of Online
Reputation Management

Your brand’s reputation depends on what people say about it on the web. The internet is no longer part of a list of things to take care of: it is the number one aspect to consider when doing business both from a positive perspective (what we can gain) and a negative one (what we are losing).

False reviews, hate sites, and negative comments about companies, products, and services affect sales and reputation on a daily basis and have a tangible effect on business owners’ lives: income loss, missed opportunities, and much more. Libel damages on the internet are not a one-time episode: a persistent stream of negative search engine results can cost millions if nobody is addressing the problem.

That is why Online Reputation Management is becoming so popular and sought after. Brands now realize that their quiet, digital enemies are preventing them from fully achieving the success they deserve (in the best case scenario). In this article, we will show you a few basic tips to deal with the most common problems.

It’s not enough to rely on occasional Google searches or general business monitoring anymore. Since your company might suffer relatively small libel damages already, you may end up not noticing what is happening out there.

How can you really make sure nobody is illegally damaging your reputation and affecting your revenue? Online reputation management tools allow you to constantly monitor what people are saying about you.

The simplest tool to keep track of your reputation is Google Alert, where you can create a persistent web search for a specific search query (the name of your company, product, etc) and get updates when new web pages talking about you get indexed. This is also useful to monitor positive customer feedback.

An account of online reputation management cannot exclude Social Analytics tools and services. These allow you to gather and monitor large collections of social media data and monitor the “sentiment” linked to brand names. Some, among the most popular ones, are BlogMeter, ClickTale, and Collective Intellect.

Many people find out their companies or services received negative reviews and don’t know what to do about it. There is no easy answer since each situation requires a specific approach, but there are three main aspects to take into account.

Online investigations are becoming the standard in our internet-centric world. Current technologies allow online reputation management companies to locate “attackers” with IP and email tracing and a wide range of cybercrime monitoring tools. Understanding who our opponents are is essential.

How can you remove negative content and instantly reduce the damage? Removing negative reviews is not a simple process, but with the execution of a 4 step plan like this, it is often achieved:

• Scope analysis
• Implementation of SEO strategy
• Site terms and industry internet law study
• Legal Liaison

The third thing is very simple: even if you removed the source of trouble, that has already affected your revenue and reputation. If you lost a large amount of money or your reputation was highly affected, you may want to take serious legal actions against content publishers.