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

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

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

5. What is ORM?

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

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

8. 7 Step Action Plan

9. 1
Identify your
stakeholders

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

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

12. 2
Conduct a reputation
audit

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

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

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

16. Google
Sentiment
google.com

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

18. Technorati
Links
technorati.com

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

20. 3
Improve your online
assets

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

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

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

24. 4
Determine your goals

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???

26. 5
Craft your strategy

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

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.

29. 6
Implement your plan

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

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?

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

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

34. 7
Monitor and repair

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

36. Email Alerts
google.com/alerts

37. Mainstream
Media
news.google.com/

38. Forums
boardtracker.com

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

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?

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

42. Three Little Words
•Sincerity
•Transparency
•Consistency

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