Online reputation management-Changing the consumer mindset

Online reputation management entails a transitional shift from the bad to the good. Let us understand from the perspective of the consumer how online reputation management (ORM) can affect his decision making process. A consumer who is searching for buying something online or wants to read a review before making a purchase at a nearby store will log on to the net and check for some information.

Quite reflexively, I must say, many latch onto Google or Yahoo to type in a few key terms or key phrases that give information about a product. A website gives only limited amount of reviews. So in order to make the most of information intake, the consumer goes to a search engine and puts the name of a particular brand, product or service to find relevant information in the form of reviews, blogs or forum sites. The consumer is most likely (84 percent to be on the safe side of percentages) to look at the first two pages of a search engine. Can you imagine, if the search engine results on the very first page gives not so flattering views and reviews about a product or service. The very first page of Google or such other search engine will have done the damage and the consumer will change his mind and go to some other product or service, mostly the one belonging to the competitor.

Online reputation management is an exercise to make sure such negative things about your product or service does not crop up in the first two search results pages of Google or any other search engine. While doing so, the online reputation management team uses the best optimization skills at their disposal to make sure that only good and positive information about your product or service appears in the first two pages of a search engine. Imagine if the same customer who uses the same key terms for a product or service finds relevant, useful, positive information about your product or service, what will his line of thought be? Will he go ahead and buy the product/service? Of course he will. Will he recommend about your product or service to others? Of course, he will. This proves that online reputation management is quite crucial for your business to grow exponentially and also to make sure that your business enjoys a substantial amount of goodwill in the market.

Using online reputation management to market your business online

The post mentioned below talks about the power of online reputation management and writing effective content to make good amount of information and positive news about your company feature on the first two pages of Google or any other search engine.

Apart from writing good content and providing back links, there are many other steps that can help in online reputation management. Discussed below are some of the ideal methods to increase the presence of your business online:

• Social networking sites: You can make the most use of social networking sites for spreading awareness and a virtual 'fan club' for your product or service. Setting up online communities and making them interactive is a good idea. You can also make the most of social bookmarking sites like Del.icio.us and Technorati and tagging them to certain associating tags. In fact, these social book marking sites have a huge number of visitors who will tag your content to their website or online business if they find something interesting. Social bookmarking sites and video uploading sites like YouTube etc give a chance to make your online businss come 'alive' Make sure you use effective tags while bookmarking for your social bookmarking site. For instance if your company's name is Horseshoe, then make sure you tag terms like: shoes, footwear, horse, etc.

• If it a new concept you are promoting or if you want to build content for a company that is famous, you can write in wikipedia or even use the ‘edit’ option of Wikipedia.
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• A lot of positive reviews or feeback can be written on specialized siters like www.consumerrview.com. If you are marketing a product, you can use shopping search sites like shopping.com.

• · You can set up a tracking system like Google alerts for free which monitor any of the search results that comes up with the terms that are related to your product or service.

These are some of the common ways that can be used to boost your search engine rankings apart from writing effective search engine friendly content.

Online reputation management and the power of effective content

Online reputation management is antidote to negative publicity online. A negative post or piece of information that comes on the first page of a search engine page like Google can be bad news to your online business. It is now easy for an customer or a lay man with even limited use of computers to post their views online in forum sites, blogs and other web 2.0 platforms.

You may not be able to obliterate negative results disappear completely from a search engine. However, you can definitely impact the search engine results in such a way that only positive and relevant information about your product or service features in the ‘first two’ pages of a search engine. As we know online reputation management is a healthy amalgamation of PR skills and search engine optimization. You can definitely use ORM to your best advantage by marketing your product or service in the right manner.

Writing effective content is one of the best ways to exercise wise online reputation management. Good amount of interesting, original content is the right way to thrust online reputation management effectively. In fact, not only will effective content will win you a lot of support and patronage, it will also make many sites or blogs ‘link back’ to you. With the help of valuable backlinks and your expert knowledge about the product, you can increase the positioning of your business to such a measure that it can feature in the first two pages of a search engine.

You can also submit various articles to famous article directories online. These article directories have a resource box at the end, where you can include your company name that will link back the readers back to your website or blog. There are certain specialist sites or article directories that specially deal with the product or service you are dealing with. In this case, you can put in a keyword or two about your industry along with the phrase ‘article directory’ or ‘submit articles.’ For instance, if your company deals in home loans, you can write home loans article directory.

ORM- A bankable proposition

The concept of online reputation management shines glaringly bright as you see banks and financial institutions facing the whack due to negative publicity. In India, for the past few days, prominent banks have faced flak and considerable negative publicity thanks to a slew of online posts and news reports which accuse these financial institutions of mentally and physically harassing their customers.

In India and many other countries, private banks outsource the work to recovery agents or companies for recovery of debt. Such banks or their recovery agents employ pressure tactics or use aggressive language to coerce people to pay their existing debt or outstanding loan amount. Many bore the brunt silently and painfully, until recently when a major tabloid laid bare the shocking news of a person driven to suicide following the coercive measures adopted by the bank.

Thanks to the sensationalism and public outcry that spanned the media, online and offline, the bank received considerable negative publicity. The bank was directed to pay a huge sum of money as compensation to the family of the deceased. The media then launched a tirade against other banks too who had adopted aggressive pressure tactics as a recovery measure. There were reports of a person getting mentally tortured to the point of insanity, another customer’s 7 year old son getting victimized due to the continuous phone calls by the bank. Many stories still float both online and in tabloids and the media is hungry for more. The law has intervened and has prescribed a norm, those banks and financial institutions have to abide by, while employing collection agents. In fact, there is a talk of a movie being made on recovery agents.

Where does it all lead to when it comes to the online reputation management of these banks and financial institutions? For one, two of the major banks are contemplating discontinuation of personal loans because they are backed without any security. They do not want to be dragged in the dragnet. Banks and financial institutions are now wary about their online reputation management because negative posts from any unsatisfied customer can only rub salt to their wounds.

It is a ‘must’ to make sure that no negative post of any kind reaches the first two pages of a search engine like Google because it can harm the company’s reputation, market share and goodwill. It is high time, companies-banks or otherwise stay focused on consumer satisfaction and be sensitive to public interest. Online reputation management is a sure-shot way to rise above negative publicity like a veritable phoenix from the ashes. Trust online reputation management to make the best use of SEO and PR to formulate intelligent and honest content that are appealing to your customers while also taking care of your company’s profitability. ORM, obviously is a bankable proposition!

Online reputation management-We take good care of you!

No matter what reputation you command in the market, the truth is that everybody cannot be pleased every time. Sometime someone or the other is bound to be unhappy or displeased. Ten years ago, the manufacturer and the marketeer was the king. He dictated the market and in times where there was a monopoly, the consumer had to grin and bear it. But in the year 2007, the consumer grins and bares it. The year 2007 has witnessed a lot of ‘so-called prestigious’ brands losing their control over the market thanks to consumer power.

Online reputation management is paramount to your business. Even one customer lost is bad news because it offsets a chain reaction which can spread its tentacles to a lot of other potential customers. It is too big a risk to take! As a responsible business, you must be dedicated and honest while dealing with your customers. You must take care that ther are no negative posts or stories being floated online about your company. This can be done by taking care of your customers’ needs and also by keeping a tab on the competition. You must be alert and smart enough to sniff competition and potential threat and act accordingly. Right from the office boy to the CEO, everyone matters and everyone has a deciding influence on the brand image that you convey.

As online reputation guardians, our intention is to act wisely and see that every negative post that can be a blotch on your brand is done away with. Online reputation management is hand-in-glove with efficient customer service. We know that it is tough to reach to the top but it is all even tougher to maintain that position. Once you are a leading brand, there are a lot of people who would like to pull you down. It gives them a sense of vengeance. Do not let that happen to your brand. Once you are at the top, maintain that position.

In the present scenario and in future, how you portray yourself online makes a difference between a good brand and the best brand. There are a huge number of blogs that can be a potential threat to your online business or even to the business that you are marketing online. There are blogs growing at 60 a minute and it is not necessary that all of them have good things to say about your brand. As a matter of fact, you need to make sure that none of these negative posts come on the first two pages of a search engine. This calls for smart online reputation management.

A lot of powerful personalities and brands have been shrouded with negative publicity which follows them wherever they are. No amount of PR can save the damage done to their reputation be it a Michael Jackson or an Enron. Online reputation management is an exercise to see that helping hand is given at the right time so that the reputation is not only salvaged but maintained too. An ORM can reach to millions of people online at a time rather than a PR exercise or a press release which cannot reach a wider scale of audience. Online reputation management separates the reality from the perception. Are you ready to be the part of the change?

Travel operators and online reputation management

Major airline companies as well as travel companies are gearing up to better their efforts at online reputation management. Online travel sites are frequented and subscribed to by a lot of users because of the convenience factors. You can book tickets at subsidized rates and you also enjoy the convenience of booking your tickets from the comfort of your own home. However, though it is a hot online industry, it invites a lot of wrath and bad publicity if things go wrong. There are issues when the credit card charge is declined, tickets are not delivered at the right time, the seat numbers go awry or if there is a fraudulent charge on the account. At all of these times and more, the consumer has to take the flak.

Consumers make sure that they vent their dissatisfaction in blogs and forum sites. If you take the example of a website like makemytrip.com, in mouthshut.com, you will see giving reviews about how the service sucked or how they were charged in fraudulently. The allegations may be true or in some cases, even the company can be right. How does the online travel company give it clarification or provide a suitable response. It does through a corporate blog, a platform that companies like makemytrip.com have done proactively on the mouthshut.com site, in reply to consumer comments and whiplash. It is a positive step that such companies have taken to make sure that they retain their business, show their side of the picture to its customers. Above all, it improves the communication level between the customers and the company.

By virtue of the corporate blog, a lot of queries have been resolved and a lot of doubts, issues and speculations have been put to rest. Progressive companies like makemytrip.com have gone ahead and scouted through various blogs and forum sites to find out what exactly is being written about their service. This helps to take care of the loopholes and set the wrongs right. Some times companies even do not mind by passing certain charges or eliminating certain costs which consumers have to give for the sake of goodwill. A little sacrifice certainly pays and a steady monitoring helps to a vast extent. Is your firm practicing online reputation management?

Using online reputation management to the optimum

Your company may be enjoying an impressive customer patronage and may be a name in the market to reckon with. However there is always a risk of a blog post reaching the first page of the search engine listing and causing damage to the goodwill that you’ve built steadily since a long time. A negative comment spreads like wild fire in the Internet and there are many who jump in the bandwagon, some doing it seriously while some adding a negative comment just for the kicks. Either way, your sales figure can pirouette and dip if you do not take concrete steps to resolve the matter. The answer is online reputation management.

Here are some ways to use online reputation management:

1. You can respond to the negative blog with a clarifying post. You can write them as comments in the blogs and message boards that have written ill about you .If you have proofs to back your stand, it is even better. You may even add a link that takes you to your corporate blog. While countering negative post, you must make sure that you do not use harsh language or any amount of exaggeration that makes readers even more suspicious.
2. You can host a corporate blog in conjuction to the complaints forum site. Readers will definitely benefit from this because they will be able to see both sides of the picture. A corporate blog can even be hosted as a part of your main website. Make sure the language in your corporate blog is polite but assertive. Using keyword rich content in your blog works for optimizing your web-page too.
3. Taking a leaf from the second point, make sure that whatever content you are adding either to your corporate blog, message boards or even on your main site, should be keyword rich. If you optimize your web-page well, there is a fair chance that your brand comes on the first page of the search engine.
4. Make sure you add the latest stories, achievements, success stories, customer testimonials, press releases etc on various article directories apart from your main websites.
5. Get access to trade magazines which reports on your business. Find out the latest buzz and if your company is going to be a part of a trend, make sure you let the readers know about it. Market your product or even soft-sell it in social networking websites. Participate in online business communities to get the pulse of the market and find out how you can use the news and data to formulate a strategy to give more exposure to your brand.

Online reputation management-Look who is talking now

Online reputation management and the power of social media are quite important for fortifying your company’s presence, and directing traffic to your website. What exactly is social media? Well it is the platform that allows each one of us the freedom to say what you want through blogs, message boards. You are able to share your views and opinions with a lot of people who agree, disagree or endorse your statements. Public relations are no more a domain frequented by professionals and journalists. Spreading the word is an attitude of the people, for the people and by the people. As close to democracy, isn’t it?


Quite evidently, people will trust the junta(the common people) or high-brow PR experts or journalists. The empathy factor is quite high as people write in a comment or two endorsing the complaint written by a person in her blog. People are talking and how! Not just with written matter but also in an audio-visual format. Which means, that people are now uploading pictures, videos of any scenario of bad customer experience so that others can see the naked truth in full color. Blog posting or pod-casting can be summed up as once bitten, twice sly. No one can take the good ol’ consumer for a ride.


No company can satisfy all of its customers all the time. There are bound to be some criticisms for a discrepancy which can happen either voluntarily or involuntarily. Companies therefore have to monitor each and every piece of content with reference to their brand that is dished online. Monitoring and tracking the blogs and message boards thus becomes a crucial part of online reputation management. Companies have to do their duty diligently and smartly. One of the best methods to sustain their brand image and increase their customer base is through online reputation management. By virtue of this strategy, you will be able to give more exposure to your brand and make sure that your brand rules on the first page of every search engine.

Online reputation management-The language of corporate blogging

Most companies have quite rightly hosted corporate blogs both in complaint boards like mouthshut.com and also as a part of their website. In this age of consumer generated media, corporate blogs are just what the doctor ordered. It immunizes your business against negativity, acts like a tonic to consumers who feel that their pain and anguish are being addressed, and makes your business grow in a healthy manner.

While writing corporate blogs and seeing the absurdity and exaggeration of some of the posts, you may feel like flying off the handle and giving a fitting reply. Well, you may but in the end, you may be losing out on business purely due to the ‘tone’ of your content. You may be right and the consumer may have got it wrong this time but understands the universal paradigm-the consumer is always right. You have to explain your point politely, carefully and in a loving manner.

For every complaint, generally follow a three step plan:, ACKNOWLEDGE, APOLOGIZE AND ASSURE. At times, you may not need to apologize, but then again, make sure you make the consumer feel that his complaint or grievance is being addressed forthrightly. A reputation manager does not take things lightly; he has to keep a track of every blog post. Here’s how he maintains a track of all possible blogs that refer to his products/ service and formulates a plan to successful online reputation management. Bear in mind, that online reputation management is about smart PR skills combined with intelligent search engine optimization.

While writing a corporate blog, be honest and to the point about what you want to say. Do not keep your customers guessing. Even if your mistake is embarrassingly unpardonable, you should acknowledge it. There will be some way to convince the customer and provide him with incentives to keep him happy rather than take the risk of being involved in a law-suit, or face the risk of losing a lot of potential customers, thanks to a grating blogpost or infamous word of mouth publicity. The online reputation management should work in coordination with product support, tech support, and the marketing department to get a full picture.

Here is an example of a corporate blog post

Dear Keith,

Thank you for your time in replying to the message on X2B and providing the required details. We have taken cognizance of your comments and the manner in which you have shared your feedback. It is regrettable to note that your recent interaction with us has not been satisfactory to you.

We are issuing you a cheque for the differential amount, which will reach you within the next 48 hours. We sincerely appreciate your co-operation and are looking forward to give us the opportunity to service you better.

Online reputation management and Corporate blogging

Corporate blogging is a responsible move by organization that has to manage their reputation on the web. Most major players in the field are recognizing the power of blogs to empower people with the force to write about a particular brand. A single negative post that comes up on the front page of a search engine can cause immense damage to the brand and subsequently to the profit-earning capacity of the company. How does corporate blogging actually take place? What do these companies do, how do they keep track of everything negative that comes their way? Read on to know more..

Here are some steps at managing online reputation for a company which wants to steer ahead of competition and manage its impeccable reputation:

1. Setting up alerts: By setting an alert, you can keep a track of every negative post that comes in the coming weeks. You can even set specification as to how you want the alerts to appear-they can come once a day, once a week or as it happens. While setting up alerts, you should mention the search terms which are nothing but the keywords or key-phrases that relate to your product or search.

2. You can also conduct a blog search for finding blog posts that pertain to your product or service. You can do this by going to Google, clicking on the ‘more’ button and choosing ‘Blog search.’ You can preferably choose ‘advanced blog search’ and mention the keywords or key-phrases. You can choose the amount of results you want. You can also sort the results in terms of relevance or date.

3. You gather the relevant negative, positive and neutral posts about the product and collate it in a data base. Bear in mind that posts should be relevant to the product/service.

4. Go through all the negative posts and try to find out the reason behind the grievances put forth by the readers. Build a corporate blog.

5. Advertise about your corporate blog. Write keyword rich content that can easily get traffic to your blog. In your corporate blog, make sure that you do not leave any stone unturned to handle every negative blog post as possible.

6. If you write positive posts about your product or service with content that is keyword rich, your content can easily push the negative posts out of the top 2 pages of search engines. When this is achieved, only the positive things about your product or service appear on the top two pages of a search engine. However at the same time, do not, I repeat, do not just write keyword rich content just to impress search engines. Make sure you are really committed about giving superior and exceptional customer service. This is the hallmark of search engine reputation.

Online reputation management makes headline news

Midday, the famous eveninger on 31^st August, 2007 carried a front page story on how blogging can be a resourceful tool to every consumer who wants justice done. It told about how a person who uploaded the half-hearted job done by her interior decorator and uploaded it on You Tube. She shot a small video of the haphazard repair work done on the wall of her house and uploaded it on the video broadcasting site. The interior decorating company had no option but to complete the work free of charge, because it had its reputation at stake.

We have been hearing time and again that consumer is king, consumer is everything..blah, blah …till the dogs come home, but in the end, the consumer had to pay the price. Until, the consumer decided to do something about it, through the power of blogging. Now there is no stopping her as she lays bare discrepancies, discoloration and discrimination which are rampant in reputed companies known to offer quality products and services. It is high time; companies realize that they cannot take the consumer for granted. They have to take concrete steps to make sure everything is working fine for the consumer. No one wants bad publicity, decreasing market share, litigations etc.

How does the company show that it is clean and committed to serving their consumers to the hilt? Well, for one it should make sure that it closely tracks all the feedback it receives, so that there are no slip-ups. Most companies rightly host corporate blogs in conjunction to their website so that people post their problems at one place. Corporate blogs can be a hot place of action where companies can talk about their corrective measures, future plans and value added features they’d be adding to their products or services. Make the best of the blog power to get justice the way you want, quickly and justly.

Online reputation management-Reviews

One of the potent weapons that can change or sustain public opinion are review sites. Whenever there is a new movie or new product coming up, people turn to review sites. There are so many movies which have taken a beating at the box-office and there are so many products which have not even been tried, purely thanks to damaging reviews. Nothing can be done much about reviews; you can’t stop them from happening, neither can you stop people from reading them and passing judgments.

They say if you can’t beat them, join them. This is exactly how review sites can work for online reputation management. Find out people who have genuinely liked your product or service. In this generation of web 2.0, you do not have the need to spend money on market research to scout for your fans. You can find people who patronize your product quite easily in the comments/testimonial section of your website, the social networking website, blogs and message boards.

At any given day, there will be more negative posts than positive posts even though your product may be the best in the world. This is bound to be because people generally talk (or write) about things which go bad or sour rather than things which work well. You have to find out people genuinely like your product/service and do not mind penning down their views on features they liked or the ways in which your product/service added value to their life. This is one of the best moves in online reputation management.

Contact people who are appreciative about your product to spare some good words or write a short review about how the product made a difference in their lives. This method of online reputation management costs your hardly anything but can help you a lot in terms of business and client acquisition. You can also indulge in viral marketing whereby you can give a freebie or some discounts on the purchase, so that customer satisfaction on your brand is restored.

If you don’t have the time or the right people to write reviews for your product or service, you can ask proffesional bloggers to write for your product. You can get them from specialized websites like Reviewme or Pay per post. But the best bet for writing reviews for your product (as they call from the horse’s mouth) are your satisfied customers. Provide them with a link that leads to a web-based platform, where they can write and upload their views. You can also screen the reviews and include the best ones by highlighting the catchy phrases or words that can strike a chord with your readers. If need be, you can also substitute certain words with keywords or keyphrases that can bring the name of your business or brand on the first two pages of the search results page.

Online Reputation Management and social networking

It’s raining orkut, myspace, facebook, hi5,bigadda and countless amount of social networking websites-all meaning business and justifying the cliché, ‘be in touch.’ Social networking sites are the hot places where people chat, refer, tease, congratulate and play the blame game. It is also the best place to recommend something that is pleasant or to warn someone against something that is unpleasant.

There are occasions when a guy asks his online friend for a date and she agrees with a coffee joint that is known for its cool ambience and wonderful coffee. If that café happens to be yours, a positive remark like this can be quite encouraging. Being a member of a social networking site, I scraped my friend about meeting at an inn some miles away from my house. My friend replied enthusiastically that the inn has some fond memories because it was the place where he had taken his wife for their very first date.

Small things like these can not only nurture relationship but also act as a deserving pat on the back of establishments, businesses and corporations which started these endeavors. In fact some enthusiasts and fans who patronize certain hotels, movies, corporate houses even initiate online communities within these social networking sites. Like minded people become a part of these communities and add their views and opinions. For a company who wants to manage, improve or even enhance their online reputation, social networking sites are a good place to get scraping (not to be confused with scrappingJ).

You should visit these social networking websites; leave a link to your blog or website. It can work wonders for the online reputation management of your brand or product. You can scout some of the profiles that are relevant and find out how people talk about your business. If the response is not so flattering, you should start undoing things which are going wrong. You can start communities that talk good about your company. You can reply to some of the harsh comments or scrap your point of view and leave some proof that backs your statement. This can be in the form of a link that leads to your corporate blog or website or testimonies of people who have liked your product or service. Never be judgmental or defensive in your scraps or responses. Be honest and forthright. Apologize when wrong but highlight things which can be interesting and value-enhancing to the people concerned.

For people who like your brand or product, you can use their views as testimonials for your corporate blog to endorse your product after taking their permission. For people who like your product or service, thank them politely and let them know that you’d be keeping them updated for anything new that would be interesting for them.

The importance of Alerts in Online Reputation Management

If you are under the impression that you are too involved in your business to care about the Internet, you are mistaken. Your online reputation can be at stake. With a lot of people turning to electronic media for news and gossip, you cannot undermine the power of online reputation management.

There is a principle called karma in the Hindu culture, which says that every deed has its repercussions. If you do good, you are rewarded. If you do bad, you are punished. The consequence may take its own time but soon you do get your just deserts. There is a scientific rationale behind it too; as Newton said: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. As you sow, so shall you reap is another saying that typifies the relationship between cause and effect.

Taking what I said in the above paragraph to the next level, I would say that this karma spreads across the world through Internet. If you do good things, you are talked about. If you do wrong, you are sniggered at. Type the name of your company or even your name(if you are influential) and you will see a lot of things that people are talking about. Most of the talking (or rather information written) in the search-engines may not be the way you want it to be. There may be some which are disturbing and portray a negative image about you or the project you are heading. How about using online reputation management and investing in time, effort and money to make sure that information is spread in the right away about your brand? Your efforts to market yourself positively and to add posts in the first couple of pages of a search engine will certainly win you a lot of goodwill and respect.

To make sure that you get a buzz about what is happening about your brand, company, products, industry or your field of interest; you should set up an ‘alert.’ There are Google Alerts and Yahoo Alerts which help you automate the entire system of monitoring for the relevant keywords or key-phrases that you require. When you set up alerts, you are ‘alerted’ automatically about anything new happening on your field of interest. You can set up these ‘alerts’ through a section in either Google News or Yahoo News. In the ‘alerts’ section of Google, you are asked about what kind of alert you want-whether in relation to blogs, web, groups or comprehensive. It is a good move to choose ‘comprehensive’ if you want to have alerts from all possible avenues. You are also allowed to time the frequency of alerts. When you set alerts, you get information about any updates right there in your inbox. This is quite instrumental in devising a plan of action for online reputation management.

Online reputation management-A case study

Online reputation management is about setting the wrongs right. Whenever things go wrong, we should look at how we can use the negative bit to our advantage and make it a plus point. To throw more light to this, let us understand through a case study about how a bank worked toward some smart online reputation management, inculcating both search engine optimization and smart PR skills.

There was a bank X which ran into some sort of rough weather courtesy disgruntled customers who were not exactly having a high regard for the company. One of them was my friend who was also a person who did not like taking things lying down. He ran an impressive blog in which he wrote really scathing stuff about the bank, and to make matters worse, the posts came up on the front page of the results page of a search engine inspiring a lot many people to add more.

My friend wrote in his blog that he had got a phone call from the bank some weeks ago for a ‘gold’ credit card. An executive had come to his place and noted all the details and collected proofs of his income and other relevant details. He was informed of the credit card to arrive by courier in a week’s time. He was promised that he was ‘prequalified’ for the card because he was an ‘esteemed’ customer of the bank. Weeks flew by and there were no sign of the credit card. Exasperated, he called up the bank three times and all the three attempts made a mockery of the man’s precious time. My friend said that he was waiting in the IVR queue on two occasions and just before he was transferred to the executive, the calls would drop.

Luckily when this guy did get to speak to a live person on the third attempt, he was informed that he did not stand the chance to get a gold card because he was not ‘qualified’ for it. It was but natural for the person to fume his anger into words and put it down on the blogging software and show it to the world. Of course, he found a lot of fans who had more gory stories to tell them about the bank and that too in a colorful language.

The poor bank (figuratively speaking) witnessed a lot of hate posts coming in various blogs. An online search on information about some of the products of the bank showed the blogs posts in the first two pages of Google. The company had to steady its online reputation soon or vanish in throes of competition. The bank decided to pull its socks and undo most of the damage.

The bank worked on a system of follow-up. The bank manager called up the customer, apologized for the inconvenience caused, and said that he would personally take care of the situation. The manager asked him for an honest feedback about how the bank could improve its services. The guy retorted with a classic ‘that’s your problem, not mine.’ In spite of so many ‘it’s your faults,’ thrown in by the customer, the manager promised him of superior service. The manager also requested the customer to check the bank’s blog. The customer conveniently ignored him.

My friend after tasting the first blood of vengeance decided to check his blog. He was touched to see the bank responding to his complaint (well, he had expected that they would turn a deaf ear!). There was a link on the blog website that directed him to the company blog. Once my friend was in the corporate blog, there were some positive news about the developments of the bank and information on some of the best consumer friendly services that he would be expecting.

The bank had added a blog to its website, and called it ‘problem solving junction.’ This was the place where the bank began to address each and every problem faced by consumers while using the banking services. The bank had hired a team of writers and problem solvers who were backed by research to handle every query with a steady resolute. The bank advertised its blog effectively and ensured that most of the traffic was directed to its blog.

As he went through the blog, he found some future news about the bank that was interesting to him. Two of the services that he liked were debt management services and a wealth management services that would show him how he could manage its investments at no extra cost. However he decided to wait and watch before going for the kill.

The same evening, the card arrived along with a gift, a watch. The bank had under-promised but over-delivered. He was all smiles as he listened to the advisor from the company who showed him about how he could invest his wealth by taking advantage of the wealth management services. The advice given to him was sound and fruitful. Impressed by the information on the blog and the tips given by the bank executive, he decided to buy the mutual fund and invest in monthly SIPs. My friend, a rational being that he was, bought the mutual fund of the bank, not just because the financial advisor was convincing, but because it had a consistently good performance over the years. Recently, he also received dividends from the fund which was appreciating steadily, thus adding to his cup of joy.

Thanks to some decent online reputation management, the bank earned a loyal long-term customer who held the company’s bank account, credit card and mutual fund. Wait a minute…online reputation management…well that term was not even coined at that time but the bank was doing it.

My friend has again decided to put his views on his blog and this time they are positive. Of course, negative posts do flow for the company from people but they are never on the front page of Google because the bank has perked up its online reputation management and has marketed its content and website in such a manner that only good news about the bank feature on the first page of the search engine. It is a nice thing to note that the bank is not just a spokesman of online reputation management but has also has lived that principle. When you have a good product, an efficient customer service and an amazing reputation management system, then you can be a preferred brand for a lot of people.

Online reputation management-Dealing with troublesome blogs

The need for reputation management online stems from CGM(Customer Generated Media) furore that has spread in the Internet. Ever had a bad experience while using your credit card? Has the bank treated you unfairly? Are you pissed with the callous attitude or indifference shown by customer reps on the phone? Do you feel that they just dumped the vacuum cleaner at your place and forgot about installing it properly? You do not have to keep your grouse within yourself or express your sentiments to the neighborhood. You can tell about the unfair deal to the whole world through blogs.

Blogs are dynamic and can shape public opinion with the influence of something as trivial as a mere post. Unlike newspapers , magazines and huge online news portals which at times are politically correct and have to abide by editorial guidelines, there is no real censorship or editorial guidelines to adhere by in case of blogs. A blog is your very space to write about everything from termites to tornadoes. Many of them use blogs to vent out customer service grievances be they about billing, insurance, mortgage, the shopkeeper next door or about the company which sold you a refurbished printer rather than a brand new one as a replacement.

Since blogs are the medium of public expression, companies have to be very careful about its image as well as its products/services. When these complaints or posts appear in the first page of a search engine, it can be vastly detrimental to its image. Every company worth its salt should have an online reputation management in place to combat negative posts or complaints. Many a times, online reputation management is necessary for the company to explain its point of view, when it has been wrongly targeted by the consumers.

Though we have covered about the intensity and magnitude of blogs earlier, we will study as to how we can handle online management reputation to effectively curb negative sentiments about your brand, product, business or image. Given below are some of the approaches that can be conducive to online reputation management:

1. Collate all the information from various blogs and feed them in a database. Segregate it accordingly, according to various categories like positive, neutral and negative. Since the negative posts can be really damaging, you have to immunize them first. Negative posts can have varying degrees of intensity. Accordingly, make sure you give them different names according to increasing degrees of havoc they can unleash.
   
2. Get a background of the people who are behind the blog. Visit their profile and find out how much the audience reach these blogs cater to is.
3. Generate an ORM report on your findings. Conceptualize a plan of action. Collate the ORM data in a systematic order and if possible represent various aspects of the plan graphically. Have presentations done about online reputation management for your brand in the form of pie-charts, statistical diagrams etc that simplifies the whole idea , when you have to clarify your point to the better derstanding of the general public. Brand projection in the best possible light is the epitome of online reputation management.

Blogs which are posting negative information can be factually correct or incorrect. If the content in the blogs carry information which is misleading and not right, you have the right to ask the blog owner for removal of these posts. You can send corroborating proof that testifies your honest stand against the whiplash generated in the blog posts. If you are right, the blog owner should remove misleading posts about your brand.

If the blog owner is not agreeing to remove your negative and factually incorrect posts, you can use the comments section in the blog to explain your stand. Make sure, you explain your stand with proof, convincing that makes people doubt about the veracity of the negative posts published by the original blogger. In other words, your reply should be convincing, firm and assertive. Make sure you also add a link that redirects people to the company blog or the company website. You can also post your company’s plus points and positive points in many blogs and forum sites to make sure that can highlight the strong points of the company is always recommended.

Online reputation management-Customer Generated Media and Tracking tools

Every single moment, someone or the other is talking about you, your product, your services, your business, your competitors or your industry. They may be complimenting about a particular aspect of your business, appreciating certain things or generating hype for your business. There are also people who do not think too high about your service. They are cribbing, complaining or criticizing about your service or your product.

Let us say a much-hyped movie is on the verge of release. A lot of money, time and efforts have been spent in creating the magnum opus, and an equal amount of money has been spent on publicity. Can you imagine how much it can hurt both the distributors and creative team when the pre-release hype is countered by negative posts and scathing amount of criticism. A lot of people who read negative posts and information are bound to stay away from the movie affecting its business.

Not just a movie, but every conceivable product or service has its online reputation at stake thanks to the open platform offered by the web 2.O tradition. A blog post or a couple of comments posted online can either be a windfall for your business or topple it down like a pack of cards. There is also a term for this phenomenon-it is called customer generated media or CGM. To tackle the negativity generated by the consumer generated media, you need to take resort of online reputation management.

Online reputation management involves the method of tracking or monitoring every hour. Make sure you track everything that involves your product or service, right from product lines and employees to marketing strategies and competitors. You can go to morever.com; a website gives information on your industry and the latest developments and news in your industry.

You can collate all possible keywords that a user usually searches on in terms of your product or service. You can then set up ‘alerts’ (Google Alerts or Yahoo Alerts) for all of these keywords so that you are alerted when something about your company is posted online with the listed keywords in the ‘alerts’. You can also go to monitorthis.com which helps you keep track of a single keyword across different search engine feeds simultaneously.

Based on your keyword searches, you can make custom RSS fees from places like Technorati.com, Topblogging, Google News, Yahoo News and such others sites. It is even better to maintain all feeds into one RSS Reader like Google Reader, My Yahoo, Netvibes, Pageflakes, Bloglines, Newsgator etc. Find out some of the different forum sites or message boards that talk about your product or service and then closely track whatever is being written about. Similarly you can also track message groups like Yahoo Groups, Google Groups, MSN groups, AOL groups etc.

For online reputation management, you can also keep a track on some of the web pages through tools like watchthat.com and websitewatcher.com. You have to make sure you monitor every keyword and every page of the website that has anything even remote written about you. Monitoring and keeping a close watch of anything associated with your business is the one of the most important steps in online reputation management.

Online reputation management—Damage control in practice

Picture this. You have consciously built a brand image for yourself and everyone around is happy because you are on top of the world. But then as you become successful, you attract detractors too. One or more such animals with an axe to grind against you start spreading stories about you and most of them are not pleasant. Some of the posts appear on the first two pages of a popular search engine. You find yourself as the object of ridicule and contempt. You have been branded as an alcoholic rather than a workaholic.

People read negative, exaggerated information and then spread stories adding their own dash of spice in their discussions about you, with their colleagues. You have to seriously safeguard your reputation before some more negative posts appear on the front page of Google.

A reputation-maligning post like this on the front page of Google or such other search-engine is as bad as infamous front page news. When you see a scandalizing post like this affecting you, your profession or business, you have to first analyze the gravity of the situation. Is it really bad for you? Can it affect the way you live or deal with people? A celebrity friend of mine was in a similar situation where her image was taking a beating due to some posts that made their way to the front page of the search results of Google.

My friend cried foul, harped that she was misquoted but the posts kept on coming. She contemplated calling the website owner and threatening to issue a law-suit. However, there was risk involved and it could take off some of her time. She had to protect her image and online reputation management was the first thing on her mind. Some websites were getting regular hits by writing trash about her.

My friend then decided to act wisely a built a strong, positive image about herself through online reputation management. She hired someone who could write keyword driven content for her that put her in the positive light. She joined some of the social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn. Since they had a fair amount of privacy, she invited people on her friends list. Since she was in direct touch with them through the social networking sites, her friends and fans began to write positive about her in their forums and blog posts.

My friend hired an online reputation management specialist who kept a close tab on posts that appeared on famous blogs, forum sites and major websites. With online reputation tools, and close monitoring of written about her, an action plan was made to make sure that her online reputation was not just salvaged but maintained also. Things began to take a 360 degree turn as my friend’s reputation online was kept in good stead after working hard on the concept of online reputation management. With meticulous care and effort, she saw to it that her image remained squeaky clean from there-on, thanks to some smart online reputation management

Blogging career in Online Reputation Management

We all know that blogs are web-tools that can shape and influence public opinion. Every company online is wary about some negative post that can crop up in the first pages of a search engine like Google, and affect the business. In a manner, which is akin to an eye for an eye, companies use their corporate blogs to come clean and clarify speculations written about them.

For a company that wants to have a positive image and favorable information written within the top 2 results page of a search engine, blogging becomes very important. The benefits are in the form of free advertising and clear information provided in the form of enriched and enhanced content. Secondly, blogs form a medium to forge a wonderful relationship with its customers. Thus all said and done, a professional blogger assumes an important and some times crucial position in the spectrum of online reputation management.

For a person who likes to blog instinctively, this piece of information comes as a veritable opportunity. A professional blogger is hired on a contractual period to write keyword rich content which talks positively about the company and its product/service. Anyone who can prove that he is a good writer can become a publicist or an online management reputation spokesman for the company. How can a blogger turn this opportunity into a gold mine?

A blogger, who is passionate about writing on a certain brand, service or an individual with enough substance, can have a lot coming his way. Look at it this way: if you are quite self-assured and consistent in a given field (say insurance, banking, telecom etc), you will sooner or later be noticed as traffic streams into your blog. Top companies who want to enhance their corporate image will go through your blogs and may hire you for a contractual period for a flattering amount to write for them. If you like, you may be even absorbed in the company. In ‘Blogger,’ there is also a section called ‘profile’ where you can talk about yourself and your contact details. Companies can look at your profile and hire you for their online reputation management. A ‘blogger job’(without quotes) in the search field of a search engine like Google will also give you a lot of opportunities, some of them which may lead to a lucrative career in online reputation management.

Online Reputation Management-More than just a PR

We know that public reviews and opinions on blogs can be quite influential and overwhelming upon a company. However it can also have an impact on a person’s life. Success can be harmful at times. A celebrity, an influential person or even a layman is susceptible to bad publicity online. However, it is even more ruthless and embarrassing for someone who is in the public limelight to be shown in the poor light.

People generally check the first page of results in a search engine. If something bad or embarrassing about a particular celebrity is mentioned in the first page, people actually start forming opinions and passing judgements. Tongues begin to wag and the celebrity’s maligned reputation begins to cloud around him like a ball of smoke. The media has a field day sensationalizing the whole issue leaving a lot for the public figure to clarify.

Blogs and forum sites can tarnish the image of a person in a matter of minutes. If these views find their way on the first page of a search engine like Google, millions will read them and form opinions. If a celebrity has a PR agent, it is not enough. How many people can he explain to? There are millions of people online at a given point of time. The amount of people actually watching television is lesser than the previous decade, even though there are a lot more television channels now. Most of the time is spent online nowadays. So it is important for the celebrity to give the whole matter a ‘personal touch’ by posting his or her very own blog online.

When a celebrity has a website online, he or she is in immediate and direct contact with the fans. When the celebrity runs a blog from personal website or runs an independent blog, it is even better because it become even more easy for him or her to be in touch with the fans regularly. The tone and language of a blog is informal and friendly and more importantly, you get the answers directly from the horse’s mouth. Though most actors or professional may choose to hire a content writer or an editor to do the work of online reputation management, people who are serious about their image and love to be in touch with their fans, will actually write their own blog.

Thanks to online reputation management, a person can put the rumor mills to rest and spread some fresh air. In ORM, the person should set up Google Alerts, and continuously employ someone who takes stock of the negative information spread in various websites, blogs and newsgroups. Of course, the blogging part should be ideally done by the celebrity or professional only. A link of the celebrity’s website or blog can be posted in various related websites or blogs so that the traffic can reach that particular blog.

Online Reputation Management(ORM)-Setting things right proactively

Anyone who runs a business or a professional agency will swear on his or her last buck that a negative publicity can be quite eroding. If the first page of a search engine like Google has some not so good things about your company or the brand, it means that there is something you have to do before you clientele and customers head for the exit door. God has blessed consumers with the power of the Internet. Decision making has become easy for them because they can share their opinions, views and interests with a lot of like-minded people through reviews sites, forum sites and blogs.

What do you do, if your company is the object of scathing attack and relentless criticism? A place in the front page of a search engine is important, but it is equally important that something good or positively interesting is written about at the same time. If there is some negative information written about your company found in the first page of results in a search engine, you have to really do something constructive to undo the damage. It is important to realize that you can’t really remove negative information. However, you can push the negative information down and out from the public view.

Here are some of the steps; you can take into account while latching on to online reputation management:

1. Contact the blog owners or webmasters: You can always contact the webmasters or blog owners of the site where trashy or negative stuff is written about you or your company. Request them politely to remove the negative set of comments. Chances are that they might decline your request. Chances are also there that they might agree and remove the comments. If such is the case, your headache is relieved quite easily. However, you should note that if they do remove the posts, there are fair chances that these comments still remain in the ‘cached’ pages of the search engine. However users who click at that particular link will not see the bad comments.
2. Network with the people who write positive about you: Your company must be doing something good, which is why it is still in the business. Seek such sites that write positive about you and send them an appreciation or a ‘thank you’ mail and tell them that you are giving a link back to their website from your site.

3. Social networking: Social networking is spreading like wild-fire online. Create a community account in sites like Orkut, De.licio.us etc and collate all positive information, videos, interesting content, new product notifications etc. Make your content keyword-driven in social networking sites too with the name of your company appearing in the title and in the body. You can choose to invite only those people who are really interested to know about your company.

4. Audio-visual treat: Upload videos of some of your products or companies online in sites like YouTube and Google videos. You can even make a catchy, promotional video that looks attractive to users online.

5. Google alerts: Set up a Google alerts where you post a certain number of negative or positive keywords or phrases which are most likely to be used in reference to your product or service. In turn, Google alerts automatically send you an email that has new Google results carrying the keywords or phrases that you had listed. This simplifies your online reputation management efforts and keeps you in control of matters beyond the usual human control.

Online Reputation Management is a long-term thing and you cannot expect results the next day. If you channelize your efforts in the right direction, you will earn positive rewards. A close monitoring and optimization of content can surely help you achieve success in your endeavor.

Online Reputation Management- Three words, three-fold success

The world of online marketing is growing exponentially. No one can combat the reach of the Internet when it comes to spreading information. Information can be easily transferred in the form of text, images, competitions, video clips etc. The cost of sharing information is very low or negligible and quite evidently, it has become an outlet of people to express their emotions, feelings, views and opinions.


Mom, dad, son, daughter, the gardener and the pet of the family-everyone turns to the Internet to check the review of the latest product, the latest gizmo, the funky outfit or the new movie which has hit the movie-houses. People form a verdict about a certain thing or service based on the reviews they read or the comments made by other people in blog posts. No wonder, my friend who wanted to buy a Hyundai car ended up buying a Wagon R, after checking the reviews online.


A person or a company’s reputation is available for everyone online to see. Thus, it is important for personalities, brands and companies to have a positive or likeable image so that the popularity is sustained or built up. Online Reputation Management is fast becoming a medium of the new generation online. Ironically, the concept is tangential to word of mouth publicity. We know that people talk, spread rumors and form opinions; it is viral in nature. ORM helps in keeping a close watch on what is being spread online about you or your company.


ORM has two principal functions-listening and responding. Of course, you can’t really listen but you can observe what is being written about and draft a plan of action to counter the negativity that is rampant. You have to let your prospect, customers and readers know about what is right. You have to present your side of the picture. And what do you get in return? You earn the trust of the readers and customers. They feel confident that someone is there to listen and make note of their problems and feedback. It feels great to be heard, doesn’t it?


In Online Reputation Management, it is important to reach out to your prospects and tell them in absolute frankness about how their problem can be resolved. You have to share with them some options that can be fruitful to them. You have to keep them engaged and rooted in to know more about the developments of your company. Since most of these posts are sent by people in the form of blogs, it is advisable to run a blog that carries a link to the grievance or complaint, with a reply about how things can be smoothened out for their benefit.

When Search Engine Optimization meets smart PR skills

It is an obvious truth that 90 percent of consumers make use of search engines like Google, Yahoo, AOL, MSN etc to find what they are looking for. This means that when they enter the name of a particular product, service or brand, you hope that your company website or a positive review about your company ranks at least on the top search results page. In more ways than one, the search engine page is a barometer of the success of your enterprise. It is not just about a company but about an individual too. Everyone likes good things to be written about them, don’t they?

The flip side to this whole thing is that is not possible to have a control on what people write in various blogs and article directories. Apart from the consumers, what appears about the company on the search engine listing can affect your potential clients, employees and even prospective candidates who are on the look-out for a job. In order to thwart or stop the negative information, you need to exercise Online Reputation Management (ORM).

Online Reputation Management or ORM is a healthy amalgamation of PR skills with search engine optimization. Smart PR skills meet with technical prowess to form Online Reputation Management. When you get top rankings on a search engine page thanks to smart optimization and good informative content and publicity, you will be able to push the negative publicity and negative review down and away from the first two page listings of the search engine. Soon, they will go away from public view and people will focus on the good news It is important to know that an online surfer on search for information will not look more than the first two pages of search engine results.

Things like positive reviews, case studies, testimonials, and press releases are not optimized properly in the company website page. This is the main reason why they fail to come on the top search results page. Thus it is important to write more of product or service friendly content and also answer all kinds of queries, doubts and negative information spread by people. The more search engine friendly content you have, the higher is the probability of getting a high ranking on the search engine results page. Pay special emphasis to keyword rich content, but at the same time make the content interesting, informative and relevant. When you optimize your pages well, the search engine pick them up easily and are picked up quickly by search engines. When you have a dominating web presence, and knock down all the negative clutter about your company from the first two search engine results page, you are said to be efficient and effective in your online reputation management expertise.

The mechanics of Online Reputation Management

We all know that gossiping is a universal hobby (hobby is called a pastime isn’t it?). Gossiping has been there in this world since the time man existed. It is just post 2004, the gossiping that was restricted to just the office corridors or college campuses, has extended multi-dimensionally in the form of blogs. Now what you gossip about, can influence millions of people especially when they appear on search engine results page. Review sites, forums, blogs, RSS feeds are the media available to consumers to air their thoughts in full color. Imagine the damage that can be done to a company as a result!

Online Reputation Management works on the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threat) basis. The company has to analyze its strengths and weakness. It has to find out the areas which can cause threat to the business. A blog post or a forum post if it lands on the top two pages of a search engine (in many cases it does!) can be immensely detrimental to the image of a company. The company can take the help of the most crucial weapons online-blogs and convert them into its source of strength. How? Read on to know more….

The company has to maintain a database of positive, negative and neutral sentiments voiced by different people across different blogs, review sites and news sites. The company has to filter out the irrelevant bit of information and focus especially on the negative and neutral sentiments. In online reputation management, it is important to find out the nature and the source of the complaint. A complaint can be from a disgruntled consumer, an ex-employee who wants to air his negative sentiments, a competitor who wants to indulge in a wicked and free game of mud-slinging or a person who just wants to vent out a frustration thanks to his preconceived notion of the company.

How do you keep a track of negative comments? The company can set up search engine alerts results. You can select alerts with regards to your company name, products or specific key words. Search engines like Google and Yahoo sends you an ‘alert’ or a notification whenever there is a fresh search or reference of terms mentioned in their database. You can also take the help of Blog Search Engines like Technorati, del.icio.us, Feedster, TopBlogging are recommended search engines to check fresh posts by blogger on your company and its products or services. Apart from this, searches on industry-related sites, social networking sites can help you collect important data.

After this is done, the company should try to fix the problem or issue. If solving the problem is extremely difficult or impossible, then as a part of online reputation management, the company should suggest options or choices that can lead to a better or relieved consumer experience. A corporate blog is a good move; it is an outlet which provides the company’s side of the story. You can also include a section in the company blog or company website that links to the complaint page and explain your version. If you optimize the blog or the website well, it can help the blog or website with positive reviews and information come up on the top results pages of a search engine. You can even encourage your readers to suggest ideas or views so that you can serve them better. Online Reputation Management is not difficult, but it is quite rewarding and productive if done properly.

Blogs and Online Reputation Management-The heady Mix!

Did you know that every second 14 blogs are added online? Blogs and forum based websites are becoming fast popular. Blogs cater to every taste and all genre conceivable. The reason why blogs are more popular than websites themselves are because of the fact that they are quite dynamic and can be operated by an average computer user. Of course, it is an unbeatable communication tool online, influencing opinions and fostering interactions.

There is a strong connection underlying the concept of online reputation management and blogs. Online reputation management is a developing field that encompasses public relations and search engine optimization. In forum sites as well as blogs, people freely air their views and express their feelings about a certain brand or product. Consumers can be either patronizing or ruthless. Why just the consumers? Even the employees who had a bad experience with the company can bad mouth the products and the company, affecting the brand image of the product in the process.

It is amazing the way blogs have changed from an outlet for expressing teenage angst to a rewarding and productive tool for business houses. There have been many instances in which companies have resorted to their corporate blogs as a way of damage control. There has been a conscious move to enhance the brand reputation within the top 10 results of a search engine.

It is not just the consumers who are influenced by negative posts or ill-feeling written about a product or company in the search engine. Even a client who is thinking about partnering with a company may think twice after reading a negative post. Let us say you have pitched a proposal with a client and he is ready for a merger. Just before taking the plunge, he checks online through Google or any other search engine about your company. He comes across the not-so-flattering pieces of information written about our company in the top ten search results. Will he like his company to be dragged into this? Surely, he will reconsider; in most probabilities, he will head for the exit. There is thus a need for online reputation management to straighten things, undo what is wrong, address consumer grievances in their blogs and make sure that the corporate image is maintained. This is the key to successful online reputation management.

Online Reputation Management -It's all about spreading the good news!

We all know that bad news travels faster than good news. A bad or negative consumer experience can affect a business ten times more than a positive experience. It can impact the decision of the buyer and make him shift towards a competing brand. Let me illustrate a real life example that happened with me. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to buy a new mobile phone for myself. I had a brand and a model number in my mind. However just before purchasing that particular cell-phone, I decided to do some online research. After all, as human beings, we are driven by user experiences. Well, what I saw changed my decision.

The top ten online search results which popped up as I keyed in the query left me in a bit of daze. Pieces of text lying below the name of my favorite product in the search results page, had some negative information that put me off. I did not even click on the link to venture further. I then keyed in the name of a competing brand. Things were much brighter here. There were some positive reviews about the product on the top ten search results that came up. My mind was made; I went ahead and purchased the product which initially had not ranked top-most in the list.

Like me, there are many consumers including you who may decide to do some research and learn by other consumer experiences before buying a product or subscribing for a service. With the Web 2.0 search culture coming and the Time Magazine declaring the Person of the Year as You, it is evident that each one of us can create a magnanimous impact with a click of a mouse or a keyboard button. In the olden days, it was a well-known fact that the pen is mightier than the sword. That proverb can be modified to say that the Internet is a greater weapon than the biggest ammunition in the world. Needless to say, the greatest and most dynamic weapon online that can influence, provoke and even manipulate the human mind-a weblog or a blog.

The year 2004 heralded ‘blog’ as the word of the year. Years later, the word has transformed itself into action. Today it is a revolution and in the future, blogs are poised to change the way decisions are made. As these are usually free, blogs are both convenient and invaluable. In fact, we can see them people pouring out their sorrows, venting their frustration, expressing their joy through blogs. Evidently, people are also venting out their dissatisfied consumer experiences which influence others to think twice about brand loyalty.

One can imagine how much amount of losses, companies will have to suffer due to the whiplash and nasty comments written by these consumers. This calls for an immense amount of damage control and repair. Companies have to be careful that nothing negative or untoward comes up on the first two pages of a search engine. A forward thinking company will have to have a corporate blog in place that can combat such negative news. The methodology, a company adopts to combat apprehension and negativity, and sustain its goodwill and positive image forms the crux of online reputation management.

Let us see how a company can use the power of its blog as a valuable online reputation management tool. ABC company does online research and finds out how well (or badly) its product and customer service rate in the top ten search results of the search engine page. It collates data from various blogs, finds out the nature of the complaint and its severity. After this, the company suggests solutions or shares options with the help of blog posts that can ideally solve the consumer queries and keep their speculations to rest. While a company gives its story though its blog post, both the parties are benefited. The consumers restore their faith and confidence in the company because they know that the company truly cares for them. The company on the other hand, gets an opportunity to clarify its stand and earn the goodwill of the consumers. This translates into repeat purchases, brand loyalty and of course a bigger market share. Thus we see that the online reputation management is an infallible tool to a company because it can simplify and clarify a lot of issues and problems which consumers face purely because of miscommunication. No wonder the company I purchased the product from, had a stronger online reputation management compared to the first one.