Interview with online reputation management guide, Sam Deeks

What is Online Reputation Management?

Sam: It’s making sure that you know what people are saying about you online, giving people the chance to say good things about you – and being able to respond quickly and effectively when somebody says something bad about you or your business.

Does everyone with a business need to consider ORM these days?

Sam: They do. In the online world, what you say about yourself is propaganda. What other people say about you is the truth. And the first thing most people do when they want to find out about you these days is go to Google.

They look at the first couple of pages of results to see what people are saying about you on review sites, in discussion forums and in blogs – sites that increasingly rank alongside or even higher than your own website in the search results.

A single negative review can put off prospects from buying. Just think how you react when you’re looking to book your holiday hotel and you find a really bad review on TripAdvisor.

So how can you find out if your own website has slipped down the rankings or whether people are saying negative things about your company on line?

Sam: Do a simple monitoring exercise – and keep it simple. Just start looking for information about yourself in the way that a prospective customer will. Do a Google search for your name or the company name and have a look at what comes up. Use Google Alerts – they’ll let you know when your company name is being mentioned on web sites and forums.

So if you find someone talking negatively about you what should you do?

Sam: Our #1 recommendation is “don’t react!” – which, of course, is easier said than done.

You mean – don’t go on to the forum yourself and tell them right off that they don’t know what they’re talking about?

Sam: Right. The greatest damage most people do their reputation is to react without thinking to what someone has said about them – by going into ‘flight or fight’ mode. It’s as true offline as it is online. When your business has been punished or attacked with a bad review, you need time to have a look at it and get some perspective on the situation. It’s vital if you want to turn threats into opportunities.

You mean a negative can be turned into a positive?

Sam: Absolutely. Damaging reviews and comments are almost always a form of revenge and the crime is not listening. Being seen to handle online feedback publicly and positively is a great opportunity to enhance the reputation of your company as a company that listens.

We recently provided some consultancy for someone who had been the subject of allegations on a forum that were affecting his business. Other people watching the thread had clearly been impressed by the professional way that he’d begun to handle the allegations. We did a review of all the threats and opportunities in the situation – and helped him to communicate cleanly, honestly and accountably in a very difficult situation.

It’s something that we’ve found British hoteliers, by and large, are missing out on. They’re reluctant to respond to critical customer feedback in hotel review sites like TripAdvisor. Many American hotels, by contrast use it as an opportunity to win lifelong fans and advocates.

Bad reviews are the plastic bags of online reputation, remember, you can’t get rid of them and they won’t biodegrade, so you need to deal with them!

So is ORM just about handling bad reviews?

Sam: Not at all. All those communication platforms out there with the potential to damage your reputation can just as easily boost it, too, if you use them to get your happy customers saying great things about you and creating a buzz about what you do.

Does ORM mean that businesses have to be continually monitoring the internet? Or can a company like yours do that for them?

Sam: They could do it themselves, but in reality most businesses wouldn’t have the experience to know where to look, how make sense of what they find and the threat it represents or the best way to respond.  Of course, we’d be delighted to do it for them!

We do three things: firstly, we monitor a client’s reputation. Secondly, we evaluate and report the threats and opportunities on a monthly basis and thirdly, we recommend the most effective responses our client can take – including offering a range of interventions we can make on their behalf.

We also specialise in a one-off reputation review – a commonsense and easy-to-understand snapshot of their online presence that will help them understand better the whole issue of online reputation management.

If there’s one thing to remember, it’s this: the future of your business depends both on what other people say about you online and the very visible way you’re seen to respond to it.

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