how to protect and defend your brand reputation online
TRANSCRIPT
A Beginner's Guide to Online PR and Marketing
How to Protect and Defend Your Brand Reputation Online
(please use Twitter hash tag #ormd for questions)Chris AbrahamPresident and [email protected]@chrisabraham
Daniel KruegerDirector of Client [email protected]@d13vkUS +1 202 657 4769UK +44 20 8144 5671DE +49 30 7012 5980Site www.abrahamharrison.comBlog www.marketingconversation.com
Online Reputation Management Defined
Online reputation management, or ORM, is the practice of consistent research and analysis of ones personal or professional, business or industry reputation as represented by the content across all types of online media. It is also sometimes referred to as online reputation monitoring, maintaining the same acronym.
AKA Search Engine Image Protection (SEIP) Also known as Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM)
Online Reputation Management Defined
ORM partly formed from a need to manage consumer generated media (CGM)
The Cluetrain Manifesto speaks to the ease with which one may initiate and amplify conversation online
You need to participate, engage, communicate!
Google Alerts & Tweet Beep
Google Alerts are your friend
Use it liberally
Learn Google search argumentschris abraham
[chris abraham]
chris+abraham
chris OR abraham
Chris-abraham
www.google.com/alerts
Google Alerts & Tweet Beep
Google Alerts provides alerts via email as well as via an RSS
feed
Create alerts for products, services, and the members of your staff and competitorsGoogle Reader, etc
Mandatory Alerts and Monitoring
We at Abraham Harrison, LLC, don't generally do steady-state reputation monitoring.
That said, we all have loads of Google Alerts set up for everything.
We have recently been using SM2 by Techrigy for Social Media monitoring.
Don't forget Google/Yahoo! News, Regular Search, etc!
Mandatory Alerts and Monitoring
Negative conversation can still start on message boards
Twitter can be like wild fire
Blogs are still powerful
Keep your eyes on the Web!
If You Can't Remove It, Hide It
Countermeasure: Decoys, Chaff, Flares
A countermeasure is a system (usually for a military application) designed to prevent sensor-based weapons from acquiring and/or destroying a target.
Preemptive action of countermeasures is directed to generally prevent lock-on of a threat sensor to a certain target. It is based on altering the signature of the target by either concealing the platform signature or enhancing the signature of the background, thus minimizing the contrast between the two.
Reactive action of countermeasures is directed toward break-lock of a threat already homing in on a certain target. It is based on the tactics of signature imitation, augmentation, or reduction.
One or more of the following actions may be taken to provide softkill:- Reduction of signatureGoing stealth or going offline
- Augmentation of signatureDuck decoys, squid ink, anti
surface-to-air
missile flares and chaff
Countermeasure: Decoys, Chaff, Flares
Preemptive Countermeasures: Inoculation
Chris Abraham Blog
Marketing Conversation
Abraham Harrison LLC
Twitter Page
Facebook Profile
LinkedIn Profile
YouTube Director
Flickr Profile
Friendster Profile
Jaiku Page
Pownce Page (RIP)
Tumblr Page
Utterli Profile
Friendfeed Profile
QIK Profile
Cleaning Up a Crime Scene
Most clients want a clean up
Generally, clean ups are done after the reputation crime occurs
Sometimes, we're retained during the crime, to minimize exposure
Crisis management ORM campaigns are like repairing homes during a rocket attack
Dominate Your Search Results
I have been writing chrisabraham.com since 1999
I have accrued 5,387 posts over time
Along with cabraham.com, abrahamharrison.com,
marketingconversation, and a dozen social networks and aggregators
(plus time, energy, work, writing, and commitment), I am
well-inoculated against attack
So is my company and my staff
It's never too late
Dominate Your Search Results
Search Engine Optimization 101: Textuality
Search Engines only know what you feed themThey are desperate for textual content
Google doesn't make any logical leaps
yet
Make sure your language is 'biodiverse'How do your customers search?
Most corporate sites are designer-builtFlash, sliced graphics, bespoke CMS
Architectural consistency is essentialGoogle recognizes popular
blogs and
CMS sites like Wordpress & Drupal
Blogs can speak in pings and trackbacks Google loves
them
Always use user-readable URLshttp://ahllc.us/about v.
http://ahllc.us/node/124
Meta tags work: meta, description, alt, title
Pronouns are the enemy of textuality
Search Engine Optimization 101: Textuality
Google perceives the web page-by-pageAssociations are inferred through links
Sites are a collection of interlinked pages
Topicality and relevance are link-based
Separate pages on the same site can have different PageRanks.
A flotilla is often more powerful than a battleship
Search Engine Optimization 101: Linking
Search Engine Optimization 101: Linking
The juice you can offer and receive also textualURLs are less useful than textual links:
Chris Abraham Relays juice better than
dropping a URL or a TinyURL or other
link-shortening services.
Blogrolls and reciprocal linking is still a good trick
after
15-years
Google tries its best to read the way you do.
Corporate Blogging
Staff Blogs and Bloggers
Blog & RSS Aggregation
Social Networking ProfilesProactively register!
Cross-Posting Posts and Status UpdatesTumblr
Ping.fm
Earned Media Blogger Outreach CampaignMust have a pitch
Must have a story
Can't make bloggers do anything!
Search Engine Optimization 701
Case Study: The Poor Maligned Pig
Each Search Engine is Very Different
Each Search Engine is Very Different
Chum Thyself into Social Networks
autoki.com
autoki.de
bebo.com
blip.tv
blogger.com
blorkut.com
bluedot.com
broadcaster.com
buzznet.com
classmates.com
crackle.com
cyloop.com
dandelife.com
del.icio.us
digg.com
en.netlog.com
en.sevenload.com
facebook.com
flickr.com
flixster.com
flugpo.com
friendster.com
gather.com
gawkk.com
hi5.com
hollywood.com
imdb.com
imeem.com
indenti.ca
jaiku.com
jappy.de
kewego.com
librarything.com
librarything.de
linkedin.com
livejournal.com
livevideo.com
login.live.com
lusitaniansonline.com
megavideo.com
metacafe.com
migente.com
multiply.com
my.opera.com
mychurch.com
mychurch.org
mycorners.com
mygrito.com
myspace.com
ning.com
photobucket.com
ping.fm
plazes.com
plurk.com
quepasa.com
rateitall.com
searchles.com
shelfari.com
skyrock.com
sonico.com
soundpedia.com
spaces.live.com
spanglish.ie
spock.com
stumbleupon.com
tabulas.com
tagged.com
takingitglobal.org
travbuddy.com
tumblr.com
twango.com
twitter.com
upcoming.yahoo.com
utterli.com
viddler.com
video.msn.com
video.yahoo.com
videos.google.com
vidoosh.tv
vimeo.com
vostu.com
vox.com
wamba.com
wordpress.com
xanga.com
xing.com
xuqa.com
yahoo.com
yasni.de
yelp.com
youtube.com
Domain Name Strategy
Google indexes domain names the way it indexes page text.
Domain names are the cheapest part of the entire online reputation game
$6-$25/year, dependingRegistrar?
Private registration?
Too many folks get frugal here
Domain Name Strategy
Promotional and Defensive DomainsChrisAbraham.com
ChrisAbrahamSucks.com
Register your products, services,
and the executive staff
Register domains that link directly to deep site content and redirect there:AbrahamHarrisonProducts.com
Every URL is Sacred
Every URL is Good
About pigs, swine and hogs
Theater group
Children's book
Rugby team
Muppet "Pigs in Space"
Show pig site
BBQ site
Guinea Pig site
NIN Song
Local Pub
Pass the Pigs game
Potbellied Pigs
"Pigs Anonymous" site
Industrial pipe cleaners, called "pigs"
Card shop
Baseball team
The Bay of Pigs
Defensive SEO
We'll often populate a number of domains with a number of blogs using a number of platforms by hand over time...
Our job is to promote deep links that are positive and neutral and ignore negative listings
We'll create between 5-25+ of these aggregator and boing boing sites in order to bring attention to deep, old links
Defensive SEO
The goal is not to promote the sites we build
Our goal is to promote everybody else's sitesAt least all the POS and NEUT stuff!
We only use real content.
We promote all listings that are positive and neutral, even off-brand
Deep search results are pretty spacey
Chris Wilson of 235 North Abraham Lane
Aggregating Positive & Neutral Content
When we dig deep down we find deep links
Google has limited resources and archives old content
Excerpting deep content and deep links onto new blogs
reactivates
We call it the boing boing strategy
Find content, excerpt it, make a quip, and link to source
pigsblog.wordpress.com
Our Own Boing Boing Blog Network
These blogs and CMS sites are not intended to be features
They should be simple and you can use free templates
These sites should receive a full SEO treatmentUser-readable URLs
Sitemaps
Dynamic meta tags
Use blogger, Wordpress.com, MySpace blogs, Friendster blogs, Wordpress & Drupal
Boing Boing Network
Everything is initially done via hand.
Drupal offers great built-in RSS aggregation tools.
Setting up your aggregation strategy before you start blogging by hand is essential.
Wordpress MU (multi-user) is easiest way to manage a large campaign of blogs.
Google does have human reviewers so make it personal
Boing Boing Network
We often use the content of our own blogs to populate the content of other ORM blogs experiment!
Explicitly Submit Every URL Everywhere
Many SEO experts tell me submission tools are foolish and
fool-hardy
(Maybe I am superstitious)
I have been using submission tools since 2003
Defensive SEO is a SEO campaign promoting everyone else but you
Explicitly Submit Every URL Everywhere
I use Dynamic Submission 7.0
It allows me to import every URL I can collect (my Positive & Neutral list) and submit them en masse to 1000+ search engines automatically
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