Comments on: How To Protect Your Online Reputation

By: sellsius

sellsius — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 00:10:25 +0000

Geoff– glad to hear that you allow disagreements on your blog. Some bloggers take the position it’s their “house” and won’t let anyone voice any strong disagreement (lies and libel are a different story). Fine. Some even blacklist. Fine. I say if that’s the case, change comments to “nice comments only.” I believe the censorship of negative comments gives a misleading slant to the conversation— it makes it appear the blog owner has no critics, or can’t deal with criticism.

David– we admire your dedication to your job. We have enjoyed your comments and engagement in open, uncensored dialog– you are always civil. CoComment is a useful tool, as are Google Alerts.

Spencer– David is a credit to the organization. We appreciate that Zillow is open to criticism. Now if only the company could take some of our advice

By: Geoff Green

Geoff Green — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 18:04:43 +0000

I personally don’t mind people voicing their opinions or positions that are different from mine. Hey, that’s what makes the world go around and generates new ideas.

I do have an issue with people lying about me to smear my reputation and will take whatever steps are necessary to stop it.

But I entertain disagreements on my blog…

By: Spencer

Spencer — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 19:36:47 +0000

As DavidG’s boss, I figured that i just couldn’t resist jumping onto this comment thread.
Yes, David’s great at his job. But what makes David (and many other Zillowites) good at this is that he knows how to listen. “Social media marketing” or whatever you want to call it is all about being a good listener. Input from the community — bloggers and blog readers like all of you — is what informs our product planning and our business strategy. So sure, kudos to David. But also Kudos to all of you (e.g., Sellsius, Brian Brady, Greg Swann and others) for always telling us what you think. Seriously.

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 16:45:30 +0000

Sound advice David - you don’t always need to respond to EVERY mention of you online, you don’t see celebrities responding to sleazy clearly-not-true articles in tabloid papers and the same thing should be true online.

Thanks for the tip on cocomment as well, I’m going to check that out now. Link here for anyone who’s interested: cocomment (although the site appears to be down right now!)

By: David G from Zillow.com

David G from Zillow.com — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 16:41:21 +0000

Thanks Guys! I’ll be forwarding this post to Rich.

I must give credit to Craig Newmark of Craigslist who gave me the idea for what I call “naked service”. Rather than just risk management, I view these conversations as a great opportunity to correct perceptions about Zillow — and to show that we’re listening.

Critical feedback can give your business useful direction if you learn not to take it personally. That’s easier said than done.

I know that their are tools and services available to help with this but I can tell you from personal experience that it’s not necessary to spend any money. As Craig told me, when I asked how he does it; I just search A LOT. My current favorite blog search tool is google blog search. And I use the free cocomment service to keep track of discussions I’m already involved in.

Last piece of advice — know when not to comment. Your critics are entitled to their opinion — the more you respect it, the more they will respect yours.

By: Vancouver Real Estate

Vancouver Real Estate — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 12:13:29 +0000

I find it really insane that nowadays you can pretty much find all the information about a person and his activities within minutes. It would be nice to have some tools where you can check on your reputation, but the best way to fight it is to be active and create a website that people will find earlier than all the surrounding negative information. When people are looking for homes in Vancouver, I’m glad they come right to me on my site where I can properly present what I do.

By: Agent Scoreboard

Agent Scoreboard — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 23:50:57 +0000

Ines, google isn’t very good for find and organizing everything thats being said about you, and just as important your listings. You’ll need something like Distilled Reputation Monitor or if you can wait until we launch… you can use the tools built into Agent Scoreboard…

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 21:53:14 +0000

Hi Ines, I mentioned this above but since you’re directly asking for it - we offer an online tool Reputation Monitor which does a much better job than Google Alerts

Give it a try and let me know what you think!

By: Ines

Ines — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 21:51:05 +0000

So I just discovered that Google Alerts is not as effective as I thought - how else can we watch our back and know when people are talking about us? good or bad….I want to know.

By: Agent Scoreboard

Agent Scoreboard — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 00:31:45 +0000

Very timely post.

I was just writing a post about how Realtors could be blindsided by posts on consumer blogs, but dealing with negative reactions on blog comments is a good point. Google, Yahoo, Yelp, Agent Scoreboard, and Incredible Agents all have ratings and review systems… its coming we all need to figure out what to do about it.

http://www.agentscoreboard.com/blog/2007/07/09/realtors-worst-nightmare/