Your online reputation is:

1 What shows up in the search results

2 What people say about your company on Facebook, Twitter,
and other social media sites
3 Any reviews of your company or work environment
4 Anything published in the mainstream press
5 Any academic or trade publications
6 Any photos or videos tagged with your name
7 Public records connected to your business
The way people communicate in the world has changed the last
decades. Nowadays, most of the people have a proper
connection to the Internet, by which they can communicate and
exchange all kinds of information, in order to overcome time,
distance and location constraints.

Customer-generated content from that aspect can consist out of

words, sounds or videos. It needs to fulfil three basic
requirements in order to be considered as such: first, it needs to
be published either on a publicly accessible website or on a
social networking site accessible to selecting group of people;
second, it needs to show a certain amount of creative effort; and
finally, it needs to have been created outside of professional
routines and practices (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010).
Online reputation management is the way by which companies
can deal with content of people on Social Media. In the
continuation of the paper; content of people means messages,
opinions and statements of people on Social Media, and the
content can be as well as positive as negative. A successful
creation of a negative image of a company can cause reputation
damage. Online reputation management is therefore the way by
which companies can deal with potential reputation damages on
Social Media.

THE IMPORTANCE OF ONLINE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT

People are increasingly using blogs, video, podcasts, images and customer reviews to gather
information about your brand. This information may guide the decisions they make about the
interactions they have with your brand. DIGITAL STRATEGY AND TACTICS For Brand
Reputation Management

IMPACT ON BRAND PERCEPTION

Perception is reality. If someone does a search for your brand in Google, what will they see?
Hopefully, there will be a link to your website, but what if there is a link to a site that talks about
a bad experience someone had, or worse yet, what if there was a video that showed how your
brand caused harm to someone? Perception of the brand at that moment is probably pretty
poor.
IMPACT ON SALES
Would you buy something from a company where 5 out of 6 customer ratings blasted the
company for poor customer service, lousy quality or late delivery? Probably not. You might
search a little longer for a company that didnt have such bad customer reviews. And, you might

even be willing to pay a bit more if you knew the company had a solid reputation. This negative
feedback can directly impact sales.
IMPACT ON RECRUITMENT
Todays job candidate will typically research a company online before they submit their resume.
Candidates will want to understand whether the company they are about to work for treats their
employees well, if there is high turnover and what the current employees think of the working
conditions. Sites such as Vault (www.vault.com) have given employees a voice. Search has
allowed this voice to be heard. A companys ability to recruit for key positions can be negatively
impacted by the information posted on these sites.
IMPACT ON INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
A substantial amount of time and cost go into securing the necessary rights to a companys
trademarks, copyrights and other intellectual property. Unscrupulous businesses can leverage
your brands equity to redirect unsuspecting customers to their business. This infringement can
cause confusion amongst your customers, damage brand perception and impact revenue.
IMPACT ON INVESTOR RELATIONS
Like prospective job-seekers, investors look to blogs and other sources of unbiased financial
data to make decisions on whether to buy, hold or sell a position in a company. Since blogs and
other sources of user-generated media allow for frank discussions, investors can gain additional
perspective on the health of a company.
IMPACT ON FINANCIALS
When Starbucks announced the closure of certain stores throughout the United States in July
2008, activity in the blogosphere spiked. This spike in activity corresponded with a dip in the
companys stock price below $14 a share the lowest point it reached for the entire month of
July. The perception that Starbucks was in trouble spread quickly online and thus negatively
impacted the companys stock price.

One company estimated they were losing $2.5 million in sales annually brought about by
reputation attacks on consumergenerated
2 | P a g e DIGITAL STRATEGY AND TACTICS For Brand Reputation Management
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The volume of consumer generated media is enormous and growing each day. It can seem
daunting to even consider the time and effort needed to protect ones brand in this
environment. The good news is - it can be done. On the pages that follow, you will see what
is needed to plan and implement an effective brand reputation management program.
Online Reputation Management
Strategies:In dealing with customer attacks;
online reputation management can be divided in three
concepts/stages.
Stage

one: before a customer attack; prevention

against a possible customer attack.
Preparation is
the basis; companies need to be trained in their new-media tool
kits so that they can sue them quickly and without friction
(Gaines-Ross, 2010). With prevention; companies do not have

to react on an attack, so reputation damage will in that case

certainly not happen. More than three-fourths of Social Media
attacks can be diminished or averted if organizations simply
prepare for the most-likely scenario (Gillin & Gianforte, 2012).
Prevention by Delivering Value
Organizing Social Media: Each Social Media
application usually attracts a certain group of people and firms
should be active wherever their customers are present (Kaplan
& Haenlein, 2010). Therefore, first of all, decide which
networks are relevant. Plant a brand flag in every social
network of relevance before somebody else does, and make it
easy for customer to subscribe to the companys content if that
is their preference.
Behaviour on Social Media
First, take some time to discover Social Media platforms, to
learn about its history and basic rules. Only when the company
has gained the necessary understanding, start with participating
in the different Social Media channels the company chose. The
first step for a company is to find out what customers would
like to hear; what they would like to talk about; what they might
find interesting, enjoyable, and valuable
Prevention by Simulation
To prepare companies of customer attacks, companies have to
engage in lifelike simulations, much as other emergency
response teams do. While engaging in these exercises,
companies often discover internal communication gaps places
where better alignments between colleagues are needed.
Prevention by Screening Social Media
No respond can be quick enough, and the ability to act rapidly
requires the constant, proactive screening of Social Media
(Gillin & Gianforte, 2012). It is important for companies to find
out if and on which Social Media platforms conversations about
a company are already being held (Kietzmann et al, 2011).
Companies must scan their environments in order to understand
the velocity of conversations and other information flows that
could affect current or future position on the market.
Prevention by Screening the Main Influencers
In order to screen potential damages, companies have to know
what role each person plays in the process. It all starts with
listening to their market and understanding who their main
influencers are (Gillin & Gianforte, 2012). Screening the whole
Social Media can be done by focusing on the most vocal
customers within communities of interests, habits, who are the
main influencers.
Tools to Screen Social Media
Social platforms are tools which can be quickly repurposed for
reputation defence (Gaines-Ross, 2010). Marketers with a
Social Media presence should focus on conversation tracking,
that indicates brand lift and brand engagement
Stage

two: during a customer attack; the reaction of

the company on a customer attack.
Disable people of reactions
This reaction is actually not a reaction, but it makes stage two
more complete to mention it here. Besides that, it is important
to know; because it is important to discourage companies of
using this method.
Do not react at all
The intention of Social Media is to stay always in contact with
the customers; be sure to engage in discussions and
conversations. One of the worst reactions of companies is to

watch, without communicating and interacting with people on

Social Media. When companies say nothing at all on Social
Media, it looks clueless
Delete reactions
Deleting messages and attacks of customers are the worst kind
of reactions companies can do. When companies remove
content of people, it will make it even worse, because
customers feel like they are not taken seriously (Gillin &
Gianforte, 2012). People will get upset, and may share their
message through other channels and platforms, this can damage
the reputation of companies even more. All reactions are being
discouraged, yet.
Negotiation
Companies have to interact with people by engaging in
conversations. Even if a customer attack occurs, it is in most
cases wise to engage in discussions about the reason of the
attack and to find a possible solution for the attack. The company has to show
the world that they care about the opinion of people
Admit problems
After all, companies have always own up to their mistakes; be
prepared to revisit the company and demonstrate the
willingness to change.
Counterattack
It is always recommend to take the high road; sticking to the
facts and resisting the urge to counterattacks. Counterattack is
often the riskiest form of response. Counterattacks work only if
there is incontrovertible evidence that the attacker is either lying
of flagrantly disregarding the facts. Even then, a sceptical
public may still look for ways to side with the aggrieved
individual (
Stage

three: after a customer attack; the learning and

evaluation part after a customer attack.
Stage Three: Learning & Evaluation
After a customer attack, a company has to learn and evaluate
what went wrong and what went right in preventing and
reacting on the customer attack, companies have to change if it
went wrong. Companies have to be prepared to revisit the
companys preventing strategies, by searching for the gap in the
prevention strategy as the cause of the attack. After recognizing
a potential gap, institute the changes in the prevention strategy,
in order to be protected in the future. Besides the prevention
strategy, also evaluate the reaction on the customer attack for
weaknesses and potential improvements; demonstrate the
willingness to change. If a problem is systemic, then consider
addressing the problem and solution in public, so that further
customer attacks have been averted. If a problem is really
systemic, fix the product to stop customer attacks.

Online Reputation: First Steps Claim

www.yourcompany.com and as many useful variations as possible
Fill out profiles on industry listing sites, review sites, social media
(Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter)

Create new content: start a blog, publish information of relevance to the

business, generate positive press, get involved philanthropically

Be a part of the conversation: the Web is going to say something about you

whether you like it or not

Engage in social media, communicate regularly with your stakeholders,

respond authentically to their concerns, share information of value

Keep tabs on all of the websites connected to your business, especially
those you dont control: forums, review sites, social media

With the emergence of social media, information is generated, relayed and consumed almost instantaneously.
85% of Web users seek others opinions before buying a product or service.
Predictive ORM is about: Monitoring the brands online presence across media and entities.
Recognizing negative trends. Responding aptly and swiftly.
Pattern Recognition Monitoring a brands online presence over a period of time generates a database of informa-tion
that, when analyzed, provides a rich source of insights for identifying patterns and trends. For example:
Investigating if there are triggers for a particular type of consumer sentiment or online behavior during certain times of
the year. Investigating specific consumer groups that are more vocal about particular issues.
Managed Response Mechanism Armed with this insight, ORM could be made more efficient and effective. ORM is a
discipline com-bining many other disciplines from social media

Proactive Reputation Management

Figure 1: Proactive Reputation Management

If your organization makes someone unhappy in the virtual world, chances are that it will be relayed to many others in
no time the same is true for positive word of mouth as well. However, there is a higher propensity for negative
sentiments to travel faster and further.
in todays digital age there are a plethora of chan-nels and voices on both social and traditional media platforms
that contribute to shaping a brands reputation. As a result, the definition of reputation manage-ment has evolved
as well. It cuts across both offline and online media, and is multidisciplinary (social media, SEO, PR, etc.) and
extremely dynamic.

Reputation management is typically aimed at achieving three objectives, depending on the brands stage in its
lifecycle:
Build: Typically an objective for a new business trying to establish a name for itself.
Maintain and enhance: Relevant for brands that have an established positive reputation and, important, that
customers and influencers trust to provide good services/products. At this stage, the brand enjoys positive word of
mouth in the influencer community.
Recover and learn: This applies to brands that have taken a reputational hit and are now associated with negative
sentiment. Recovery means employing content marketing and pro-motional tactics to resuscitate the brand over time
and enhance its reputation quotient. The impact of negative online sentiment weighs heavily on sales and press
coverage, and also impacts a brands ability to attract the best talent.

By applying a predictive approach to online reputation management,

organizations can enhance their social capital and better understand and
participate in digital conversations that directly impact brand perception and
value.
Ever-evolving digital technology is creating newer ways to do the same things and new things faster, better and
cheaper

Digital footprints are everywhere. Each time you leave a comment on a blog, change your profile
picture, or even post a status update, some database has archived your activity. A companys online reputation
has become synonymous with a real-world reputation, now that the

business world has become more digital. Professional connections begin within search engines and
social networking sites. Connecting is the new handshake.

Online reputation management is a set of strategies and tactics designed to monitor and
protect your online image and visibility.

Your online reputation is one of your

biggest assets. In this day and age
information about you and your company
can spread like wide fire, and can
have disastrous negative commercial
impacts.

Online Reputation Management or ORM is

the practice of consistent research and
analysis of ones personal, professional or
industry reputation as represented by
content across all online media.

An effective strategy is to:

1. Participate in discussions to build trust
2. Engage the community to build trust
3. Communicate to understanding your trust

when people search for your name or your company name in a search engine they only see
positive comments about you. This is what we call SEO CounterMeasures (SEO-CM).

there are even free tools that monitor opinions

inside a blogosphere on certain brand, company or
organization and they can be found at Technorati
(http://technorati.com), BlogPulse
(http://www.blogpulse.com) and Twingly
(http://www.twingly.com) web sites

There are many commercial and open-source tools for

reputation monitoring, as tools for opinion or sentiment
mining of messages on Twitter.

Start With Search

Begin with a simple search on Google, Bing, Yahoo,
ApartmentRatings, DoNotRent, Twitter, Blogs, Forums, YouTube,
Digg and other websites for combinations of keywords associated
with your brand. Search for the names of key employees,
addresses of properties, the company name, and variations of
these terms. Include modifiers such as sucks scam and
hate. Monitor Google and Yahoo by setting up free alerts.

If competitors, former employees and residents are actively following your activity online, leaving false
reviews of your company, employees or properties, then it is obvious you have an online reputation
management problem. The most common reputation management problems come in the form of
squatted usernames and domains, doppelgangers, job and name changes, negative comments,
false information, fake profiles, trademark infringement, industry perceptions, corporate and personal
Many reputation problems occur because one individual or a group of individuals are
unable to effectively communicate with the company. In frustration, they turn to social
networking channels like blogs, complaint sites, Twitter and Facebook.
2011 AppFolio, Inc. | Managing Your Online Reputation: What Property Managers Need to Know | www.appfolio.com 3

www.appfolio.com
scandals, hate sites, reviews sites, and bad news coverage. In extreme cases you may need the
services of a reputation management company and a public relations agency.

If you find that there were not any comments or mentions of your company online, this means you
should start to build your reputation. Although there may be no obvious problems, now is the time to

be proactive. Establish a positive reputation for your company online. The more branded content that
appears online the more diluted the negative content will become.

Use Tools That Help Monitor Your Brand Online

There are tools available to help you monitor and track your companys brand online. Set up alerts
and feeds to catch every mention of your name, key employees names, the company name, domain
name, etc. By doing this, you will receive a notification before a situation escalates or enters into the
top search results.
Here is a short list of free reputation management tools:
Google Feed Reader will help you track keywords and phrases
Google Alerts will track web results, blogs, news, groups and video
Social Mention is similar to Google Alerts, but is targeted towards social networking sites - you
can even subscribe to and download the results
Twitter Search is available for up to four days after a tweet is sent and you have the option to
subscribe to updates via RSS

How Do We Handle Review Sites?

Complaints on review sites are not always the fault of the company,
but it doesnt matter to the one reading the negative review. Begin
by replying to negative posts with a personalized response, include a
thank you, an apology, a follow up, say something positive and extend
an invitation to continue the conversation on an alternative platform if
allowed (i.e. phone, email, etc.).
For the most part, people just want to be heard. You do not necessarily
have to address every issue that is mentioned. Focus on the key issues
and make sure the response is personalized and thoughtful.
Set objectives for each review response. Responding to reviews should
accomplish the following:
Demonstrate youre listening and you care
Provide the opportunity to explain the situation
Attempt to change perceptions
Win over new residents
Reinforce the positive
Understand the residents perspective
Be accountable / provide solutions / solve problems

Respond to positive reviews occasionally, in a natural way (meaning no canned responses). Search
engines will crawl the review sites and help boost your search results.

remember to repeat the compliment and your

company name!

When receiving feedback on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, a response from the
brand is expected ASAP. Instant gratification is the world in which we live today. Be sure to set up
alerts to monitor your social media sites.

Helpful Tips For Social Sites

1. Create a typical response plan but do not copy and paste the same message into every comment.
Be unique, be personal, be human.
2. Develop a social media crisis plan, just in case, and educate employees on acceptable and
unacceptable uses of social media to protect your company brand online.
3. Create a use policy for your company Facebook page to establish the ground rules and set
expectations. For example, Offensive or threatening updates will be deleted immediately.
4. Monitor your page and remove spam posts as soon as possible.

How Do We Respond To Negativity

Once you begin monitoring your brands online reputation and
you discover negativity, how should you respond? Research the
situation before responding to negative comments online. Is there
any merit to the claims against your company? If not, provide
the facts and ask for corrections to the content. If there is merit,
then offer to discuss the issue. Remember to listen, respond with
honesty and be transparent. Never be defensive or appear to be
attempting a cover up of the facts.

Start by building your companys professional network. Find

coworkers, clients, friends, residents, business partners and get them involved in conversations.

Everyday a new social networking site launches. Building your company brand can be difficult when
you dont have the same username across each of the social networks.

In addition to the companys URL and usernames, own the negatives as

well.

Once you have established your social networking profiles, remember

to protect your reputation by setting the appropriate privacy settings
on each profile. There are opportunities for unintentional sabotage
of your brands reputation everywhere. From angry customers to
dissatisfied employees, you can never predict where trouble will
appear. You can only anticipate the potential for trouble.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.