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Digital Brand Management - Your Online Reputation Is At Stake!

We've all witnessed it happen before and you've probably heard the horror stories about it. A company/organization makes a mistake or a terrible rumor begins and consumers hit the social media. Next bloggers and forum participants begin to slam the company's services/products or even worse their REPUTATION! In the blogshere, news, especially bad news, travels at hyper-speed to a wider audience than ever before. Think it only happens to the big boys, think again. What strategy do you have in place to handle this type of attack? Real, perceived or untrue, events can happen that set in motion a cataclysmic event that requires you have a plan and take control. So do you have a plan in place if and when that day arrives? And how will you protect your digital brand's reputation?

Know Before You Go!

Before you set a plan in motion to protect your digital brand, be sure you have performed your due diligence and know what people are saying about your brand and your competitor's brand too. If you haven't read Brad's blog on tools to spy on your competitors, be sure you take a look at that post. Receiving regular RSS updates about your online identity is critical to knowing what people in the digital world are saying about you and your digital brand.

Protecting Your Online Presence

Take a good hard look at your current online presence and brand reputation. Know what people are saying by staying abreast with Google Alerts.
Stay ahead of the negativity by always using sound SEO best practices so you rank higher than the negative buzz.
Should the issue be the result of human error or when damage control is required, a "public" statement may be needed. If indeed a response is appropriate and required, publicly apologize. Accept responsibility, correct the issues, and move on. Those real estate practioners (noticed I didn't say "Professionals") who resort to "unethical" online (and offline) practices will be exposed and the local boards will penalize them for their deeds.
Continue to use all social networks to protect your brand reputation. Tap into all the players including Active Rain, Facebook, MySpace, Realtown, Yahoo Answers, Trulia Voices, and City-Data.
Look deeper to protect your brand reputation. SERPS offer a deeper look at search results. Plus - in this day and age, search engines index fresh content at what seems like "light-speed". Unfortunately, "cached" pages of negative information can linger online for eternity.
Constantly monitor your online presence and brand. This is an ongoing process and requires you monitor it on an ongoing basis.

It's Not My Nature To Be An Alarmist!

Most people who know me will tell you I'm neither an alarmist nor a pessimist, however it's always smart to be prepared for bad things to happen. Your digital brand is your online identity. Knowing what to do should your reputation ever be called into question is important to protecting your online reputation. By having a plan in place, you'll be able to protect it if and when the time comes.

To your greater success!

Bobby

Update 10-31-07

Because so many have asked about other online social communities to enhance your total online presence, in addition those identified in item #4 I have added a few more sites for your consideration.

LinkedIn, Squidoo, flickr, Spock.com, EONS, Spoke.com, local online social sites like Share.Triangle.com, and GOLO on WRAL.com and others. Social Media Marketing combined with your blog site and your static website is the best way to grow your total online presence and increase your SEO prowess. I admit I have been lazy and not made my profile unique for every site which is the ideal formula for success. I still need to create my profile on flickr, MySpace and Facebook.

Posted by Bobby Carroll - Real Estate Marketing on 10/24/2007 12:26 AM

Comments (31)

brand management, digital brand, online branding

31 Comments on Digital Brand Management - Your Online Reputation Is At Stake!

OCT

2007

Thanks for the post. Good information.

I bookmarked this so I can come back to it. Thank you so much.

Great post! Having a blog that ranks high in SEs is definitely one way to manage brand identity. If someone is searching for your name, you want your blog to come up right up top and other noise to disappear...

Bob & Carolyn - We pour what seems like our lives into our online presence. It needs to be protected.

Hi Christy - Com back anytime. Just remember, knowing what others say and think about your online brand is important and should be monitored.

You better believe it Ken. Some people may have an agenda against your brand so staying "above the fray" is important.

Great idea. I recently checked keywords on AR for my name and found comments by others mentioning my name and posts. I will set up google alerts .Thanks for the alert.

Thanks Gita. I'm certainly not espousing we become paranoid, however it never hurts to be aware what is being said about your brand and that of your competitor's too.

Hey Bobby. It's just amazing to see the brain power of so many here on AR. You're kind to share this with us and I'll set out right away to get a closer look at my on-line presence.

Hello Natalie - You're to kind! :0) Start today and keep an eye on your digital brand and protect it.

Good post! More boomers need to embrace both the challenges and opportunities of social media.

hal990, Online Copywriter.com

hal990 - I'm with you 100%. I would say not only "Boomers" but every RE Professional needs to embrace Social Community Networking opportunities and have a strategy to position yourself as a trusted "advisor" to the masses as a part of your Social Media Marketing Plan.

Luckily, I'm mostly invisible... or is that unluckily? I guess the best defense is a good offense. Make sure that your clients are happy with you, and that will radically cut down on the possibilities of getting cyber-slammed.

Lane - Couldn't agree more. However there are those who "get crazy" and use the Internet to spread untruths. Better to be a good Boy/Girl Scout and "be prepared".

Great blog! I'm always turning around in circles to give 150% to make sure no one can ever say anything bad but there's always a first time for someone to spread rumors and like you said, even if untrue, that still spreads too. I still prefer to think if you stay honest, above board and give it all you got, that should count for the most and people who know you should know that.

Character still matters and it makes no difference if it's online or off. Well said Sharon!

Great information. I am trying google alerts right now. And... i just spent about an hour playing with Compete.com tools. Very cool to see how your competition is doing compared to your efforts. Awesome!

Sherry - Glad the information proved to be helpful. That's the mission for all my post.

I have many Google Alerts set up. I get alerts all the time on AR members for the term real estate leads, of course the main thing is to Google Missy Caulk, that helps me stay on top of it. I have had alerts come in from others blogs. So important, how's my site coming along ?

Hi Missy - Congrats - Sounds like you have your bases covered.

Hi Bobby- I am a big fan of google alerts, but its funny the other day I found a website directory we happened to be on and there I also found negative feedback on another agent by two different people. I was thinking of how horrible it would be to come across info like this about yourself online! Thanks for the informative post! Jill

OCT

2007

Jill - Your comment proves my point not that I was seeking any justification. :>) Real, perceived or false accusations are ugly and people can abuse our reputation online. We must be prepared to deal with these situations. This isn't a "sexy" topic and frankly I never thought it would generate as many comments as it has. Many individuals would much rather bury their head in the sand to this topic and hope it never happens to them.

OCT

2007

Bobby

Thanks for the information it helps to keep us aware of what we are doing. Say hello to your son for me.

Hello old friend. Appreciate the comment. I'll pass along your greetings.

OCT

2007

I just set up google alerts, I appreciate the thought provoking information.

Hi Debbie - Always happy to offer a different perspective on real estate marketing.

Bobby, I'd love to see what you're doing on some of these networking sites to promote your brand and business. All I find is pictures of college kids drinking that make me pine for the good old days, but I don't see the opportunity to do any effective networking. Thanks

Sure Christopher - In addition to LinkedIn and AR, some of us use Squidoo, Facebook, flickr, EONS, MySpace, RealTown, Spoke.com, local online social sites like Share.Triangle.com, and GOLO on WRAL.com and others. Social Media Marketing combined with your blog site and your static website is the best way to grow your total online presence and increase your SEO prowess. I admit I have been lazy and not made my profile unique for every site which is the ideal formula for success. I still need to create my profile on flickr, MySpace and Facebook.

OCT

2007

Christopher - I forgot another one.... Spock.com.

Great post. Thanks for the tips. I picked up a couple more social networking tools I did not know about.

Seth - As you can see the online social scene is growing at light-speed. I recommend you tap into those that align with your target audience and offer the most opportunity for you. Another words go were the eyeballs for your services reside. If you market to Seniors, run to EONS. If your audience is more professional oriented create profiles at LinkedIn, Spoke, and Spock. If the younger crowd is your niche go to Facebook and MySpace. That's not to say my generation and those older (called Classics) don't "hangout" at Facebook and MySpace! In fact they do in greater numbers all the time. Be selective.

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