70% of online consumers have said they use the Internet to research everyday grocery products. (Prospectiv, January 2008)

41% of Europeans claim to have changed their mind about what brand to buy as a result of researching choices online, according to EIAA’s latest Mediascope survey. (Mediascope Europe, November 2008)

Brands with the highest “social media activity” (includes reviews) increased revenues by as much as 18%. (Media Post News, July 2009)

Over half (51%) of consumers are using the Internet before making a purchase in a shop. They educate themselves on the best deals available. (Verdict Research, May 2009)

Do you still think online reputation is something you may ignore?

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I recently signed on as the Sales Director for a start-up SEO Firm. My expertise is reputation management and I wanted to share my experiences about building our services from the ground up. Amazingly even in L.A. word of mouth marketing has worked very well for us. Just attending a few chamber of commerce events in the surrounding cities has been quite successful. And I have noticed a growing trend. Initially the calls coming in were the standard repair and management for small to mid-size companies such as night clubs, restaurants, law firms, accounting agencies and the like. However now I find myself inundated with preparing preliminary reputation audits for c-level executives, plastic surgeons, attorneys and accountants. I know this is nothing new but I didn’t expect the majority of our new reputation management business to be so heavily targeted from individuals. I really thought this would come later but word seems to get around town quickly. Even older executives are very interested in discussing RM. At first they don’t fully accept the idea but when I present them with an audit the look on their face let’s you know they now “get it.”

One particular instance was with an attorney who just so happened to have the exact same name as a convicted sex offender! Needless to say when I started the audit I had no where I was headed but this pales in comparison to his reaction once I presented my findings. He had absolutely no idea this guy existed but wanted to put as much distance between himself and the convict as possible. This of course got me to thinking, “What if you less than reputable family members that share your last name?” Obviously this could affect you. Even misspelled names that almost match up to yours or (more recently) one CPA in L.A. with an absolutely horrible online presence and another CPA with the exact same name whose firm is less than 20 miles from the other! The world’s a small place, much smaller now with social marketing; if you don’t take care of your good name no one will.

*Note to my potential reputation management clients.

Ethics

I will only take you on as a client if you are in fact committed to bettering your online and offline business practices. If you’ve made mistakes and offended your clients I understand. We all drop the ball. But I will not put out the fires, engage your clients, post your press release, optimize your site or participate in your blogs if you intend on continuing shady business practices. Even the best and the brightest have their bad days but risking my reputation by lying about yours is something I will never do.

Christian C

I recently attended a dinner and encountered a situation in which I realized just how important reputation management for teenagers and young adults might be.  The hosts of the party are long time family friends and both are local politicians. The husband is state Congressman and the wife a local Supreme Court judge. However it is their daughter, who was recently accepted to Vassar that is the point of mention here. I was talking with her and of course we went through the standard, “Have you decided on a major?” and she explained that she’s always loved history and political science and she intends on following in her parent’s political footsteps. And that’s when it hit me. I said,” Of course you know that’s really going to put you in the public eye.” She replied, “Oh yes, but I’ve had experience with that all my life and actually really enjoy it.” I told her, “What I mean is, is there anything out ‘there’ that you wouldn’t want associated with your character?” She looked at me as if I was trying to provoke her but I retreated and explained what it is I do for a living. I simply followed up with, “Do you have a MySpace page?” She gleamed and said, “Of course!” and proceeded to tell me the wild times she and her girlfriends had at the beach recently. Shortly thereafter you could tell that she finally caught on to what I was getting at…

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Your company has experienced incredible growth over the last decade due to the incredible increase in connectivity and information sharing abilities of the internet.  Your online sales have increased, your overall growth has increased, but at the same time your finding it increasingly difficult to manage customer satisfaction both off and online. While offline customer satisfaction has more of a one to one experience its the online portion that’s really got you worried.

You see, in the online world, its not really a one to one relationship. Rather, one unsatisfied customer can translate into a wave of criticism, negative press, blog posts, forum comments, and much more that can not only hurt your company’s reputation but also hurt your pocket book.

Lets face it, the internet has presented you with huge opportunities and potential for your business that you never imagined but at the same time you worried because managing your brand, customer satisfaction, and your reputation is a whole new animal online.

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“Americas premier global airline.”

With the announcement of the confirmed Delta/Northwest merger the competition needs to surpass them online in order to maintain market share when this giant comes to life. No longer will an airline endure the costs of major hiccups without addressing issues immediately and creatively for the masses. Most importantly they need to amplify their online reputation now so when that fateful day comes and they are facing down “DeltaWest” their online branding and public image will have a solid transparent reputation that can stand-up to a fight.

We all remember the JetBlue nightmare. Stuck in a plane for hours on end as it sits on the tarmac with a pilot who refuses to take you back to the terminal and a stewardess who won’t even give you fresh water? The backlash of the negative online press this nugget of fresh hell produced was second only to the American Airlines debacle.

However, how would this have gone down if now former Chairman David Neelman was one of us, a reputation manager? Of course this is a little back to forward of typical reputation management as the disaster as already occurred but now he needs to turn this negative into a positive and let the world know about it. Well here’s my take. First Mr. Neelman would have realized that the people in charge of each of his planes are his pilots. Think for a minute about the psychology of a pilot. If they weren’t trained in the military chances are they still hold true to that mentality. If the tower tells them to “hold on tarmac for ten hours…” that is exactly what they are going to do, without falter. Many of them waited hours before they alerted the passengers as to what was happening. So I would have directed each and every pilot to immediately announce the delay and assure them that even though we have no control of Mother Nature every employee, including the CEO, is aware of the situation and are working like mad to make it right. We also confirm that JetBlue employees will arrange free cars and hotels and offer to alert family members.

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