FAMSA Online Reputation Management Strategy

Reputation management matters, but it's complex. This guide will help you navigate the world of reputation strategy in the online environment.
As as NPO we strive to make sure that we always have positive messages flowing on our social media pages. We do research and always keep our pages up to date. When there is negative messages coming our way we make sure that we deal with them in a professional manner. 

Online reputation — that intangible asset, that electronic chimera — is hard to assess let alone fix. And when it comes right down to the exact techniques to repair a reputation, many CMOs, publicists, or executives are downright nonplussed.

In order to understand how to build a reputation, you must first know your building materials. In the field of online reputation management, there are three main building materials — earned, paid, and owned content.

Earned content

Earned content is the online information about your business that doesn't require you to pay for it or write it yourself. You can think of it as free publicity.

Online reviews fall into this category as well as social shares, re-posts of your content, and mentions of your brand. If you’re lucky, you may even get favorable coverage by a well-known media organization such as the New York Times or Wall Street Journal.

With the increased popularity of social media, earned content is more prevalent than ever before and has the ability to go viral. 53% of people recommend companies and products on Twitter and the average consumer mentions brands 90 times/week with family, friends and co-workers. That's a lot of potential earned media.

Owned content

Owned content is the material you create yourself. The most common form of owned content is your own website, something over which you have total control. But your website only occupies one spot in search results. A blog separate from your website, for example, is also a powerful channel for owned content, as are your social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

All of the properties just mentioned are the "standard fare" of reputation management companies. Beyond those are the industry-specific types of owned media that are different for every industry space.

Establishing a strong presence across your owned content enables you to build a connection with your audience or consumers in an often cost-efficient way. 

Paid content

The final category, paid content, comes in the form of PPC (pay per click) advertising, display ads, paid social media promotion, content syndication, paid influencers, and all the other forms of content that require you to hand over your credit card number. Paid content is not less valuable than the other two forms of content, but it should be used in conjunction with them as part of your overall content strategy.

With those three building materials,that is how our online reputation is formed. But there are other systems at play that, along with paid, owned, and earned content, heavily influence how a company is seen online. The most important is online search, closely followed by social media algorithms. But before we dig in, remember that the cornerstone of a good reputation strategy is quality. That's why we create the Reverse Wikipedia Strategy which helps to guide practitioners of ORM with a spam-free mindset.  

Try as we may to be independent thinkers with the ability to research an issue and develop a viewpoint, our entire process of research and thinking is affected by the tools we use.

Google’s Algorithm

When we’re discussing online search, we might as well not be coy about it, and just call it Google. When people want to learn more about something, what do they do? They Google it. You do too... admit it. 

Tools like Google have engineered biases (for lack of a better word) that can shape the viewpoints of their users. For a simple example, consider Google’s ability to know your location.

If you live in Miami, and search for “tacos near me,” you will not see results for Portland, Oregon. Google gives you the results it thinks you want to see. 

As machine-learning goes, Google is pretty good. The algorithm has the ability to reward good content online, serve up fast results, understand what you’re most likely interested in, and even remember that for next time you search. This means that Google’s algorithm is constantly changing. Sometimes, the changes are massive. Sometimes, they’re minuscule. But it’s constantly evolving.