SEO is changing and its now moving away from gaming the flaws of the search algo and moving towards creating a ‘social’ footprint to sugggest the importance of a site. This doesn’t mean banging out a succession of twitter posts, but it does mean being in the places which are prominent in search engines and where users care most about a given subject.
So with that in mind I’ve thought up a very rough reputation management framework that can double up as a process for getting ranked on the terms that bring in the money.
Its more than an SEO trick
The broad model here is to get
- Feedback on what a business is doing to make iterative changes to the products or services from the feedback cycle
- Manage reputation, both positive and negative
- Use the online ‘ecosystem’ to spread the good word about a product or service.
- Keep clear of trouble from regulatory authorities who can affect you
The Preparation
Agree messaging for Professional / trade / consumer
Define online hotspots of interest and commercial intent:
- What keywords should the product or service be found on
- What kind of site / blogger / thought leader should be associated with this and how can their positive comments be given prominence around
- Most relevant searched phrases
- Brand terms for the client
Create the right environmental conditions to ignite consumer demand.
- Build a ‘tribe’ of followers, who you support and in turn will evangelise on your behalf. This is where you have a two way ‘conversation’ with your community of customers.? This was famously done with the Obama online campaign or with Lady Ga Ga and her ‘little monsters’
- Manage reputation very carefully.
- Be seen as transparent, honest, serving the user/customer as best as possible on value and service standards.
The Actions
Monitor sentiment towards the brand online using online monitoring tools like Google alerts and http://www.trackur.com/
If there is prominent negative sentiment:
- Respond to it immediately and be transparent and honest
- If its something where the brand has done wrong and can’t / won’t rectify, then abondon the client! or bury it by up-ranking other content above it (the resource calibrated by the reputation damage caused)
- If there is positive sentiment towards the brand, but the content is not prominent, then use SEO to get it up-ranked for critical phrases like brand phrases and get it referenced in other big conversation hotspots
Reach out to thought leaders who can evangelise the service or product
- As with Offline, if you can make it easy for these people, they will find it easier to write about you. Give them the ingredients from which they can make up their own minds about the product or service.
- In online there is a massive long tail of writers and thought leaders. In accumulation they are very valuable. Have online press packs and all the ingredients from which they can write up their own informed views
- Give your tribe the resources to feel included and tools they need to talk about you
- Have a contributing presence wherever there is an important and prominent conversation about you or where there could be an important conversation i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Forums, Chat Groups, Linked in
- Your comment / feedback points on your site or 3rd party sites
Give prominence to the positive feedback on the product or service
- Have these reviews rank on search engines on keywords users would naturally search for when thinking of the product/service
- If possible, gather reviews and testimonials from users and re-publicise them.
Structure feedback into:
- Reviews with ‘useful? yes/no’ and ask for ratings. Ratings out of 5 stars (standard rating formula online) so you can get a positive rating for the company / service that you can disseminate to 3rd party sites
- If its a product then encourage existing customers to write about your products on 3rd party sites i.e. reviewcentre.com Amazon.com
Support/Education:
- Have a comprehensive help section online
- Online Press pack (giving evangelists the information they need to propagate the service)
- Forum with knowledgeable staff at hand to answer specific questions
- A staffer out online engaging with users who are asking questions. This person would also engage in important conversations that ‘can be found easily’
As I was saying earlier, this is only an outline, but hopefully it will give you a sense of the scope of activities that can be undertaken.
More reading on the subject:
http://www.sempo.org/learning_center/articles/ElixirSystemsOnlineRepMgmt.pdf
http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2006/03/online-reputation-monitoring-beginners.html
http://www.radicallytransparent.com/
http://mashable.com/2010/04/25/word-of-mouth-marketing-stats/
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