Online Reputation Monitoring

Online reputation monitoring is very important for both businesses and individuals. In this age of consumer generated and citizen journalism, it has become imperative to adopt a new protocol of listening or monitoring, understanding and acting accordingly. Now, consumers are able to write reviews, comments and more, which offers a great opportunity for businesses to hear what their customers feel about the products and services offered. At the same time it involves huge risks as even one incorrect mention or negative comment about the business can ruin the whole brand and reputation of the company.

Online Reputation Monitoring Tools:

Online reputation monitoring tools can play a vital role in the generation of required information. Various tools are available, which can be used in a combined or individual manner. Google Alerts is one of them. It is a free service that can be used for tracking various properties like blogs, forums, news, video and groups. It can also be used to monitor the online reputation of a business or individual. It sends monthly, weekly or daily emails according to the preferences of the user in order to stay updated. Technorati is another free service online reputation monitoring tool. Users can perform a targeted search in order to view sites or content in a particular niche. Various other free tools used for online reputation monitoring include custom search, free services such as Naymz, Rapleaf, MonitorThis or Trackur and search tags. One can even make use of paid online services for monitoring the reputation of businesses and individuals.

Use of online reputation monitoring tools:

Online reputation monitoring tools give information on how a business or individual is rated online. The information obtained thus can be analyzed and necessary steps can be taken to redress any grievance or to resolve issues. This saves resources, time and effort. Online reputation monitoring can also provide important feedback on customer dissatisfaction or satisfaction as customers post their views through forums and blogs. Businesses can also rectify any negative or incorrect information spread online so as to avoid damaging their reputation online.

Tips for improving online reputation:

Online reputation monitoring and management can prove to be a daunting activity for any search engine marketer or company that is looking to improving or repairing negative publicity. But if approached in a planned and organized manner it can be done easily. Some tips on improving online reputation are given below.

Before publishing any information online, it is important to check if the right keywords are used. It could be the product name or person’s or company’s name, and in order to succeed it is imperative to stay consistent online. Since online profile URLs are taken from the user name selected by the publisher, it is good to be sure about the choice.

When the name of a company or individual is spotted in a forum, it is better to tackle the issue at source rather than posting a reply , as this will only lead to boosting the ranking of the forum post. When responding to negative remarks, care should be taken to handle them properly or else it could turn in to a wild forest fire. The best way of tackling such issues is to post and publish positive information about the company through various articles, blogs, social networking sites and press releases. This way the negative remarks are pushed down in the search engine ranking.