How Your Online Reputation Can Be Damaged… and What You

Can Do to Fix It!

© 2010 Highly Relevant Inc., Confidential & Proprietary

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Presentation Overview

• What Is Your Online Reputation? (with an intro!)

• What is Reputation Management?

• Ways Your Online Reputation Can Be Damaged

• How a Poor Online Reputation Can Affect You

• Ways to Fix Your Online Reputation

• How to Monitor Your Online Reputation

• Conclusion

© 2010 Highly Relevant Inc., Confidential & Proprietary

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Monologue vs Dialogue

1. Marketers used to control the conversation: Radio, TV and print advertising was expensive and we listened because it paid for our entertainment.

2. The customer controls the conversation: Now blogging and social media gives every internet user a platform to publicly broadcast their observations and opinions in an instant.

© 2010 Highly Relevant Inc., Confidential & Proprietary

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Listen or Perish

“Its time to turn the megaphone around” -Tara Hunt, The Whuffie Factor

3. Learn to listen or proceed at great risk

Big brands like Pepsi and Domino’s Pizza were exposed to near-immediate criticisms on a

worldwide basis.

When they listen, they can respond.

© 2010 Highly Relevant Inc., Confidential & Proprietary

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Listen or Perish

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The BIG Secret: Even Bad Reviews Boost Sales

Think letting customers post cranky reviews of your products will scare away sales? Here’s the surprising truth:

AlpacaDirect.com implemented an independent review service on their site, and “saw sales climb

23% on products that had reviews.”

Internet shoppers rank reviews as the most desired feature of a Web site, according to a recent survey by

Forrester Research.

© 2010 Highly Relevant Inc., Confidential & Proprietary

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What is Your Online Reputation?

• Your (or your business’s) online reputation is the perception on the Internet that others have of you based on your “digital footprint”

• Examples of items that build your digital footprint:

• Any content that you create and share online

• Pictures and videos

• Customer feedback about your business

• Any information created about you

© 2010 Highly Relevant Inc., Confidential & Proprietary

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Examples of Websites

• Your persona in the digital world shows up on sites such as these:

• Shopping websites: eBay & Amazon

• Social Networks: Twitter, Facebook LinkedIn

• Review Sites: Yelp

• Consumer Complaint Sites: Ripoffreport.com

• Basically, anything that shows up in the search results…

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eBay Example

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Amazon Example

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Yelp Example

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LinkedIn Example

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CDC & Social Media

Twitter Video (YouTube)

MySpace Widgets

Facebook

Centers for Disease Control Social Media site. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/socialmedia/.

© 2010 Highly Relevant Inc., Confidential & Proprietary

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The Future of Social Media

Baekel. T. (April 27, 2009). Where is everyone? Baekel Online Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.baekdal.com/articles/Management/market-of-information/.

© 2010 Highly Relevant Inc., Confidential & Proprietary

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What is Reputation Management?

• Definition: Consistent research and analysis of your “digital footprints” that collectively form your personal or business reputation

• Also known as “Online Reputation Monitoring”

• In the industry, its roken into preemptive and reactive reputation management

© 2010 Highly Relevant Inc., Confidential & Proprietary

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Ways Your Online Reputation Can Be Damaged• Controversial pictures of you online (Facebook privacy settings)

• Customer complaints online about you, your products, or your business (complaint boards)

• Negative discussions about you, your products, or your business on forums/message boards (Yelp)

•Negative articles or blog posts by others (wordpress)

•Controversial or detrimental digital content created by you (blogs, Twitter posts, etc.) – ‘buffdude’

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RipOffReport Example

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Photos Examples: Michael Phelps and Matt Leinert

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How a Poor Online Reputation Can Affect You

• Job Search – Employers can Google your name and check out your Facebook

• Prospects can read your customer reviews on Yelp, Amazon, eBay, etc.

• If prospects Google your name and see negative reviews about your business, you could lose business

• Lose potential business partners and investors if they see a lot of negative info on you

© 2010 Highly Relevant Inc., Confidential & Proprietary

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The Customer Path of Discovery

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© 2010 Highly Relevant Inc., Confidential & Proprietary

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Ways to Fix Your Online Reputation

1. Check Your Name and Create New Web Properties

Create positive web properties to push down any negative web properties in the search engines

• Research and protect your brand and trade names

• Don’t let someone else become “Facebook/YourCompany”

• KnowEm.com – free or paid

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2. See where you are being found

• Do Proactive Searches:– Google– Twitter– Technorati

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3. Setup monitors

• Google Alerts, RSS Feeds• Search.Twitter.com/advanced

© 2010 Highly Relevant Inc., Confidential & Proprietary

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Conclusion – What You Learned

• What Online Reputation Is

• What Online Reputation Management Is

• How Your Online Reputation Can Be Damaged

• How a Poor Online Reputation Can Affect You

• Ways to Fix Your Online Reputation

• How to Monitor Your Online Reputation

© 2010 Highly Relevant Inc., Confidential & Proprietary

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Social Media Resources

• Mashable: http://www.mashable.com• Brian Solis (PR 2.0): http://www.briansolis.com• PR Squared: http://www.pr-squared.com/ • Web Strategy (Jeremiah Owyang): http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/ • Groundswell (Christine Li / Forrester Research):

http://blogs.forrester.com/groundswell/• Social Media e-Books: http://mashable.com/2008/03/19/ebooks-social-

media/ • Online Reputation Management

Top 10 Free Tools for Monitoring Your Brand’s Reputation: http://mashable.com/2008/12/24/free-brand-monitoring-tools/

How to build the ultimate social media resume: http://mashable.com/2009/01/13/social-media-resume/