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.
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