THEY SAID WHAT? Monitoring Your Brand and Reputation Online

EContent Magazine, September 2008 by Marji McClure

Abstract

With the ever-growing number and influence of online social networks, blogs, and forums, an increasing number of voices can be heard, and word certainly travels fast. Unfortunately, that word isn't always complimentary. Yet many companies do not know what information about them is floating around cyberspace. They have no idea that negative and potentially damaging information is being circulated and possibly eating away at their businesses and the reputations they have worked so hard to build. Typing your company name into a general search engine's search box and glancing at the top 10 results is not the most effective online reputation management program. To get a complete view of a brand's online reputation, exploration must extend well beyond that first results page. This need has created an opportunity for technology providers to offer tools to help companies monitor their online brands and identities and, in some cases, help them diminish and remove negative information.

Full Text

There's no question that the internet serves as a great megaphone for organizations that want to conduct business around the globe. The web can communicate your message to more people and more locations than any previous communications channel ever could.

However, with the ever-growing number and influence of online social networks, blogs, and forums, an increasing number of voices can be heard, and word certainly travels fast. Unfortunately, that word isn't always complimentary. Yet many companies do not know what information about them is floating around cyberspace. They have no idea that negative and potentially damaging information is being circulated and possibly eating away at their businesses and the reputations they have worked so hard to build.

Getting a Reputation

Some companies (especially larger ones) make considerable investments in creating their brands, while risking everything by falling short of maintaining the integrity of those brand names in the online environment. One reason is they don't know where to begin-especially today when references to brand name products or organizations can appear in thousands or even millions of webpages.

Augmenting traditional media measurement tools that help marketers better understand their customers, technologies have emerged that are designed to help organizations (and individuals too) wade through the vast web and monitor how their brands are being perceived online. Online reputation management is gradually growing on the priority list of marketers, corporate communication specialists, and even IT professionals within organizations of all sizes.

"We're just at the early stages now, but there is a growing realization that companies need to be proactive and take a strategic approach to online reputation management," says Jay Heiser, a research VP at Gartner. He believes that while this will become a corporate communications function, it requires a partnership between IT and corporate communications.

It will certainly need a solid team behind it-team that knows how it wants to deal with the issue. As powerful as the internet is at building businesses, it possesses equal strength to destroy them. "You always need a crisis management plan because you never want to have to use it," says Jim Nail, CMO of Cymfony, a market influence analytics company that is a unit of TNS Media Intelligence.

Apparently, companies are starting to put that plan in place. Jason Ferrara, COO of Elixir Interactive, a digital marketing agency, says that the company has witnessed an increased awareness of online reputation management by clients. "It's taken off more than SEO," says Ferrara. "They realize that ignoring reputation management will do a lot more damage. "

A Proactive Discovery Phase

Typing your company name into a general search engine's search box and glancing at the top 10 results is not the most effective online reputation management program. To get a complete view of a brand's online reputation, exploration must extend well beyond that first results page. This need has created an opportunity for technology providers to offer tools to help companies (and individuals) monitor their online brands and identities and, in some cases, help them diminish and remove negative information.

Tony Priore, CMO and head of product development at information services company Biz360, stresses the importance of looking at both channels: social media as well as news media. "The impact of ignoring the blogosphere can be significant," says Priore. He notes how messages can easily flow from an individual who starts his own blog to millions of people who could be influenced by that one blogger.

Biz360's Media Insights service aggregates, measures, and analyzes content from both social and media sources to help marketers and media professionals better understand their audiences. The company can measure many different facets of a company's brand-from the impact of its marketing and public relations efforts to its success (or failure) related to recent product launches or events. Articles that enter the system are labeled with a sentiment rating (negative, neutral, positive), and tone is classified as either very positive, positive, neutral, negative, very negative, and divided.

When the company was founded in 2001, BD-BrandProtect, an online threat protection specialist, primarily served financial services companies that were concerned about preventing identity theft attacks. "That has evolved to larger brands that want to protect their names and trademarks online," says Kevin Joy, VP of BrandProtect. "With the advent of social media, it has a broader impact. Companies are becoming more aware. "

Cymfony began 10 years ago with a focus on traditional media, but it has since expanded into social media solutions through its Orchestra platform. Similar to Biz360, Orchestra uses a natural language processing engine to aggregate and analyze traditional and social media. Cymfony has retrievers that find the content written online about a particular client by using the company's own spiders as well as those from partners.

Elixir Technologies similarly monitors online conversations for its clients to uncover what is being said about them. The company also scans results (both organic and paid listings) in the search engines to get a clear picture of a client's online reputation.

Molding Perceptions

Visible Technologies, an online brand management solution provider, focuses on helping companies as well as individuals, such as company executives, maintain a closer eye on their online reputations. The company helps its customers optimize search engine results so more favorable items have more prominent positions. "You can't change content, but you can optimize it," says Blake Cahill, SVP of marketing for Visible Technologies. "About 80% of searchers go no further than the first page of search engine results. The challenge is having relevant and new content out there. We help optimize and better promote or develop assets."

Cahill says Visible Technologies works with individuals with a high net worth who want to be known for their philanthropic work. Overall, by using its TruView product, the company's main goal is to help its clients promote their desired messages online and ensure that they are prominently viewed. Visible Technologies serves more as a consultant to its clients by advising them on what will help them rank higher in search engine results and guide them to create the content that will achieve that goal. The company also monitors future activity to ensure that a client's reputation remains positive.

Cleaning Up the Mess

Once monitoring processes are completed, clients are typically presented with a report that summarizes the status of their brand on the web-what positive things are being said about them and what negative press appears. Biz360 offers monthly, weekly, or quarterly reports, but it also allows clients to view a dashboard of their metrics on an hourly basis.

Oftentimes, this is where the online reputation management technology's job is finished. The next step is typically an analysis of the findings to determine how to eliminate negative information and how to ensure that an abundance of positive information about a client exists. "We counsel clients to give them strategic information about what will rank higher [in the search engines] and guide them to create it," says Cahill.

After Cymfony's solution collects information, internal analysts review the content and write reports and recommendations for clients to follow. Nail says clients typically turn to other outside vendors, such as their public relations agencies, to create a plan to deal with any negative information that is found.

BD-BrandProtect collects information for its clients and presents it in reports or directs them to a portal to view the data. "We look at the variety of threats and provide them the visibility to take measures to ensure they're mitigated," explains Joy. "The key is to get to it early." A series of three letters can be sent to the guilty parties requesting that they stop compromising another company's brand name. Joy says the process is typically 75 % successful.

ReputationD efender, through its MyReputation product, scans the internet (from sources such as social networks, websites, and news sources) to find information about a particular client-much like other solutions available in the marketplace. That information is compiled into a monthly report. From that report, clients can select content that they want removed, and ReputationDefender can assist in removing it or making it more accurate, according to founder and CEO Michael Fertik.

Taking Control of Your Own Brand

One way that companies and individuals can take an active role in their online reputation management processes is to ensure that all online mentions of them going forward project the messaging and images that they prefer. Of course, creating strong products, providing stellar customer service, and just being responsible citizens can help organizations and people get the positive online press they desire.

However, technologies exist for those who need assistance in this area as well. ReputationDefender's MyEdge product enables clients to ensure that the exact information they want revealed about them appears online. Proprietary technology publishes that information on behalf of the client.

Experts agree that companies need to be more proactive in their online reputation management processes. Taking that proactive, not reactive, approach can save considerable aggravation and money. "If they get in front of the issue and actively manage their reputation online, it will be one-tenth the cost of doing it after it's a problem," says Fertik. "Think of it as Google insurance."

Joy agrees that some companies avoid dealing with online reputation management because they don't want to incur any related costs. But the benefits of such protection-and a clean online reputation-can certainly outweigh the costs. Ferrara notes how helping clients get good exposure on the web can be very helpful to those seeking funding. Those positive mentions could be enticing to a potential investor. "The web allows us to interact with our customers, to talk and iron things out," says Ferrara. "The web is the best unpaid focus group out there."

Most online reputation management initiatives must be ongoing since negative information can appear online at any time. Joy says that a typical BrandProtect engagement for monitoring services is 1 to 3 years. "But the larger the organization, the broader [its] footprint, the more need for constant vigilance is required," he says. According to Priore, Biz360 does monitor metrics for a long period of time, but it does work with clients who just want to deal with one particular issue.

Priore notes how when Mattel received bad press about lead paint in its toys, that negative press coverage declined after the toy maker's CEO apologized publicly. "But we also looked at the blog world, and around the annual holiday shopping season, there was a resurgence of negative press," says Priore. "If Mattel saw the negative blog press, the company could have reacted to it."

Results of companies' reactions and increased vigilance are evident, notes Heiser. Online reputation management strategies are working. "Thousands of sites a day are getting shut down," he says. "The rate of phishing would be higher if not for them."

Still, technology providers recognize that there is still more they can do to protect their clients, and they agree that the online reputation management solutions market will continue to experience solid growth. "Our main expense is R&D," says Fertik. "That's our main work right now."

For many companies today-particularly those with household-word brand recognition, or aspirations thereof-a primary objective should be to monitor and protect their online brands. "In the future, your online reputation will be based on how well a company engages in these conversations," says Nail. "Companies that are viewed as companies [that] respond and care will have stronger brands and a stronger reputation. You need to be closer to your customer and show that you care about them."

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Biz360's Media Insights service enables marketers to monitor, analyze, and derive on-demand market Intelligence from traditional and social media.

Elixir Interactive utilizes a proprietary spidering technology to uncover all mentions of a particular brand name in both the natural and paid listings. The tool provides customers with a comprehensive list.

ReputationDefender's MyEdge personal dashboard provides consumers access to a personal PR engine that enables them to take control of their own personal brands online.

By entering their URLs into the Website Grader system, users can quickly learn how their websites are performing in the marketplace.

Before You Can Monitor Your Online Brand, You Need to Have One

While online reputation management is a key component of an ongoing brand management program, none of these management processes are necessary if you don't already have an established brand name online. Bottom line: You need to first control what your company is saying about itself on the web. "Before you can manage your online brand, it's a great idea to figure out your brand on the web," says David Meerman Scott, a contributing editor at EContent and author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR. "On the web, you're not better than the content itself. Understanding what your own website is projecting to the market is a good start."

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Scott suggests gaining a better understanding of the phrases people are entering in search boxes and whether or not your company is visible when users are seeking solutions that your firm provides. "If somebody doesn't know your name, they're going to enter a phrase about a problem they have," notes Scott. "If you don't exist in the search engines, you're like a plumber in the 1960s who doesn't have a Yellow Pages ad."

Internet marketing firm HubSpot offers a free service, Website Grader, that can help organizations determine how their sites are being embraced on the web with the goal of improving their search rankings and overall traffic. The service provides an evaluation of a site's strengths and weaknesses and provides suggestions and recommendations for improvements. "The goal of a web site should be to help people find you; to find the content they care about," says Dharmesh Shah, founder and chief software architect for HubSpot.

To use Website Grader, visitors must enter their company's URL along with keywords that best describe the site. They can also enter the URLs of competitors to obtain a competitive analysis for the site. Among the metrics included in a report are the number of pages that are stored in the Google index as well as the readability level of the site. Each site is given a grade from 0 to 100.

According to Shah, more than 330,000 sites have been graded by Website Grader. He says that some companies view their grade, make the suggested improvements, and return for another grade-all with the goal of making sure their brand is promoted and perceived as they want it to be. "Part of the importance of search engine rankings in terms of creating an online brand is making sure that people get a balanced viewpoint so that your voice is also there and shows up in the search results along with other people that are talking about you," says Shah.

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Companies Featured in This Artide
BD-BrandProtect, www.brandprotect.com
Biz360, Inc., www.biz360.com
Cymfony, Inc., www.cymfony.com
David Meerman Scott, www.davidmeermanscott.com
Elixir Interactive, www.elixirinteractive.com
Gartner, Inc., www.gartner.com
HubSpot, Inc., www.hubspot.com
Website Grader, www.websitegrader.com
ReputationDefender, Inc., www.reputationdefender.com
Visible Technologies, www.visibletechnologies.com