Dotcom entrepreneur Brad Liebmann has become increasingly interested in reputation management and tracking comments and conversations about your company on the net.
Liebmann, founder of Xbridge Insurance, the UK’s leading online insurance and finance broker, enlightened BusinessWings on the role bloggers play in how your business is judged online.
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"Reputation has always been important in business. In a survey by insurance broker AON of 2,000 private companies, 'loss of reputation' was identified as the single greatest potential threat to their business," says Liebmann.
While most bloggers are not very influential, what they write is nevertheless tracked by search engines such as Google
Brad Liebmann, Xbridge Insurance founder
“Accordingly, a great amount of resource is spent creating and managing the corporate image. Once the bastion of offline public relations and branding agencies, reputation management is fast moving online.
"Bloggers have led this trend. There are now over 100 million blogs.
“And while most bloggers are not very influential, what they write is nevertheless tracked by search engines such as Google.
“Therefore anything written online about your company is likely to be indexed in Google and available for anyone to read. The proliferation of blogs and Web sites can allow angry customers, jealous lovers or ruthless competitors to define a company's identity.
"Such comments can have far-reaching effects. Google is not in business to find the truth.
“It instead tries to find information that is relevant. And once published online, such information – true or not – seldom goes away.
"A second driver of reputation are social networking sites. Some specialise in aggregating online reputations.
“Examples include: RapLeaf, who aggregate reputation amongst social networks, Naymz, for professionals, and BView, for businesses. Such sites hold great promise for aggregating reputational information.
“When one of my companies receives an interesting CV, the next step is to look up the candidate’s profile in LinkedIn and Facebook. Such profiles can reveal far more about them than their CV."
Brad's suggestions to manage your businesses reputation online include:
1. Monitor the blogosphere
Subscribe to a blog search tool such as Technorati or Google Blog Search. These monitors can be set so that you receive a regular email any time your company’s name is mentioned in a new blog post.
2. Take control of your business’s reputation
Sites such as Google Maps and BView allow you to take control of your listing, add descriptive information and photos and openly respond to customer reviews and feedback.
3. Respond quickly and directly
Bloggers hate PR agencies. They respond best to an honest approach from someone senior in the company.
4. Don’t threaten the blogger!
Bloggers don’t respond well to intimidation. Instead add a considered and constructive comment online after the negative blog or review.
5. Meet your bloggers
They are real people and like to be treated as such.
6. Start your own blog
A blog is a great place to help others – especially potential customers – get to know your company and its corporate culture.
