by Francois Muscat | Oct 26, 2020 | Online Reputation Management
Online reputation management (ORM) is a concern for any business with a growing online presence. Digital marketing requires constant effort. Managing negative publicity is just another part of the puzzle.
Despite the best intentions and all the SEO know-how in the world, your brand could be suffering from negative publicity. You may stumble upon a negative review or a complaint which you need to manage to avert long-term damage.
Let’s explore how you can detect, prevent, and take action against brand-harm.
Online Reputation Management – Prevention is Better Than Cure
While not all-encompassing, preventing negative publicity should be your first order of business.
Businesses with noble intentions and good ethics will mitigate most damage. The key is keeping track of information given by the company. Make sure it’s factual. Make sure to keep tabs on staff and how they conduct themselves online and respond to queries in a timeous fashion.
How to Detect Reputational Damage
Apart from social media, you can set up Google Alerts for brand-specific keywords or keyphrases. Google will alert you daily of any new content that pops up online mentioning your brand.
This way, you’re sure to be kept abreast of other people mentioning your brand online.
Of course, you want to keep an eye on all the major social media channels and hashtags or @mentions.
Not only are these good ways to detect reputational damage, but they can help you engage with your customers. You’ll also be able to see good things written about your business or brand. It’s much better than Googling your keyword every once in a while.
It may even help you present new solutions to existing problems.
Tools you can use to monitor your online presence include:
- Awario
- Reputology
- Go Fish Digital Complaint Search
- SEO Spyglass
- Grade.us
- Brandwatch
- ReviewTrackers
Furthermore, there are tools to outsource or automate social media monitoring:
- Radian6
- Meltwater Buzz
- Sysomos Heartbeat
If you follow this procedure religiously, it’s unlikely something will slip under the radar.
Taking Action Against Negative Publicity
Once you’ve identified anything that causes your business or brand reputational harm, it’s time to take action.
Some things to look out for could be defamation, fake news, brand abuse, or abuse of trademarks or copyrights. Should you find any of these on a web page, you may attempt to have it removed.
While it may not be easy to have a page removed without concrete evidence of incorrect information, you can attempt removal based on the following:
- Laws (both local and international)
- ISP terms
- Search engine terms and quality guidelines
- Hosting site terms of use
You may need to look at precedent as well and the author of the content’s motivations. Businesses have legal avenues to pursue in case of libel, such as consulting an experienced defamation lawyer.
Sometimes it’s better to try and bury the defamatory content by creating pages that rank higher for the search term.
The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) can be used to file what is known as a DMCA take-down. It’s one avenue a business can use to fight copyright infringement by sending a notice to the web host or ISP.
If the DMCA notice doesn’t work, the company has other legal resources to consider. The appropriate action will depend on the laws of the land and may require expert help.
Conclusion
While online reputation management can be a chore, it shouldn’t be if your business is proactive and conducts itself with good ethics.
Check out the rest of our blog for more pro tips.
by Francois Muscat | Apr 9, 2019 | Online Reputation Management
SEO reputation management is a service that companies are increasingly turning towards out of necessity. If negative search results are causing you grief, damaging your brand, or impacting sales, it is time to take action.
In today’s world of negative media consumption, one negative article, news story or bad customer review can impact your business. Too often, we see this type of content reach the top of Google’s search results and completely wipe out a company’s growth.
Over 90% of consumers research a company, product or service online before they make a purchase. Once they have honed in on a product, company or the CEO of a company, they search for that specific name. When they do, you better hope that there is no dirt on that name. If there is, you could also consider that lead, customer or fan lost forever.
Whether you are an athlete, consultant, celebrity or an Average Joe, you are still subject to online reputation damage. DUI’s, court cases, lawsuits, dud photos – all of these things could have your digital name stamped on it and this information can be presented by search engines to the world.
You need a solution for cleaning up your online reputation. Your strategy should be proactive and, in some cases, aggressive. The challenge is that most of the content can’t be removed from the internet because you can’t control the websites that the information has been posted on. With WSI’s help, however, you can work towards ensuring that the bad, horrible and even sometimes dirty content never gets found if they are searching for your name, your company or your product.
Contact WSI OMS for more information about how we can help you use SEO and other digital marketing services to improve your online reputation.
by Marelise da Silva | Jun 21, 2018 | Community Management, Online Reputation Management
How are you supposed to track what people are saying about you all across the internet? Online reputation management doesn’t have to be an expensive, labour intensive process. Here are a few things to keep in mind:
There are over 300 social platforms on the internet. The biggest are undoubtedly Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, but there are also many niche social media platforms that may be relevant to your niche. Following social media sites, you’ve also got blogs, forums, and review websites. Many of these sites have been created with the intent of providing people a platform where they can share their experience with a brand.
There are a number of free tools available for online reputation management, such as Google Alerts. This is a free service that works with your Google account. All you have to do is login and type the phrase that you want to track (this may be a brand, your own name, or a trademarked name) and it will report back to you on a daily, weekly or fortnightly basis of the mentions of that phrase online. A Google Alert will also show you where the term has been published, which means you can choose to interact with positive or negative brand mentions online with the help of these alerts.
Hootsuite and Tweetdeck are also great online reputation management tools that are geared towards social media activity. Both of these tools will pull information from social media sites if your brand name is mentioned. You can then choose to interact with people who are contacting you on social media.
These strategies will give you an overview of what’s being said about you online, but many companies require a more hands-on approach. WSI OMS can help you with both online reputation management as well as community management. Contact us http://www.wsioms.co.za/contact-us for more information today.
by Francois Muscat | Mar 14, 2017 | Online Reputation Management
By Francois Muscat
What happens when you Google your name, your brand or your product’s name? If you don’t have complete control over what people read about you, then you’re not off to a good start when it comes to building your online presence. Here are a few things that we did to make sure that Jason Scholtz’s search results contain information that was published by him:
Social media websites already rank well in Google. Therefore, if you want to make sure that people find information about you that you have approved when they search your name, it’s worth your time to create complete profiles on all the top social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Twitter.
A blog is a way to share information about yourself online. You can write how-to articles, checklists, opinion pieces about market trends or share case studies about projects that you have worked on. Optimise these blogs for your name or brand name and you have another way of publishing content that stands a chance of ranking well in search results.
- Share information and contribute helpful advice on other platforms
Commenting on other blog posts or becoming an author on article-publishing platforms such as Ezinearticles.com can go a long way in getting your name to rank well in search results. Find out which blog posts are popular, influential and rank well in your industry – then make sure you are contributing helpful advice to these online communities.
These are just a few of the ways that Jason Scholtz has succeeded in building an online presence. Contact WSI OMS for more information today.
by Marelise da Silva | Jan 19, 2017 | Online Reputation Management
Your online reputation plays an important role when it comes to the success of your social media and digital marketing efforts. Turning to an external company with specialization in this vital field will help your establishment grow in leaps and bounds. Here are a few reasons as to why it’s always a good idea to outsource your online reputation management to the professionals:
-
They Will Help to Increase Your Following and Visibility
An online reputation management company is responsible for more than simply ensuring that you don’t wind up with a bad reputation, they are also responsible for actually building a good one. By enlisting their services, you can be guaranteed that your following is going to increase at a rapid pace and that your digital marketing efforts will reach a far greater number of people.
-
They Will Help to Give You the ‘Edge’
Quality online reputation management involves keeping an eye on the activities of your competitors – along with their results achieved. Based on this info, your ORM company will suggest the best course of action to outshine and gain the ‘edge’ over the competition’.
ORM is a full-time job… especially when it comes to social media. Your followers are active online at all hours of the day and night. The question is, do you have the time and the internal resources necessary to do the same? Luckily, a professional ORM company offers their services 24/7/365, so if a follower has something to say, whether good or bad, they will always receive a timeous reply and an all-around positive experience.
Looking for online reputation management services that you know you can count on? Then be sure to contact the experts at WSI OMS today!
by Francois Muscat | Jul 11, 2016 | Digital Media Marketing, Online Marketing, Online Reputation Management
Knowledge is power
To benchmark is to “evaluate (something) by comparison with a standard”. It does not mean to copy or plagiarize or pirate. So rest assured that when our experts suggest you look to your competitors as part of your digital marketing strategy, we are not suggesting you do any such thing.
However, there is no one who understands the ins and outs of your industry quite like your competitors. They may be your rivals, but they can also be your allies. Knowing how you compare with them assists you to evolve your digital marketing campaigns and to outline your medium to long term strategy.
Through the looking glass
When potential customers are doing their online research, they often look at you and your competition side by side. Putting yourself in your customers’ shoes provides awareness on where you can improve.
Innovation
Having a thorough look at the digital marketing efforts of your competitors can encourage you to try new methods related to content, design, or the brand communications used.
Today, 80% of online content is user-generated, which means that consumers are now collaborators in the marketing mix. And there is no reason to limit this alliance to only your clients and prospects. Conversations in which your competitors’ clients are engaged are equally applicable to your business, and can give you insights which you may not have gleaned from your own exchanges.
Questions frequently asked of your opposition are a valuable source of content and engagement when combined with your unique slant on the issues.
At the end of the day, your fiercest rivals have an integral role in holding you to a higher standard and pushing you to your limits. When the rivalry is mutual, your entire industry benefits and profits.
To find out more about how WSI OMS can inspire you, please contact us today.
