Individuals and companies need to keep track of their online reputation. Do you know who is writing about you or your business? In my book, How to Reinvent Your Career, I mention the importance of having a clean reputation online in case employers do some research into your background. That is important for employees, but organizations must be sure their reputations are intact as well.
One bad comment out there can cause a lot of damage. It is not just negative comments that can hurt you. I have heard stories about companies who have had their information translated incorrectly in other countries which has led to their business looking badly. Don’t assume that something posted in another country can’t be translated back into English and hurt you here.
There are sites like PissedConsumer.com or Scam.com or other sites where your reputation can be ruined.
Sites like Facebook, Twitter, Yelp and others are very important to help spread your positive message. But be careful, because they can just as easily spread a negative one.
I like to use Google Alerts to set up searches to track who is posting things about me or my company. I think it can be very helpful and it is free. If your company is large though, it can be harder to track all of the keywords.
Another free option is Yext Rep. This site tracks mentions and reviews on sites like Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, Superpages and Foursquare.
If you are willing to pay a fee, Viralheat can monitor online conversations for a cost as little as $10/month.
Trackur (now Andy Beal) is another option that many use. They offer powerful tools, you can be up, and running in 60 seconds with their service, monitoring keywords, tracking trends on the web, and discovering how influential your site really is. They have something called sentiment tracking that, “you can tag discovered items with a positive, negative, or neutral sentiment. Keep track of who’s saying positive things about you and who’s attacking your reputation.” The price for this starts as low as $18/month for their basic plan.
Visible Technologies is a good option if you need monitoring in different languages. They support 12 languages and allow employees to share reports. This comes at a cost of $500/month and up.
Radian6 allows you to manage your social media campaigns. It can be integrated with Salesforce.com, Webtrends and Omniture for $600/month and up.
Related Articles
- Online Reputation Management Expert Interview with David Wallace (verticalmeasures.com)
Great post! I love Trackur… I use it almost every single day. I also like the service whostalkin
Some marketers suggest creating a page on your site like yoursite.com/scam that explains why you are not a scam, so that you show up in search results when users are exploring your reputation. Also, be wary of any company that charges you to post positive comments on your behalf, new FCC regulations mean that fake comments and reviews could run you afoul of the law.
Hi Paul,
That can be a good idea. Do you think that sometimes people just look up your name or company and the word scam to see what is out there and then see the two words associated and assume there is something bad about you or your company? I have heard people tell me this. I see some of the searches that come to my site searching for names of companies or people I have written about and they use their names and the word scam to see what is written about them. My only concern is that they see there is an article that links a company or name to the word scam and then they are frightened away before even reading it.
Hi Diane,
You bring up a very valid point that it’s important to be aware of what is being said about you in the online space. If you are pro-actively monitoring your brand/company it makes it much easier to start your crisis management at the first sign of a negative or potentially damaging comment. Transparency in the online and social media space goes a long way towards building your reputation and I think people appreciate the follow ups that are possible to negative issues when you have built monitoring in to your brand reputation goals.
Thanks for including us in your post!
Genevieve Coates
Community Analyst – Radian6
@genevievecoates
Hi Genevieve . . . I completely agree and you are welcome!