Protecting your online reputation has never been more necessary. With the proliferation of blogs and other user generated sites, more people will read your posts and comment. They can easly blast you, your point of view or your company on your site and elsewhere. You will need to monitor and control your online reputation to protect your brand because negative comments remain on the internet for future readers. What’s a person or company to do?
Well, you can heavily censor negative comments (or blacklist) on your personal or company blog to control the conversation or slant it favorably to you. Or you can be a big blog boy (or girl) and debate your detractors. We interviewed Keith Ladsten, Director of Marketing for The Dovetail Companies, who said the company never deletes negative comments on its Woodlands community blog. Instead they address them head on. He said it was a matter of credibility. We also recommend this approach, since your ability to defend your position shows readers you can deal with criticism. But how can you muzzle those voices outside your house?
Well, you can read the posts below for guidance or you can hire folks like Andy Beal or Reputation Defender to watch your back.
Related Posts:
The Human Listing Site … Under the Guise of Transparency
Dizcrimination by Zestimation:The Law of Unintended Consequences
Further Reading:
31 Places to Monitor your reputation online (Searchmarketinggurus)
Online Reputation Monitoring & Management: A Beginners Guide (Andy Beal, Marketing Pilgrim)
Top 10 strategies to improve your online reputation (Distilled Blog)
Technorati Tags: online reputation, web 2.0, transparency, privacy, censorship, blacklisting
You’ve just read my mind! I was just thinking that it’s insane how people decide they don’t like you for some silly reason, and then devote time from their busy schedules to ranting about you on their own blogs.
I agree, when you get negative comments you should just suck it up and defend yourself. Not everyone is going to like what you have to say. But everyone is entitled to their opinion. Besides, if someone really, truly dislikes you, wouldn’t they stop stalking your blog?
Thanks for the interesting thoughts on the topic, I’m off to read the links now!
Great post you have here! I agree with Erin and Mary, many bloggers out there are on a mission to defend their reputation on a daily basis because of those who would like to begin some kind of “blog war”. I appreciate this useful information and will definitely check out these links, although here at RSS Pieces we like to stand up for ourselves!
oh man….I’m still so new to this my head is spinning. Then I see this on needing to defend yourself??? Oh well…maybe one day someone will think enough of me to start a crusade, and for now that is hopefully the least of my worries… thanks for the great eye-opener though…
Thanks for the link sellsius, we also have an online tool you can use to monitor all mentions of you online - it’s not quite as good as hiring Andy Beal (though we’re working on it
but for smaller operations it’s the best bet.
It’s called Reputation Monitor - it basically provides you with a customisable feed of all mentions of you, your products, your site or your brand online and reports them in a feed. I used it to pick up on this post
(although it wasn’t that hard since you linked back to us anyway!)
Zillow was hip to this when it launched. Given that its zestimates would surely piss off real estate agents (and bloggers), Zillow hired David G, one of the best reputation monitors out there. He gets out in the trenches and takes on the often strong dissent with reasoned counterargument. And he does it with cool finesse. He must of gotten an A+ in Spin class. (hi David—sorry to pull you over— but you see how highly we regard what you do— ask Mr. Barton for a raise– you deserve it)
This is why I love trackbacks and pings, if anyone reference you in a post on their blog you get notified. You can see it in your admin section or as a trackback immediately.
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/
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.
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!
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…
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.
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.
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!)
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.
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…
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