Michael Gray - Graywolf's SEO Blog
Michael Gray - Graywolf's SEO Blog |
| Interview with Steven Wyer of ReputationAdvocate.com Posted: 26 Jul 2010 05:36 PM PDT
The following is a sponsored post. For this post we're going to be talking with Steven Wyer of Reputation Advocate. Steve, for my readers who aren't familiar with your firm, can you tell me a little bit about yourself? Reputation Advocate started in 2006 and is based just outside of Nashville, Tennessee in Williamson County. I have a deep history in media, marketing and software development and came to ORM out of a personal need. I was involved in protracted litigation and my own search results didn't reflect the complete reality of the situation. At that time, there were very few options that addressed the needs of small business and individuals. While major corporations utilized online tools to defend themselves, solutions for those that fell under the Fortune 1000 were hard to find. Because of previous businesses I have owned, I put a team of Internet marketing professionals together and Reputation Advocate began to develop online tools and solutions with the goal of influencing and controlling the search engine results. Four years later we have been fortunate in representing business and individuals throughout North America, Latin America and Europe. Online Reputation Management or ORM is a growing industry, and as more personal and private information makes its way onto the web it's not always flattering. What types of clients does Reputation Advocate provide services to and what are some common problems encountered? In the early years, most of our client projects were aimed at a handful of slander sites and blogs. They had high traffic, are very well optimized to rank, are magnets for organic back links and offered little in the way of presenting a balanced perspective for persons that they targeted. In 2010 the Reputation Advocate client base is much more diverse and the online violations now take on many forms. Reputation Advocate tracks several hundred complaint sites and there is a linear growth to these that is quite concerning. As public records become digitized and offered through the Internet, professionals can be repeatedly confronted with issues they assumed were addressed long ago. This content is now delivered at the top of someone's search results and the ramifications can be very negative. Businesses are now routinely attacked, and many times these violations come from former employees and competitors. Most businesses now have a presence on the Internet. They have focused on content and graphics and some clients are even employing SEO and PPC campaigns. However, problems appear because a broader perspective relating to online defense has not been considered. Even though most people believe that they are careful about what they post about themselves online, that may not always true. Casual acquaintances, business associates and even family members might post content that is sensitive, untrue and damaging. Do you see that becoming a more serious problem in the future? People have become much more aware of social media and with that awareness has come a certain power that has not existed before. 500 million Facebook members believe that they are "safe" and yet Reputation Advocate has seen many instances over the past six months that allow us to draw different conclusions. Hundreds of millions of blogs exist and everyone claims the First Amendment right to free speech. The difference is that you cannot confront your accuser, resolve differences in private and deal with conflict. When you are violated online you may never know who the attacker is. Client's can speculate but very few individuals come to the point of confronting the attacker. Currently the courts have a very narrow body of law that specifically addresses these issues. While there have been several precedent-setting cases, most people attacked do not have the financial ability and stamina needed to even attempt to defend themselves. Until fundamental federal laws are adapted to meet our digital world, we believe that this problem will only escalate. Let's switch gears and talk about the corporate end of things. What are some of the common problems Reputation Advocate sees for your corporate clients? As I mentioned before, most businesses now have a simple online presence. The Reputation Advocate clients we hear from most are those that believe that the digital world plays by the same ground rules that have been generally accepted business practices for decades. Traditional member organizations like the Better Business Bureau and the National Federation of Independent Business have offered channels for communication, conflict resolution and business validation. The Internet bypasses all of that. What we hear is that "It isn't fair" and that these online attack practices "lack integrity", and it's absolutely true! The whole landscape for business has changed forever. Either businesses accept this new reality or they open themselves up in ways they cannot even comprehend. Businesses can actually lose their online identity, have others misrepresent themselves and even have their name associated with terms like fraud, scam, thief and worse. The only way to defend a business is to adopt a new perspective. Companies need to proactively create, monitor and manage their online reputation and Reputation Advocate is seeing an increase in the number of businesses hiring us before they are attacked online in order to build a defense for their online reputation. As companies become more involved with social media and communication on blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, the potential for an error or mistake increases. What are some guidelines companies can set up that will allow them to participate in social media without creating a reputation management problem for themselves down the road? To begin with, every individual and business in the United States should read the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA) and the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Many businesses make key assumptions regarding rights and protections that are not correct. Once it is understood that the current laws put in place to protect Internet service providers may actually act against the protections that could be provided to individuals and business it wakes everyone up. Next, monitor keywords. You will learn a great deal about your online reputation by simply utilizing Google Alerts. Monitor your name, your company name, company officers, products, brands, competitors and your industry as a whole. As the old saying goes: knowledge is power. Also, make sure that you have formal, legal trademarks filed to protect your brands. If there is blatant slander against a trademarked name, a Takedown Demand can be sent to the hosting company based on trademark infringement. Finally, the most basic of online defense strategies is to own the URLs that represent your company and your brand. Reputation Advocate consults with companies often and it seems that they almost never consider this, the most vulnerable area of all. Simply put, if you don't own it, someone else can. The most direct answer to your question is right now! We believe that every individual and business should be concerned about what is presented about them online. The old adage "an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure" absolutely holds true for a person's online identity. There are a number of good general monitoring tools that can deliver comprehensive reports detailing every time you or your company are mentioned online. For most people this is just too much information. The sheer volume can overload small businesses and consume a major part of most days for business professionals. What most people need to be aware of is the negative information that can be found. Reputation Advocate offers these services as part of a comprehensive ongoing online defense. What is some advice you can give people about preventing reputation management problems or minimizing them right out of the gate?
How does someone know they are in over their head and that it's time to use a professional service like Reputation Advocate to help with the problem? In general, by the time a person or company discovers an online attack, outside help is immediately needed. One reason for this is that when someone is slandered they react and want to be vindicated. Generally speaking their response, which is usually triggered by emotion, almost always hurts their online reputation rather than help it. The solution usually lies in a solid planned response that may not provide the immediate gratification of a fiery response but will deliver a stable long-term solution. Simply creating a bunch of social sites and hoping to hide the negative listing(s) does not work anymore and nicely asking for the content to be taken down seldom works. Online violations are not easy to address. There is no such thing as a "silver bullet" or cookie cutter solution. Companies that offer services with blanket marketing statements may not approach a client solution comprehensively. It is always easier to sell then to deliver. By partnering with the right online reputation management firm, over time a client can have confidence in a solid online defense that protects the most valuable thing they own; their name. While every situation is different, what's a reasonable timeframe to expect that it will take Reputation Advocate to "clean things up"? While we read marketing materials that indicate conclusive permanent ORM results in a matter of days, our experience suggests that there is simply no definitive answer to this question. The biggest companies involved in ORM suggest 30 day results. We benefit from these claims when clients contact Reputation Advocate after being disillusioned by unrealistic expectations and disappointing results. Everyone who contacts us receives a free initial evaluation. During this evaluation we review the negative listing(s) and their SERPs, and after this is completed we can provide them with a reasonable timeframe about when to expect to see new positive listings on page 1 and when they can expect the negative listings to begin to be pushed down. Clients are involved in reviewing content and the initial collaborative effort is an important aspect of a project for most of our clients. Our average client begins seeing results within two to three weeks of beginning a project. Let's look to the future a little bit … what are some interesting things you see on the horizon in your space … and how different do you see things in the next 12-18 months? As I mentioned earlier, there is an absolute linier progression of growth as it relates to unwanted content for all sectors; business, professional and every day people. The damage is real. As additional historical information is digitized and social sites continue to expand, the need for services like Reputation Advocate provides will also multiply. The wild cards are held by the search engines and the dominant social sites. With Google changing algorithms daily and the projected growth for sites like Facebook and Twitter, an ever-growing percentage of business will be driven by SERPs. Congress is scrambling to address privacy concerns and foreign governments are asking for meetings with the CEOs of private social media companies. This digital landscape changes daily and those providing ORM will continue to adapt. If the question is asked, "Where is this leading us?" everyone within this industry peers into the same dimly lit glass. I don't believe many people have any true sense of what this means to the average business owner or college graduate looking for a job. What I do believe is that the need to take action is immediate, that those who take control of their online reputation will defend themselves better than those who ignore the inevitable and that all of us will be viewed increasingly as who we appear to be online and less by a more thoughtful examination of our business, our character and our lives. We are not going to stop this train. Thanks Steven for taking the time to talk to me about Reputation Advocate. If you have any questions please contact Reputation Advocate or Steve Wyer at 888-229-0746 or request a free consultation regarding your online reputation. The preceding has been a sponsored post. Find out more information about sponsored posts This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis Wordpress Theme review.  Related posts:
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