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Managing Your Online Reputation:Best Practices for Mid-sized Companies

A report prepared by Corporate Payment Solutions

Managing Your Online Reputation: Best Practices for Mid-sized Companiesis published by American Express Company.

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is report was prepared by Federated Media in collaboration with American Express.e report was written by Karen Bannan and edited by Michelle Rafter.

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Managing Your Online Reputation: Best Practices for Mid-sized CompaniesINSIDE EDGE

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Table of Contents

Introduction 4

Fig. 1, Corporate Boards’ Risk Management Concerns 4

The Definition of Online Reputation 5

How to Manage Your Online Presence 6

Where Social Media Fits In 7

Fig. 2, Social Media Loyalty 7

How to Protect Your Reputation Online 9

Conclusion 10

Case Study: PrimeGenesis Takes “Authentic” Approach to Grooming an Online Reputation 11

A Stamford, Connecticut, executive onboarding firm uses a variety of tools to promote itself on social networks.

Case Study: Clements Worldwide Takes Soft-Sell Approach 12A Washington D.C. insurance company manages its online reputation by focusing on customer service.

Introduction

In the Internet age, bad news travels fast. Compa niesneed to manage their online reputations to avoiddisasters that can scare off current and prospectivecustomers.

Online reputation management is important for pro-tecting a company’s brand, preventing sales erosion andrecruiting talent, according to Chris Rosica, author ofe Authentic Brand: How Today’s Top EntrepreneursConnect with Customers.

It’s also something executives and corporate boards arestudying closely. Sixty-nine percent of 142 board mem-

bers in a May 2011 study1 from accounting and consult-ing firm EisnerAmper LLP expressed concern aboutrisks to their companies’ reputations (see Fig. 1).



1 http://bit.ly/nppyWN

Reputation Risk

Regulatory Compliance Risk

CEO Succession Planning

IT Risk

Product Risk

Privacy and Data Security

Risk Due to Fraud

Outsourcing Risks

Tax Strategies

Fig. 1 – Corporate Boards’ Risk Management ConcernsAside from financial risk, corporate boards say risk to a company’s reputation is their greatest concern, according to EisnerAmper’s 2011 director survey.

Source: Concerns About Risks Confronting Boards, EisnerAmper LLP

69%

61%

55%

51%

34%

33%

21%

14%

14%

In this report, you’ll learn:■ The definition of online reputation■ How to manage your online presence■ Where social media fits in■ How to protect your reputation online

The Definition of Online Reputation

An online reputation is based on the results people findwhen they search for a company’s name or productsonline and the perceptions those results create. esearches can involve many sources, including these:

■ Reviews of products and services■ Social networks like Facebook and Twitter■ News articles■ Advertising■ Customer complaint sites

Taken together, these elements form the impressions thatprospective customers use to make purchase decisions.

Most companies are unaware of the impact their onlinereputation has on their businesses, says Joe Beccalori,co-founder and chief operating officer of InteractMarketing2, a New York online reputation and search-marketing firm. “We see many $100 million companies

spending millions on television and print advertising,yet they don’t know how to do anything about the threeor four scathing reviews that pop up when someonesearches for them,” Beccalori says.

at disconnect is becoming more significant as a com-pany’s online reputation starts having a bigger impacton its off-line image. “e first thing people do whenconsidering purchasing a new product or service issearch for its brand name and look at what’s on thatpage,” says Don Sorensen, president of Big Blue Robot3,an Orem, Utah, online reputation management firm.“What’s being said about the company? Does it look likepeople think the products are good? How green is thecompany? Are there any negative reviews? All thosethings can harm your brand.”

ey don’t have to. Most reputation problems, whetheronline or offline, shouldn’t be a surprise. ey’re usuallyissues companies already know about and can fix with alittle work. Even in the case of negative reviews, a com-pany should be familiar with a product’s strengths andlimitations and how it compares with competitors, saysSteve Rubel, executive vice president at public relationsgiant Edelman Worldwide4. e key to avoiding poten-tial problems is anticipating where they’ll come from.



2 http://www.interactmarketing.com/3 http://www.bigbluerobot.com/4 http://www.edelman.com/

We see $100 million companies spending millions on advertising, yet they don’t knowhow to do anything about the three or fourscathing reviews that pop up when someonesearches for them.

Joe Beccalori, co-founder and chief operating officerInteract Marketing

“

”

How to Manage Your Online Presence

Mid-sized companies must take a multi-pronged ap-proach to managing online reputation, with in-housemarketing teams working with outside contractors thatprovide search engine optimization, marketing andpublic relations.

To get started, take the following steps:

Assess brands. To get ahead of potential reputationproblems, evaluate the online face of everything relatedto your business, including brand names, productnames, executives, other public-facing employees, con-sultants and personalities associated with the business.When you find vulnerabilities, you can plan ahead andcounteract them.

Integrate activities.Consider everything that could im-pact your online reputation as a single unit. Everyoneconnected to those activities should work together inwhat Rosica calls an “authentic” way. “Authenticity pro-duces connectivity with highly satisfied customers,” hesays, “through touching people at an emotional leveldriven by unparalleled quality, commitment to cus-tomer service, concern for the community, charitableinvolvement and remarkable business cultures.” (SeeCase Study: PrimeGenesis Takes “Authentic” Approach toGrooming an Online Reputation, on pg.11.)

Create relevant content. Regularly produce online con-tent that’s relevant to your brands. Content could in-clude blog posts, white papers, videos, podcasts, press

releases and transcripts of speeches by executives oremployees. Share links to posts on your social networksand industry forums. Ask partners and industry web-sites to highlight the material on their own blogs togain links from those sites back to yours, which canhelp lift your site’s rankings in search engine results.Share company news through PRNewswire or otherpress release services.

Make posts matter. How you post information on yourwebsite is as important as what you post. Add content ona regular, scheduled basis. Tag content with relevant key-words, including any that are already driving traffic toyour site. e operator of your website can often providedata on what keywords are being used to find your site.

Move beyond the obvious. Instead of running a singlewebsite, create microsites devoted to specific products.Sites that use your company’s name or product namesin the URL (the Web address) can bolster reach andsearch rankings.

Companies that use these strategies have a betterchance of dominating the first page of results on Googleand other search engines. “If you only have one site, youmight get only three or four listings in the rankings,”Rosica says. “I’ve seen companies build sites dedicatedto charitable works, blogs for their executives, specificproduct sites. All of these build relationships and (give)customers a better idea of who the company and itsemployees are.”



Consider everything that could impact your online reputation as a single unit. Everyone connected to those activities should work together in an “authentic” way.

Where Social Media Fits In

Social media describes any online forum that allows acom munity of readers or visitors to interact, which makesit easy to understand why a company’s online reputationand sales can be shaped by what people say about it.

Research bears this out. A June 2011 report 5 byLancaster, Pennsylvania-based consumer insights firmROI Research found that 60 percent of U.S. social net-work users are at least “somewhat likely” to buy or rec-ommend a product when someone they know postssomething about a company or brand. at compareswith 18 percent who were “not at all” likely to takeaction, according to the report.

Social media’s influence continues to grow as new chan-nels pop up. Established outlets such as Facebook,Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and blogs have been joinedby newer offerings such as Google+ and Tumblr.

Social media has become a big part of consumers’ deci-sion-making and buying process. In a separate June2011 report6 from ROI Research, 46 percent of socialmedia users said they were “somewhat” or “strongly”more loyal to brands they followed on Twitter and 34percent to brands they liked on Facebook (see Fig. 2).



5 http://bit.ly/pOjZbT6 http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008447

Continued on next page

Stronglyagree

Somewhatagree

Neither agreenor disagree

Somewhatdisagree

Strongly disagree

Fig. 2 – Social Media LoyaltyU.S. consumers are becoming more loyal to companies or products they followon Twitter or Facebook, according to a June 2011 ROI Research survey.

Source: ROI Research, eMarketer Source: ROI Research, eMarketer

Stronglyagree

Somewhatagree

Neither agreenor disagree

Somewhatdisagree

Strongly disagree

U.S. social networks users who say they're more loyal to companies they follow on Twitter

U.S. social networks users who say they're more loyal to companies they follow on Facebook

12%16%

28%30%

39%41%

10%8%

11%5%

8%9%

24%25%

43%42%

10%8%

10%11%

2010 2011 2010 2011

Where Social Media Fits In (cont.)

Integration Technologies Inc.,7 a New York City tech-nologies provider, has monitored social networks formore than three years. CEO Bruce Magown makes it apoint to respond to all questions and comments, oftenwithin minutes. In the tech world, customers use theweb to ask for help or follow up or research an issuemore often than they pick up a phone, Magown says.For that reason, the private company, which sells smartintegration solutions for customer resource manage-ment (CRM), finance and e-commerce, monitors majorsoftware review sites, including sites in multiple lan-guages. It also runs a customer service forum named

after InterWeave Smart Solutions, one of its most pop-ular products, to encourage customers to come to themwith suggestions, ideas, issues or problems. Oncethey’re documented, resources can be assigned to assessand follow up quickly, Magown says.

In addition to running online forums, Big Blue Robot’sSorensen suggests companies maintain a presence onall the major social networks and put an employee incharge of monitoring and posting comments there anddealing with problems as quickly as possible. at em-ployee needs to know how to respond intelligently andhonestly to negative posts to avoid tit-for-tat discus-sions that can escalate to unpleasant conversations.“Respond once, ask to take the discussion to a moreone-on-one forum and be clear you are not going tokeep responding to negative rebuttals,” Sorensen says.

Companies can also raise their search rankings and visibility by writing guest posts on partner or industryblogs, appearing in webcasts or virtual events or host-ing Twitter chats and other social media events.

Some companies buy links, blog posts or tweets togain online exposure, but experts don’t advise it be-cause it can backfire. In one recent example, a popularmid-sized toy manufacturer offered parenting blog-gers free toys to review or give away for every 200 newFacebook Likes they drove to the company’s Facebookpage. But because the promotion favored bloggers

who could drive more traffic to the company’s site, it created a firestorm of criticism on the very blogsthe company was hoping to win over. Although thecompany backpedaled and apologized 8, some blog-gers vowed not to review or promote the company’sproducts again.

Companies are better off creating genuine relationshipswith bloggers and social media experts influential onFacebook and Twitter. “Don’t bribe or entice,” Rosicasays. He also recommends courting traditional mediaand influential online news and commentary sites suchas TechCrunch, Mashable, and Politico whose posts are regularly shared and retweeted. (See Case Study:Clements Worldwide Takes Soft-Sell Approach, on pg.12.)



7 http://www.interweave.biz/8 http://bit.ly/q6mvOc

Companies can also raise their search rankings and visibility by writingguest posts on partner or industry blogs, appearing in webcasts or virtualevents or hosting Twitter chats and other social media events.

How to Protect Your Reputation Online

Once a company has established its online reputation,it’s up to everyone in the business to maintain it, espe-cially marketing and PR employees. Companies must bediligent about taking action against copyright infringe-ment and libel. Breeches usually can be uncovered byGoogle Alerts and regular searches on sites such asYouTube and Facebook.

Even something as simple as a website with a similar address can hurt a company’s online reputation. One ofBeccalori’s clients recently discovered seven unautho-rized Facebook fan pages for its products. e pagescould have been set up by a fan or affiliate trying to gaintraffic. In other instances, “It could be someone puttingup a parody, and it could be a competitor trying to

smear your name,” he says. “We’ve seen people take acompany’s commercial and overdub the audio.”

To fight unofficial websites, Facebook fan pages orYouTube channels, create and maintain official accountson the networks and include registered trademark infor-mation. To date, there’s been little legal precedent cover-ing social media, but the threat of legal action is oftenenough to get fraudulent pages or videos taken down.

Other mechanisms to protect online reputation include:

Social bookmarking sites. Use sites such as Digg,StumbleUpon and Delicious to share posts or other in-formation to help boost online visibility and search-en-gine ranking, which can push negative or outside linksdown or completely off the first page of results.

Share buttons. Include social sharing buttons on everypage of your website to make it easy for anyone to shareyour content. Sharing also creates links back to yoursite, which can raise your overall search ranking.

Logos. Make content and company logos available forpartners and affiliates to use on their own sites. “Put asection on your site with source code so people can useit on their websites,” Beccalori says. “is creates an-other backlink. It’s a simple [search engine optimiza-tion] tip, but it helps with reputation.”

Paid search.When problems occur, use “paid search” tomove your message ahead of organic search results bypaying the search engines to display your link first when

certain keywords are typed in. “It puts your voice frontand center when you buy that first spot and drive peo-ple to an information page,” Rosica says.

Toyota Motor Corp.9 used paid search to combat a mon-umental challenge to its reputation. Typically praisedfor its quality and customer service, Toyota came underfire in 2010 after recalling more than 10 million vehiclesfor unintended acceleration and other problems.

e recalls were covered in the mainstream press butwent viral after bloggers and social-media punditswrote that Toyota didn’t disclose the problems soonenough. Blog posts with negative and sometimes erro-neous information made their way onto the first pagesof search engine results.



9 http://www.toyota.com/

Continued on next page

When it comes to protecting online reputation, companies must be vigilant or they’ll lose customers, sales and market share.

How to Protect Your Reputation Online (cont.)

e situation could have been disastrous, but swiftmoves by Toyota marketers helped rescue its onlinereputation. e company’s PR department created a microsite to dispel misinformation and bought searchterms such as “Toyota recall” and “Toyota brakes,” todominate Google search results for those phrases. ecompany also made executives available for interviews,including a high profile appearance on the Today show.

e crisis plan worked. While Toyota may have mademistakes early on, negative perception of the company’sbrands doesn’t appear to have had a lasting impact. In

2011, five Toyota models took top places in J.D. Power & Associates’ Vehicle Dependability study10. e com-pany’s Lexus line garnered first place in J.D. Power’s2011 Initial Quality Study, a widely viewed barometer of automotive reputation, up from fourth last year.

e lesson: When it comes to protecting online repu-tation, companies must be vigilant or they’ll lose cus-tomers, sales and market share, Rosica says. “Mostcompanies don’t realize the impact that reputation issues pose.”



10 http://bloom.bg/qG4UqT

Conclusion

A positive online reputation can help companies buildsales and create loyal customers. By disseminating con-tent, promoting themselves with backlinks and moni-toring social networks, blogs and other websites formentions, companies can boost positive search enginelistings and their overall reputations.

By failing to monitor and foster a positive online repu-tation, companies can lose customers and sales. Con -sid ering that managing an online reputation doesn’trequire a lot of money or additional staff, it should be-come a core responsibility of every business’ marketingdepartment.

Case Study: PrimeGenesis Takes “Authentic” Approach to Grooming an Online Reputation

PrimeGenesis11, a Stamford, Connecticut, executiveonboarding firm, takes the authentic approach to man-aging its online reputation that’s advocated by socialmedia experts.

“If we think about our clients as people we need to con-tribute to, our efforts will help our overall reputation,”says George Bradt, managing director of the $2 millioncompany, which helps executives quickly get up tospeed in new positions.

Bradt uses the following to create and monitor thecompany’s online reputation:

Website. PrimeGenesis’ website features a blog, videos,downloads of e-book summaries and an ongoing feed ofrecruiting industry news.

Ancillary materials. Bradt has published three booksabout succeeding in a new executive position and offersdownloadable onboarding tools.

Community action. Bradt encourages employees tovolunteer for the Red Cross and blogs about it.

Social media monitoring. Bradt starts work early—at5:30 a.m.—to answer questions or comments from hiswebsite and monitors Twitter and LinkedIn for men-tions of the business. He also manages a LinkedIn grouphe started about onboarding.

Google Alerts. Bradt uses Google Alerts, which sendshim an email notice anytime his or his company’s nameis mentioned online. Social media expert Chris Rosicasuggests setting up Google Alerts for a company’sbrands, product names, model numbers and executives.He also recommends creating alerts for business part-ners and suppliers, since both can be tied to a com-pany’s reputation.

Expert commentary. PrimeGenesis’ website gets ahuge traffic boost from a weekly column Bradt writesfor Forbes.com called e New Leader’s Playbook,which relates positive examples of strong leaders andlinks back to the company’s site. “We used to get 400visits per month,” he says. “Yesterday when my columnwent up, we got 657 visitors in one day.” e extra traffictranslates into trust and reputation as far as the searchengines are concerned, say experts.

All told, Bradt spends about two hours a day managingthe company’s reputation. It’s time well spent, accordingto Rosica. e simple, inexpensive social media andmonitoring tools that PrimeGenesis uses should be onevery company’s to-do list, he says. “Even doing thesesimple things can mean the world of difference for acompany’s image.”



11 http://www.primegenesis.com/blog/

Even doing these simple things can mean theworld of difference for a company’s image.

Chris Rosica, authorThe Authentic Brand: How Today’s Top Entrepreneurs Connect with Customers

“ ”

Case Study: Clements Worldwide Takes Soft-Sell Approach

Clements Worldwide12, a Washington, D.C., insurancecompany, sells to expats and organizations around theworld. It’s not uncommon for its customers in the mili-tary, Peace Corps or overseas government offices to bestationed in places where the usual means of communi-cation don’t work. As a result, the company goes togreat lengths to stay in contact with current andprospective clients—and uses social media to do it.

Customer service must be “perfect,” says SergioSanchez, the company’s marketing director, and socialmedia help the company fulfill that mandate.

Here’s how Clements Worldwide uses social media tomanage its online reputation by providing the best pos-sible customer service:

Expat information. e company provides informa-tion helpful to expats in an email newsletter and con-tributes articles to Expatwomen.com, Expatfinder.comand similar sites.

Social networks. Employees staff two Facebook pages,two Twitter accounts and the company’s LinkedIn pres-ence, posting and tweeting stories and other informa-tion that customers might find interesting. Most ofwhat they share isn’t specifically related to its products,according to a Clements Worldwide spokesperson.

“Customers do not want to hear about our brand allday long. ey do not want to feel like we are selling tothem,” the spokesperson says.

e company uses Twitter and Facebook to interactdirectly with customers. Employees aren’t allowed todelete or sidestep negative comments. “When peoplesee that we’ve heard their problem and fixed it for them,it bolsters our online reputation,” Sanchez says.

Social media experts endorse that level of attention.When people feel taken care of and know they have ac-cess to a monitored customer service platform, they’reless likely to post negative comments on other socialmedia channels.

Even so, Clements Worldwide is proactive about its rep-utation. e marketing department subscribes to anews monitoring service and uses Google Alerts andHootSuite13, a social media tool, to monitor mentionsof the company and its executives. “We search for termslike ‘expat’ and ‘insurance,’ and then repost items wethink are of interest,” the Clements spokesperson says.

Frequent website activity.e company updates its web-site regularly with press releases and product informationand makes sure it’s set up to be easily indexed by searchengines. It also offers content to partner and sponsorsites to increase the number of links back to its own site.

Because Clements Worldwide is so aggressive, negativecomments about the business rarely show up in searchresults and have little effect when they do, Sanchez says.“ose one-offs are part of doing business,” he says. “Aslong as we’re transparent and show empathy for ourcustomers, we’re going to be okay.”



12 http://www.clements.com/13 http://hootsuite.com/

When people see that we’ve heard theirproblem and fixed it for them, it bolsters our online reputation.

Sergio Sanchez, marketing directorClements Worldwide

“”

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