Definition of reputation management
“Online reputation management, or ORM, is the practice of ongoing research and analysis of an individual’s personal or professional, business or industry reputation, as represented by content in all types of online media.”
The pervasive nature of the Internet has resulted in an increasing number of consumers and retailers using the Internet as a form of communication through email, advertising, and business transactions. In the UK during 2007, the total value of online sales was £163 billion. This figure showed a staggering 30% growth over the previous 12 months. (Office for National Statistics, 2008)
Regardless of whether a business actually transacts business online; all companies need to be aware of how they are perceived. A negative perception online can not only affect offline sales and investment, but it can also deter potential employees from joining an organization, effectively crippling a business of revenue and new talent. In Ten Tactics That Could Save Your Reputation Online, Andy Beal writes that “Assume it all hits the web” and that those in business should “Monitor…[their] online reputation as often as your email” (Beal, A 2008)
Online reputation management is accomplished through Internet monitoring technology that provides early warning to businesses about references to them on the Internet. By scanning the Internet for target words or phrases, company name, product brands, and the name of key people; a report based on the positive or negative character of how the business is perceived is returned to the user.
These services allow organizations to immediately become aware of any negative reviews, blogs, or new stories. At the same time, it notifies intellectual copyright owners if a registered trademark or copyrighted work has been posted online, allowing legal owners to challenge any potential copyright infringement.
The areas that are protected by online reputation management companies, also sometimes called reputation monitoring companies, are:
– Trademark scanning: report the use of trademarks over the Internet.
– PPC: Reporting of competitors bidding for brand/product name in online advertising campaigns.
– News Articles: News and Media entries will be identified, classified and reported.
– Multimedia: YouTube and popular image-sharing sites like Flickr will be scanned for results related to a client’s reputation or brand.
This type of service is defined as passive since it only provides detection. Active Online Reputation Management uses the technical skills of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to displace negative referrals to a customer from search engine results. Typically, a successful active strategy would be to remove any inaccurate referrals through appeal and negotiation while simultaneously working to crowd out negative referrals by increasing positive result rankings on Google and Yahoo-Bing. Negative entries are then removed where possible or buried deep within search engine results pages to minimize their exposure.
As with any product, prices vary depending on the level of service each company provides, from free to many thousands per month for large organizations with multiple products and brands to monitor.
