It couldn’t be more true that a business’s and a person’s reputation is everything nowadays. OLWM’s reputation management was designed to monitor your companies online image before too much damage is done. Reputation management usually includes responding to negative comments on Yelp or TripAdvisor. Do you remember the story of Dave Carroll? in 2008 he saw baggage handlers at United Airlines destroy his cherished Taylor guitar. Being a musician this was his livelihood. Dave went the proper channels at first trying to get United to replace his guitar. Obviously it didn’t work and he became frustrated at United refusing to make things right. United informed him that he was ineligible for compensation. What did he do? He wrote a song and released a video on YouTube. As of writing his video has 13,710,552 views.

Protect Your Name:

So what was the actual cost to United Airlines for the negative PR? The financial impact on United may be hard to quantify, but within 4 days of the video being posted online, United Airlines’ stock price fell 10%, costing stockholders about $180 million in value. A few years on and the incident is still used as a model of how not to treat customers. The case, however, highlights how the internet and social media in particular are forcing companies to change the way they manage their reputation.

It is important for businesses to maintain or create a certain frame of mind regarding themselves in the public eye. Reputation management is the process of identifying what other people are saying or feeling about you or your business; and taking steps to ensure that the general consensus is in line with your goals. Note: When it comes to social media, the lines between professional and personal are becoming increasingly blurred. What an employee posts online can make or break a career, or even put employees and employers at risk for identity and data theft.

Most users won’t look past the first page or two of search results, so you only need to look at a couple pages for each keyword on the major search engines. Start with simple searches on Google, Bing and Yahoo for all that apply:

• Your Name
• Company
• Brand(s)
• Product(s)
• High profile employees
• Handles/usernames

We use software and a dedicated staff to monitor your reputation, but if your budget does not permit a full time reputation management staff member or to hire a company like OLWM then make certain your company is at least doing the following:

• Optimize your website for Google (SEO)
• Manage a strong social media presence
• Set up Google /TalkWalker Alert
• Monitor social networks and reply promptly
• Respond to reviews and comments quickly
• Ask customers for online reviews