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Online Reputation Management For Your Small Business
By Caroline Melberg

Online reputation management (ORM) has become the most important aspect of online marketing. You should incorporate this into your Internet marketing strategy today by doing the things that I will suggest in this article. If you are already doing these things, let this serve as a gentle reminder.

The fact is, anyone can go online and post anything about you or your company on any forum, blog, or user-generated Web site. They can even do this anonymously and you’ll never know who is trying to ruin your reputation.

The statements these anonymous posters make about you or your small business do not even need to be true. A lot of times, one comment can do more damage than you could ever do yourself through lousy customer service.

Some well-known examples of reputation problems online have made the news and are very high-profile. Taco Bell experienced the fallout when a customer in one New York store shot a cell-phone video of some rats running around the restaurant. Search today online for "Taco Bell + Rats" and you’ll get close to half a million results.

While many people have heard of these high profile examples, they often think that it can’t happen to them — “I’m just a small business,” they declare, “things like that only happen to major corporations."

It’s not true. Let these businesses serve as your example:

  • A private physician gave advice that a patient didn’t like; the patient, a blogger, posted some negative things about the physician on her blog. Since the physician did not have a Web site or blog of her own, the only results for that doctor when a potential patient conducted an on-line search were the blogger’s negative comments.

  • A construction contractor fired an employee, and in retaliation the former employee posted some comments on a popular forum online. Even though the company had a Web site, it had not done a lot of Internet marketing, and the negative comments outranked the construction company’s own Web site.

  • A small business owner who also performs charity work through a separate organization was attacked through an anonymous blog by a former customer who began posting negative comments about the charitable organization as well as the business owner.

    These types of attacks online are becoming more and more prevalent. The Internet gives the illusion that there are no consequences for comments that are not true. Off-line, such comments would be considered slander, but online they can be made anonymously and influence potential customers to stay away from your small business based on nothing but hearsay. Once the damage is done, it is extremely hard to reverse.

    DEFENSIVE TACTICS

    The good news is, you can manage your online reputation through an online marketing strategy that involves proven techniques that are not expensive or overly time-consuming. You can do it yourself or hire an Internet marketing consultant to do it for you. Either way, on-line reputation management is an absolute must for every small business owner.

    Making sure your web site has a good blog is an especially important component of online reputation management.

    Earlier this year, leading search engine marketer Jennifer Laycock found a need for online reputation management when she received a threatening letter from the National Pork Board of America for an $8 T-shirt she was selling that sported the phrase, "The Other White Milk."

    Did she spill tears over pork’s attack? Did she slash someone’s tires in retaliation? Did she threaten to milk the board’s corporate assets if they didn’t about-face, or have her oversized boyfriend, "Porky the Milkman," pay her legal bullies a visit and "deflate their egos?" No. She did none of that.

    Instead, Laycock took the bull by the horns and went social. She blogged about it. A few days later, she received a letter of apology from the Pork Board’s CEO and a handful of donations for her charity, Mother’s Milk Bank of Ohio. What changed?

    The fact is, anyone can go online and post anything about you or your company.

    Nothing, really, except that other bloggers blogged about it, and thousands of people bookmarked her blog post and shared it with their friends. The Pork Board received thousands of e-mails complaining that pork enthusiasts don’t give a hoot about breastfeeding mothers. All of a sudden, the Pork Board was in need of a little reputation management itself.

    What happens if a former business partner or employee gets mad enough to post negative comments about you online? Sure, you could sue, but even if a lawsuit has grounds and you win, those comments will still be there for the whole world to see.

    And they’ll be there for a long time, unless you have a strategy to push them down in the search engine rankings. That’s why every business owner needs to think about online reputation management before it’s necessary. But what ORM tools, specifically, do you need?

    Although a blog is one of the most important tools for online reputation management, it’s not the only one. You also need a Web site to put the blog on, of course, and your Web site needs to be search engine optimized — for your name, your company name and any special branding that you’ve done for the business and your products. It also needs to be optimized with particular keywords related to your niche.

    OTHER TOOLS

    After an optimized Web site and a blog, online reputation management needs to be carried out using other important tools, such as:

  • Articles - Syndicate your articles online. Distribute them to article directories, and promote them just as you would your Web site, creating valuable links for your name or company online.

  • Press Releases - Yes, press releases are a very important reputation management tool. Make sure you write and distribute a press release about you or your company at least three or four times a year.

  • Social Bookmarking - Include bookmarking icons on every page of your Web site and your blog. Encourage your friends and readers to bookmark your items, as they will appear in search results.

  • Networking - Online networking is perhaps one of the most important reputation management tools in every businessperson’s arsenal. Join a few networking sites like LinkedIn and Facebook. Make friends - lots of them. That way, if you need help with anything - especially counteracting an attack of negative publicity online - then you can always call on your network.

  • Directories - Use directories to boost your online reputation. There are directories for everything, including blogs, Web sites, newsletters, articles and even directories of directories.

  • Forums - Every time you post a comment in a forum, you are building your online reputation. Make it count. Use signature links and maintain a positive relationship with as many people as you can meet there.

    You can manage your online reputation through an online marketing strategy.

    Online reputation management is a zero sum game. You must ensure that there are more positive than negative comments about you online. The way you do that is to start right now. Comment on other people’s blogs. Stay active in a few forums. Post to your blog every day. Update your Web site regularly. Write articles and distribute them often.

    Even if you do all of this, there is no guarantee that a negative comment can’t rise to the top of the search engines. But for every positive comment you have that ranks well for your reputation management keywords, it is that much more difficult for someone else to come along and damage your reputation.

    Always maintain the high road, don’t stoop to a negative level yourself. Follow these suggestions, and you’ll be well on your way to protecting your reputation.

    Caroline Melberg is president and CEO of Small Business Mavericks, a division of Melberg Marketing. She publishes the popular eZine, "Small Business Maverick Secrets." www.SmallBusinessMaveicks.com