March 25, 2009
These NewsBriefs are produced and delivered weekly by
Attainium to keep our friends and clients
current on topics relating to Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery and Crisis Management.
Your organization's reputation is an asset whose importance cannot be overestimated.
If tarnished or seriously damaged, your reputation can be the cause of your organization's demise.
It's important, therefore, to know how to make reputation protection a part of your employee training,
to know how to monitor your online reputation (and how to fix it), and what resources are available
if you can't fix it yourself. This week's articles can help bring you up to speed on this critical topic.
Reputation matters, and your employees are critical in maintaining it.
(Item #1)
This document lays out everything a beginner needs to know to protect online reputation.
(Item #2)
You know how to manipulate search engines to your benefit, but is this practice unfair?
(Item #3)
If you're thinking of hiring a reputation management company, you might want to read this first.
(Item #4)
Small businesses need to be concerned about reputation management as much as large companies are.
(Item #5)
Social media could be your reputation management secret weapon.
(Item #6)
As always, we look forward to hearing about your concerns
with regards to business continuity. If you have a topic
you'd like to see covered, please email me at
[email protected]
Best Regards,
Bob Mellinger
President
Attainium Corp
Quote of the Week
"It is easier to cope with a bad conscience than with a bad reputation."
- Frederick Nietzsche -
Articles
1. Reputation Matters
There is a new profit center for 21st century business: reputation. Because customers are just
a Google search away from hundreds or even thousands of posts about a company's actions,
those organizations that are perceived as untrustworthy aren't likely to be around very long.
Savvy leaders know that reputation is built one person and one customer interaction at a time
and are based on the actions of each employee.
http://www.amanet.org/movingahead/editorial.cfm?Ed=878
2. Online Reputation Monitoring Beginners Guide
A company can dominate market share, throttle competition and hold the #1 brand in the world.
It can also crash in months if it fails to listen to what its customers want. Read the tips
and strategies outlined here, and arm yourself with valuable knowledge to help protect your online reputation.
http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/online-reputation-monitoring-beginners-guide.pdf
3. Online reputation management is hot -- but is it ethical?
Executives are waking up to how the Internet can be used as an early warning system to alert them
if their company's brand names and reputations are at risk as a result of a product defect, a disgruntled
customer's blog rant or some other looming crisis.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9060960
4. Do Reputation Management Services Work?
An industry of online fixers is sprouting to defend clients against damaging information on the Web.
With potential customers increasingly heading online to research products and services, bad reviews
or complaints that turn up in a search can mean lost business. Reputation management services promise
to highlight positive pages and bury offending sites deep in search results.
http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/apr2008/sb20080430_356835.htm
5. Why Reputation Management Matters for Small Businesses
Slowly but surely, the idea of small business reputation management is taking hold.
Proactive small business owners are learning to manage their reputation on review sites like Yelp.
This is new territory for many small businesses, and traditional media occasionally picks up
on the idea - sometimes reporting the good and sometimes the bad.
http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/small-business-reputation-management/1230/
6. Using Social Media for Reputation Management
As potential customers, business partners, and employers begin to use the Internet as a research
and background check tool, your reputation in the search engines is becoming increasingly more important.
The author recommends taking a preemptive or proactive stance, and securing one or more listings
on the first page for the company or their personal name, before there is a problem.
However if there are already one or more unfavorable listings, there are still steps you can take
to correct the problem, here is a basic plan for using social media reputation management.
http://www.dirjournal.com/articles/using-social-media-for-reputation-management/
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