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