Proactive Reputation Management

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Pro-Active Reputation Management

Brian PattersonMay 9, 2012

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A Personal Online Reputation Management (ORM) Problem

“This Winner has been with his wife for many years. And has cheated on her for about as long”

Meet Carl Oliveri. CPA, MBA, Husband, and accused cheater on…

Is it true? Who knows, but it ranks #6 in Google for his name.

A Business ORM Problem

6 of the Top 10 results for a search of this brand are negative. That can’t be good for sales.

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Why Proactive?

Because an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.- Benjamin Franklin,

ORM Pioneer

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Again, Why Proactive?

Because this could happen to you.

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First Things First:Check If You Have any Problems

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Check The SERPs For Your Name & Brand Name

Pro Tip: Use this URL string in a private browser window to retrieve Google search results that are neither personalized nor location specific:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=keywords+go+here&gl=us

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Check Your Autocomplete Values

You can view the top 10 results for a phrase in Google Autocomplete using an undocumented Google API.

Use UberSuggest.org & mangoco.com/blog/autocomplete to review your Autocomplete values.

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Check The Complaint & Review Sites

See mangoco.com/blog/complaint-search for a tool that searches over 40 complaint sites.

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Next: Claim Your Property

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Register Social Media ProfilesFacebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Quora, Flickr, YouTube, everything else…

KnowEm.com will register your name on 300 social media sites for $600 (smaller plans available).

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Buy DomainsBuy YourName.com or something close. Snatch up other TLDs like .com, .net, .me, etc

Consider buying 10 or so modified versions of your domain, for example:BrandNameSucks.com (so nobody else does)BrandNameReviews.comBrandNameNews.com, etc.BrandNameFoundation.comBrandNameBlog.comBrandNameJobs.com, etc….

This slide sponsored by:

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Then What: Everything Else

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Stockpile Positive ReviewsDo’s Don’ts

Ask for Reviews – It’s like asking a customer to “tell a friend about us”

Thank and engage everyone who leaves a review

On Yelp, friend/like/follow positive reviewers

Incentivize or reward reviewers

Go crazy setting up fake accounts to create fake reviews

Argue publicly with any negative reviewers

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Listen for Mentions on Social Media

Today’s Twitter complaint can become tomorrow’s ComplaintsBoard.com rant. Catch both negative and positive mentions in real-time.

There are plenty of free and paid social media monitoring tools. Our recommendations – Free: Trackur, Paid: UberVu

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Link Build to Other People’s Positive Content

Look on page 2, 3 and beyond of the SERPs for your brand name. Is there neutral or positive content? Point links to it.

Pro Tip: Strong domains like those of newspapers and other legitimate websites can handle a more ‘diverse’ link profile. Low(er) quality links still improve rankings if they point to very strong domains.

I’m not advocating using stuff like this, but…

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H&M Is Doing It

RightGoogle+ UpdatesMicrositeWikipediaFacebookAppsTwitterYouTube

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Questions?

Brian Patterson@brianSpatterson on the Twitter

Brian.Patterson@GoFishDigital.com

Slide Deck Available at:GoFishDigital.com/meetup/