Do Reputation Management Services Work?
A new industry promises to help counter negative search results on the Web. Hiring one of these fixers may make nasty comments go away
Some Excerpts, By John Tozzi
Google the name of your company right now. See anything you don’t like? If you do, at least a dozen services promise they can make it disappear.
An industry of online fixers is sprouting to defend clients against damaging information on the Web. With potential customers increasingly heading online to research products and services, bad reviews or complaints that turn up in a search can mean lost business. Reputation management services promise to highlight positive pages and bury offending sites deep in search results.
Most reputation services work by tracking what’s written about a client on the Web, then doing search engine optimization (BusinessWeek.com, 9/10/07), promoting positive pages, and creating other sites that will push damaging references off the first pages of search results. The services are pitched as another tool companies can use in their PR and marketing efforts.
It’s still hard to say how companies are using reputation management services, but industry players say clients fall into two camps. Some want to understand and respond to customer complaints; others often just want negative posts to go away. "The majority of inquiries that I get are from people who are looking to do a cover-up," says Andy Beal, a marketing consultant and co-author of Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online. "They’re not necessarily interested in trying to fix the problem. They just want to make sure that other people can’t find it."
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Shouting Voices
Online reputation management evolved in the past two or three years in response to the explosion of social media that amplified the voices of individual Internet users. There are no data on how big the market is. "It’s kind of a fast-emerging field as more and more companies become aware of the need to have some sort of tracking," says Michael Greene, an analyst at JupiterResearch who authored a report in January about responding to negative buzz online.
Hired Guns?
But there’s little agreement on where the line is drawn.
For example, one company, Internet Reputation Management, founded last year by three partners in the New York area, recruits bloggers to write about clients on third-party sites, without necessarily disclosing that they’re paid, according to partner Carl Sgro. "We ask bloggers to be truthful," Sgro says. "We don’t want anything to be overembellished." Chris Martin, founder of two-year-old ReputationHawk in Baton Rouge, La., says his company runs blogs that promote his clients, but he doesn’t pay bloggers to post on outside sites. Other companies warn against surreptitiously promoting clients on blogs, not least because if it comes to light, the damage is hard to control (BusinessWeek.com, 10/17/06).
Google, for its part, says there is nothing inherently wrong with reputation services, but "if you use spammy and manipulative techniques to get this positive content to rank highly, we may take action on it," a spokeswoman writes in an e-mail. (With two-thirds of U.S. search volume in April, according to Hitwise, Google is clearly reputation companies’ biggest target.) The company refers to its Webmaster Guidelines, for violations that can get sites banished, such as using hidden links or creating "cookie-cutter" affiliate pages just to boost page rank.
Tozzi covers small business for BusinessWeek.com.
Reputation Management News
From legaltalknetwork.com
What are people saying about you online? What if the comments are negative? How can you protect your good name? In an environment where online reviews are common, Legal Toolkit host Jared Correia, Law Practice Advisor with Mass. LOMAP,, and Conrad Saam, Vice President of Marketing at Urbanspoon, discuss online reputation management for lawyers. Conrad and Jared cover the importance of tracking online mentions, and the methods for doing so. They also address the rising vitality of local search and the usefulness in dominating vanity search.
From legaltalknetwork.com
On Law Technology Now, host Monica Bay welcomes Bob Ambrogi, author of Law Technology Newsa Web Watch column and Jim Calloway, director of the Oklahoma Bar Association’s Management Assistance Program, to discuss the latest web-based search tools, including the recent launch of Microsoftas “Bing.” Bob and Monica will give you a sneak preview of the September 21st Social Media: Risks & Rewards program and will help your organization exploit the best from social media tools, while protecting your intellectual property, reputation and employees.
From legaltalknetwork.com
Have all of your posts, comments and mentions on the Internet, especially in social media, become the dreaded “permanent record?” Is what people see in Google about you what you want them to”know” about you? As lawyers participate in social media – Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, just to name a few – there’s a growing sense that Internet presence is becoming online reputation. In this episode, co-hosts Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell look at this important new phenomenon and suggest practical ways that you can find and manage your online reputation, while avoiding the most common pitfalls.
From orweblog.oclc
I have written a couple of times recently (here and here) about institutional and indvidual reputation management. Think, for example, of faculty profiles: the managed disclosure of expertise and research activity. This has often been an informal personal or departmental activity. However, there is now a variety of institutional initiatives which may pull together data about expertise, experience, publications, grants, courses taught, and so on (see OSU Pro at OSU, or Vivo at Cornell, for example). Such initiatives may sit between between several organizational units on campus: Research Support, PR/Communications, IT, Library. They are also at the intersection of different systems: enterprise (Peoplesoft, for example), course lists, research/grants management, bibliographic. At the same time, researchers may have presences in emerging network level research social networks (Mendeley or Nature Network for example), in disciplinary resources (Repec, for example), and, of course, in general use services (Linkedin, for example). There are also commercial services which support such activity in different ways, Community of Science or Symplectic for example. [Reputation enhancement] The Scholars Hub is the institutional repository at Hong Kong University. It has recently been enhanced with author pages which pull data from several sources including: Name & Contact Details: HKU Communications Directory Picture & Biography: Departmental web pages Media Spokesmanship: HKU Communications & Public Affairs Office Metrics: Scopus & ISI ResearcherID Open access outputs: HKU Scholars’ Hub. Each is harvested from its source silo and integrated to form an author profile. …
From orweblog.oclc
I am pleased to note the appearance of a new report on research assessment and the role of libraries. This has been prepared as part of our Research Information Management stream of work in support of the RLG Partnership. The study is a comparative review of formal assessment regimes in five countries. Such assessment regimes exist to monitor public research spending in various ways, and are specific to national circumstances. Although such regimes are not universal, evaluation, ranking and assessment of various sorts are becoming more common and some of the library responses discussed (bibliometric assistance, reputation management, names and identifers, institutional management of research outputs) may be of quite general interest. This is from the introduction by the authors, the UK consultants Key Perspectives: This study was designed to review research assessment regimes and the role of research libraries within those assessment processes in five countries, each of which takes a different approach to assessment. At the beginning of the project it was postulated that libraries occupy an interesting position within the academy, both belonging to an institution yet to an extent separated from it. There is–arguably–a set of ‘research library values’ that remains independent of local, institutional values, enabling libraries to occupy a unique and constructive role in the development and support of research assessment processes. Libraries have an understanding of scholarly communication processes, and they are currently in a state of rapid transformation to keep pace with the way scholars work. They understand the broad range of outputs and the publishing behaviour of scholars across disciplines, and the methodological constraints, limitations and variances that pertain to assessment exercises. …
From orweblog.oclc
September 29, 2009 • dempsey Categories: Analytics and measurement• Marketing• Research, learning and scholarly communication• Social networking Reputation management on the web – individual and institutional – has become a more conscious activity for many, as ranking, assessment and other reputational measures are increasingly influenced by network visibility. In particular, it raises for academic institutions an issue that has become a part of many service decisions: what is it appropriate to do locally? What should be sourced externally? And what should be left to others to do? Think, for example, of faculty profiles: the managed disclosure of expertise and research activity. This has often been an informal personal or departmental activity. However, there is now a variety of institutional initiatives which may pull together data about expertise, experience, publications, grants, courses taught, and so on (see OSU Pro at OSU, or Vivo at Cornell, for example). Such initiatives may sit between between several organizational units on campus: Research Support, PR/Communications, IT, Library. They are also at the intersection of different systems: enterprise (Peoplesoft, for example), course lists, research/grants management, bibliographic. At the same time, researchers may have presences in emerging network level research social networks (Mendeley or Nature Network for example), in disciplinary resources (Repec, for example), and, of course, in general use services (Linkedin, for example). There are also commercial services which support such activity in different ways, Community of Science or Symplectic for example. In this context, here is a note about several unrelated initiatives which I have come across in the last week or so. …
From feedproxy.google
Presentations from the SPARC 2010 Digital Repositories Meeting are now available. Here’s an excerpt from the press release: “Reputation management systems,” “new spin on Open Access,” “stretching knowledge bases,” “exposing reality,” and “valuing knowledge exchange at the institutional level” were just a few of the ways participants in the SPARC 2010 Digital Repositories Meeting expressed their vision for advancing repository advocacy into the fuller fabric of the Open Access movement. The sentiment is one outcome of the gathering, jointly hosted by SPARC, SPARC Japan/NII, and SPARC Europe, in Baltimore on November 8 & 9, 2010. SPARC has today released summaries, slides, and video from the event. The SPARC digital repositories meetings have played an integral part in advancing the potential of open online repositories to expand the dissemination of scholarship and transform scholarly communication. First held in 2004, the meeting is regularly hosted in the UK or Europe, Japan, and North America, draws hundreds of participants from around the globe, and has helped set the stage for key developments over the past six years. This time, participants indicated the need for a broader meeting and discussion, which highlight repositories in the full Open Access context. “Repositories are core components of the Open Access movement,” said Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC. “They’re deeply integrated with policy moves and at the forefront of managing Open Access to materials above and beyond the scholarly literature—not to mention author rights management and other aspects. It just makes sense that conversations about repository advocacy take place alongside moves to create policies. …
From digital-scholarship.com
Presentations from the SPARC 2010 Digital Repositories Meeting are now available. Here’s an excerpt from the press release: “Reputation management systems,” “new spin on Open Access,” “stretching knowledge bases,” “exposing reality,” and “valuing knowledge exchange at the institutional level” were just a few of the ways participants in the SPARC 2010 Digital Repositories Meeting expressed their vision for advancing repository advocacy into the fuller fabric of the Open Access movement. The sentiment is one outcome of the gathering, jointly hosted by SPARC, SPARC Japan/NII, and SPARC Europe, in Baltimore on November 8 & 9, 2010. SPARC has today released summaries, slides, and video from the event. The SPARC digital repositories meetings have played an integral part in advancing the potential of open online repositories to expand the dissemination of scholarship and transform scholarly communication. First held in 2004, the meeting is regularly hosted in the UK or Europe, Japan, and North America, draws hundreds of participants from around the globe, and has helped set the stage for key developments over the past six years. This time, participants indicated the need for a broader meeting and discussion, which highlight repositories in the full Open Access context. “Repositories are core components of the Open Access movement,” said Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC. “They’re deeply integrated with policy moves and at the forefront of managing Open Access to materials above and beyond the scholarly literature—not to mention author rights management and other aspects. It just makes sense that conversations about repository advocacy take place alongside moves to create policies. …
From legalweek.com
Withers has made up two new partners, with the announcement making it one of the last firms in the UK top 50 to decide its 2010-11 partner promotions. The firm has made up Amber Melville-Brown in its reputation management practice, while Harvey Knight joins the partnership in the financial services group. Melville-Brown, who advises on privacy protection issues as well as reputation management, works with clients including Anton du Beke and Renault F1. Knight is currently the head of Withers’ UK financial services practice.
From feeds.thebigmoney
In this age of Twitter storms and blog swarms, crisis communications experts are being forced to rethink how to defuse what we like to call the along taila effect of nasty buzz. BP is experiencing an online and offline reputation disaster, but in social media it has fallen prey to what we call the asting in the long tail effect,a where the daily bad-mouthing in social-media channels has an amplifying effect capable of devastating a brand. In a new piece of downloadable research, Social Media Influence took an in-depth look at the biggest online reputation-management crisis of the Twitter age, the BP oil spill. With all the talk of boycotting BP on Twitter, Facebook, and the blogs (an outcry that has caught the attention of the mainstream press), we decided to dig a little deeper to see what lessons all PR professionals and reputation-management experts could learn from this debacle. Hereas a sneak peak of the BP fallout. To download the BP social-media white paper simply fill out Social Media Influence’s registration form.
From feeds.thebigmoney
Letas take a look at the multifront reputation-wrecking assault BP faces at the moment from various social-media channels. Facebook: As of this morning, the primary (there are 293 of them) Boycott BP Facebook page had a following of more than 172,000, a gain of 54,000 since CNN reported its existence two days ago. The primary page has become a massive community Wiki tallying the number of dead turtles and pelicans. Itas also a place for cathartic venting. One of the more reserved charges reads: “Disgusting death mongers! BPas CEOs should be forced to get out there and clean up the oil with their bare hands!! :<" Twitter: #BP has been a trending topic on Twitter for weeks now. But the tone is growing nastier, shifting from OMG!-the-spill-is-out-of-control tweets to plans for street-level activism, such as flash protests at BP filling stations around the United States. Hereas an indication of what BP is facing: This chart above tallying aBP protesta tweets shows a type of asnowball effecta growing in recent days, the result of a recent spate of news stories that detail the Boycott BP campaigns occurring on Twitter, on Facebook, and on blogs. The news articles are then retweeted, reposted to Facebook status updates, and published on still more blogs, creating an amplification effect that will be hard to counter from a PR standpoint. Journalists can now dip into this story whenever they want, using fresh numbers and fresh outrage to put a new slant on an old story. YouTube: Over 6,000 videos have been posted to YouTube in the last month detailing the extent of the environmental damage by the Deepwater spill, reaching millions of viewers. The videos run the gamut from crude satire to the conspiratorial to community outrage. Any hope for BP? BPas PR crisis-management task force should note: There is precedent here. Last June, a global community of outraged voices took to the Internet to demand change in the form of the infamous #iranelection protests. For two weeks, protesters, aided by a globe-spanning social media support group, defied President Mahmoud Ahmadinejadas armed goons, circumvented government censors and communications blackouts, to voice their opposition to a dodgy election. Then, one day, the momentum behind the Iranian protest lost steam and fell out of the public consciousness, replaced by an even bigger story. What event could have been so big as to distract us from the potential toppling of a despotic regime? It was the death of Michael Jackson, considered at the time the single most-tweeted news event ever. This is the nature of online protests: They come out of nowhere and have the potential to captivate and sway the masses, only to fade from view just as quickly when the next big thing comes along. BPas crack PR team understands this full well, but thatas little comfort. The King of Pop is dead, and so, too, are a lot of sea turtles and pelicans.
Hours after news broke of the April 20 Deepwater Horizon explosion, the first of the aboycott BP!a pleas could be found on Twitter, on random weekend-eco-warrior blogs, and here and there on Facebook. Now the movement has snowballed into a social-media cause cA(c)lA”bre, replete with Twitter flash protests, celebrity backing, damning homemade documentaries, and satirical updates from an official-seeming company mouthpiece, the fastest growing account on Twitter. Where have we seen this all before? Yep, BP is facing its aTehran moment,a with the anger of millions threatening to do irreparable damage. Can BP clean up the mess before itas too late?
From feedforall.com
Google is sometimes thought to be the bane of the Internet, and it certainly can be a thorn in the side of search engine marketers. Many fail to look beyond the search of today, toward what the implications of indexing and storing information will have on future generations.
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