7 Steps to a Stellar Online Reputation

Slide 2: 7 Steps to a Stellar Online Reputation Presented by Andy Beal

Slide 3: Who is this guy? • Internet marketing consultant: • Online reputation management • Search engine marketing • Business blog development and promotion • Social media marketing • Editor/Founder MarketingPilgrim.com • Coauthor of reputation management book “Radically Transparent” • Trackur.com for reputation monitoring

Slide 4: What You’ll Learn • What is Online Reputation Management? • The Seven Step Action Plan 1. Identify your stakeholders 2. Conduct a reputation audit 3. Evaluate your online assets 4. Determine your goals 5. Craft your strategy 6. Implement your plan 7. Monitor and repair

Slide 5: What is ORM?

Slide 6: People Are Talking • 52% of individuals put their trust in what others have to say about your reputation • 87% of consumers look at the reputation of your CEO, when judging your company's reputation • 59% of hiring managers are influenced by your online reputation

Slide 7: What’s Changed? • Marketing and PR are no longer a one way monologue • Your customers are discussing your reputation using the Web • Identify, listen, and engage your stakeholders • A single negative blog post can spark a reputation crisis

Slide 8: 7 Step Action Plan

Slide 9: 1 Identify your stakeholders

Slide 10: Look Who’s Talking • Identify all of your stakeholders • Customers • First time customers - what are their expectations and how do you retain them? • Repeat customers - how do you keep them happy? • The Press • Traditional journalists • Citizen journalists and bloggers • Industry opinion leaders

Slide 11: • Centers of influence • Communities such as LinkedIn, ePinions, and TripAdvisor • Detractors • Disgruntled employees • Competitors • Legitimate complaints

Slide 12: 2 Conduct a reputation audit

Slide 13: Surveys • Ask your customers to evaluate your reputation • A complex survey • A single question: “Would you recommend us to a friend or colleague?”

Slide 14: Online Audit • Company channels such as e-mails, comment forms, and customers service • Online ratings • Retailer ratings on BizRate.com • Customer reviews on CitySearch.com • Where your customers hang out

Slide 15: • Your Google reputation • Search for your company name, brands, and executives • Vertical search channels such as news, blogs, and video • Sentiment analysis

Slide 16: Google Sentiment google.com

Slide 17: • Multimedia content • How many views and the number and sentiment of comments • YouTube and Flickr • Social relevance • Links on Technorati, votes on Digg, and friends on MySpace • Number of social bookmarks on del.icio.us and Reddit

Slide 18: Technorati Links technorati.com

Slide 19: • Web site popularity • Visitors and referral data • Number of external links • siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com • Individual profiles • CEO, executives, and spokespersons • Zoominfo.com, HealthGrades.com, and RateMyProfessors.com

Slide 20: 3 Improve your online assets

Slide 21: Spring Cleaning • Your own web site • Up to date? • Bios, corporate info, and stock images • White papers, testimonials, and multimedia • Your online press room • Social media optimized press releases

Slide 22: Social Press Releases •Links to multimedia content •Social bookmarking links •RSS feed for company press room shiftcomm.com/downloads/smprtemplate.pdf

Slide 23: • A company blog • Executive, team, updates, or crisis only blog • Build your thought leadership, engage customers, and reach journalists • Search engine optimization (SEO) • Optimize web content for your reputation-building keywords

Slide 24: 4 Determine your goals

Slide 25: Goals? • What is your desired outcome? • Improve a tarnished reputation? • Raise the profile of your CEO? • Increase awareness of new products? • Attract new clients? • Find a better job???

Slide 26: 5 Craft your strategy

Slide 27: Your Objectives? • Create a company blog • Develop social networking profiles • Set up online monitoring system • Compile reputation crisis plan • Improve your search engine sentiment

Slide 28: Example • Strategy: Build a highly differentiated thought leadership niche online. • Objectives for the next 12 months: 1. Add 3 white papers to the company site for visitor download. 2. Answer 5 questions a month at Yahoo!Answers. 3. Review 2 books a month in my field on Amazon.com. 4. Identify 20 important blogs in my industry and subscribe to the RSS feeds. Read them daily. 5. Display my expertise and add value to the social media by commenting on at least 5 blogs a month and editing a Wikipedia article.

Slide 29: 6 Implement your plan

Slide 30: How? • What tools will you need? • Google Reader for RSS • WordPress for company blog • Google Analytics for Web stats • Trackur.com for reputation monitoring

Slide 31: • What policies and procedures will you use? • Who will collect and act on data? • Who will monitor social media? • Who will manage blog and social networking content? • Who has authority to respond?

Slide 32: Radically Transparent Blogging Guidelines 1. Always be honest and tell the truth 2. Clearly explain your intentions, who you work for, and who you are 3. Make sure your writing is accurate, high quality, and spell checked 4. Be honest about any mistakes you make and correct them promptly 5. Never delete a blog post

Slide 33: 6. Don’t delete comments left by readers 7. Respond to emails and blog comments 8. Respect the opinions of others, even when disagreeing 9. Link to original sources of information 10. Always disclose conflicts of interests or business relationships

Slide 34: 7 Monitor and repair

Slide 35: Monitor • Early awareness is crucial • Use freely available tools to monitor 80% • Email? • Google Alerts • RSS? • Technorati, Google News, BoardTracker

Slide 36: Email Alerts google.com/alerts

Slide 37: Mainstream Media news.google.com/

Slide 38: Forums boardtracker.com

Slide 39: Outsource Monitoring? Trackur.com Converseon.com buzzm.worldbank.org

Slide 40: Prepare • Plan now for a reputation crisis • Who is on your crisis team? List their names, titles, and all contact numbers • Who is your online media spokesperson? • Who will be your advisors, for seeking counsel before reacting to a crisis? • Who are your key offline/online stakeholders needing information during a crisis? • Do you have a crisis-blog ready for deployment?

Slide 41: Repair 1. Check the facts 2. Determine the impact 3. Bring together trusted counsel 4. Understand your detractor 5. Decide on the appropriate response 6. Host the conversation 7. Continue to monitor

Slide 42: Three Little Words •Sincerity •Transparency •Consistency

Slide 43: Thank You • Andy@MarketingPilgrim.com • 919-816-2106 • Twitter.com/andybeal