Online Reputation Management Strategies by PR Experts

Social Media Status Update – All You Need is Like

March 24, 2014 by Todd William Leave a Comment

Connecting with friends and colleagues online is not just for kids and teens anymore – research shows that 73% of adults in 2013 use a social networking site, according to Pew Research. It might not surprise anyone – but Pew Research found that that most adults use Facebook as their social network of choice.

Whether people are looking to connect with relatives, long lost high school friends, or professional networking – research shows that 71% of adults use Facebook above other sites. This number of Facebook users is up from 67% in 2012.

Other social networks such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram are also popular but the number of adults using those sites are way below Facebook. Pew Research found that 42% of adults use multiple social networking sites – such as Twitter.

Pew Research also researched the habits of adults who are actively logging in and participating in social networking. The results indicated that adult Instagram users are nearly as likely as Facebook users to check in to the site on a daily basis, according to Pew Research. The survey also reported that Facebook and Instagram exhibit especially high levels of user engagement – useful information for brands deciding what platforms to focus on.

Facebook still dominates as the most popular social network where people log in to discover what their friends are up to — multiple times a day. Research indicated that 63% of Facebook users visit the site at least once a day, with 40% doing so multiple times throughout the day. Other social media sites like Twitter and Instagram also generate multiple check-ins- but still the numbers are far behind Facebook. For instance only 35% of adults log in to Instagram multiple times a day. Likewise, Twitter has seen 46% of adults logging in once a day but only 29% visiting a few times each day.

Pew Research found that overall adults are inclined to use two or more social networks – while only 36% use only one. Facebook is the social network of choice for those using only one social networking site –86% use Facebook exclusively.

Is Facebook Better Than LinkedIn for Social Recruiting

March 21, 2014 by Todd William Leave a Comment

Research has found that most people are looking for jobs whether or not they are employed. The interesting thing is that as times have changed, experts are finding that the classified ads are not the primary place people are perusing on their job searches. Research shows that social media, with Facebook being a somewhat surprising number one, is where people are looking for new careers.

While LinkedIn certainly plays a large role for both job seekers and recruiters and has become an important site to connect with colleagues and other professionals, Facebook is increasingly becoming the top location for finding new careers, according to the 2013 Jobvite Social Recruiting Survey. In fact, the data results show that 76% of social job seekers have discovered their current position through Facebook.

Jobvite’s survey found employees in most work spots have a serious case of wander-lust. According to Jobvite, “The data underscores that the U.S. workforce is transforming, and the long-term trend of constant job-hopping accelerates each year, with 51% of employed workers reporting they are either actively seeking or open to a new job.”

This attitude has increased the importance of social media sites where job seekers can peruse a number of companies and gauge not only available positions but ascertain the company culture. The research found that the people looking online and in social networks tend to be younger, more highly educated and more likely to be employed full-time.

In addition, the more savvy job-seekers are learning to tone down or even delete social media profiles when hunting for a new career. This fact is interesting as the Jobvite found that 93% of recruiters are likely to look at a candidate’s social profile and as many as 42% of recruiters have based some of their decisions on a candidate based on social profiles, according to Jobvite.

Additional results found that mobile is another platform for many job seekers that is gaining importance and relevance.

The growing influence of online recruiting also highlights the importance of online reputation management for job seekers and employers as the first impression for both will be set by Google rather than by appointment for an in-person interview.

I’m a Belieber – Reputation Management for Justin Bieber

March 17, 2014 by Todd William Leave a Comment

Justin Bieber - Believe At 19, Justin Bieber is one of the world’s most popular pop stars – with an estimated net-worth of $130 million, according to news reports. Unfortunately, the baby-faced crooner’s reputation has taken a major hit based on a number of recent run-ins which will keep Bieber in and out of court and off the stage for the foreseeable future.

While he might be going for a “rebellious” bad boy image, fan sites and the blogosphere are throwing stones at the pop star.

But Bieber’s troubles have just begun and his behavior could have dire consequences as he is also facing possible deportation and awaiting a statement from the White House to determine his fate. You know things are bad when the leader of the Free World has a file on his desk with your name on it.

The singer, who was born in London, Ontario, currently resides mostly in Calabasas, California.

Timeline of Bieber’s latest legal troubles:

December 30, 2013 – Limo Driver Assault, Toronto
The CBC reports that Bieber agreed to turn himself in to Toronto police based on charges that “…stem from an altercation between a limo driver and a passenger in the early morning hours of Monday, Dec. 30, after a group of six people was picked up outside a nightclub…” Police said one of the passengers hit the limo driver in the head several times during the altercation. The driver stopped and called police, but the passenger left the scene before police arrived.

January 9, 2014 – Egging Incident, Calabasas, California
Bieber is accused of egging his neighbor’s house in Calabasas, CA and causing several hundred dollars in damages. According to the Inquisitor, the “…19-year-old’s neighbor alleges he and his 13-year-old daughter witnessed the Canadian pelting eggs at their home on January 9, allegedly causing $20,000 in damages because of pricey materials used in house features.” Now the D.A. must determine if the alleged vandalism is a felony or misdemeanor as California vandalism law holds that $400 worth of damages can be a considered a felony.

January 23, 2014 – Drag Racing in Miami, Florida
Bieber was arrested on January 23 for allegedly driving under the influence and drag racing down Miami neighborhoods at speeds up to 136 mph, according to the Daily Mail.

January 31, 2014 – Flight Attendant Abuse/Smoking Marijuana on Flight to Super Bowl
According to NBC News, Bieber and his dad, Jeremy Bieber, were “extremely abusive” to a flight attendant during a flight from Canada to New Jersey on January 31. In addition, the incident report stated that the duo and their entourage were smoking pot and “…The smoke emitting from marijuana was so intense that the pilots were forced to wear oxygen masks,” NBC news reports. The captain also stated that he warned the passengers, including Bieber, on several occasions to stop smoking marijuana,” the official report noted. The Calgary Herald reported that “U.S. Federal Aviation Authority… are conducting an investigation …The FAA will then present its findings to legal counsel who will decide if Bieber should be prosecuted.”

February 10, 2014 – Michelle Obama’s Response to Univision Interview
Responding to the recent bout of Bieber antics, E! Online reported that first lady, Michelle Obama, told Univision Radio host Enrique Santo, “I would pull him close,” said the First Lady.

February 10, 2014 – Deportation Petition
E! Online reports that “A petition to deport the Canadian singer and revoke his green card has received more than 250,000 signatures since Jan. 23, requiring an official response from the Oval Office.”

Despite his recent troubles, I’ve got to admit, I’m still a Belieber. With legal woes mounting across several jurisdictions, now is a perfect time for reputation repair and an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of Britney Spears and other icons who were able to resume a successful music career with a combination of sobriety and smarter choices.

How Low Can You Go – The Fall of Facebook Organic Reach

March 7, 2014 by Todd William Leave a Comment

There was a time when Facebook brand pages were considered the greatest gift to online marketing since the smartphone. Brands had access to nearly all of their thousands of socially engaged fans and Facebook organic reach was through the roof. New fans could be acquired cheaply through favorable ad rates, targeted with precision and the returns were measurable and monumental.

Those days are over.

Back in 2012, the online marketing world was shaken up by algorithm restrictions that limited the reach of content published from Facebook brand pages to approximately 16%. In 2013, the reach of brand content on Facebook took another hit and the trend lines are moving further to zero, according to a recent study by Social@Ogilvy.

Social@Ogilvy conducted a study of 106 brand pages and found that the average reach of organic content declined from 12.05% in October to 6.15% in February. For 23 Facebook brand pages with more than 500,000 likes, posts experienced a drop from 4.04% in October to 2.11% in February.

Will brands on Facebook soon have to pay to reach anyone on Facebook? All signs point to yes.

Social Media Recruiting Survey Shows Social Matters

March 5, 2014 by Todd William Leave a Comment

In a newly competitive environment for attracting top talent, HR departments and recruiters need to go through many online and offline channels to find viable candidates. Over the past few years, employers have found that a social media recruiting strategy is not just a “nice to have” but a need to have. Today, job seekers are looking for positions via websites such as Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com as well as placing their resumes and profiles on social media sites such as LinkedIn in hopes of being able to get noticed by top employers.

Likewise, job seekers are not just looking at job postings that appear on social media and job sites – but also perusing the Twitter, Facebook and websites of the companies that interest them. A recent survey from Jobvite found that a business which has a dynamic social media profile has a better chance of recruiting top candidates.

Jobvite also reported that NOT being having a social media presence can be very detrimental to finding the right employees. In fact, the research iterated that 94% of HR professionals are using social media such as LinkedIn and Facebook to find viable employees. In addition, the report discovered that there is considerable ROI for companies that look for candidates online as “…60% of recruiters estimating the value of their social media hires as greater than $20,000 per year, and 20% estimating the value as greater than $90,000 per year.”

The report also noted that most recruiters using social media found that it “…improved both the quantity and quality of candidates.” This may be due to the fact that social media allows recruiters to get to know candidates better. “With 9 out of 10 surveyed companies using social media in their recruiting strategy, candidates and companies are now in direct communication, all the time,” reports the Jobvite survey.

This social media interaction allows recruiters to gauge the personality, interests and accomplishments of job seekers.

Over the past decade as social media sites have become a common method of contact in both the personal and professional realm, social networks and corporate career sites have significantly risen in importance for recruiters. Here are some of the key finding from the Jobvite research:

73% of recruiters will increase their investment in social networks in 2013
43% of employees from referrals and company career pages stay longer than 3 years, while only 14% of job board hires stay longer than three years
65% of recruiters surveyed use Facebook and 47% of recruiters use Twitter to post about company culture – Facebook and Twitter are the main channels that recruiters use to showcase employer brand

Google Places for Business Help

February 27, 2014 by Todd William Leave a Comment

Google Places for Businesses is one of the most important business listing sites available to help your company get found online. 97% of consumers search for local businesses online and Google Places for Business help your business share hours, address, contact info and photos with your customers.

For many businesses, the Google Places listing is adjacent to the business website in search and at or near the top of the first page, so customer ratings and reviews are highly visible and very influential on customer decision making.

According to Google, “[it] uses data from many sources to compose local business listings. Each listing includes information from one or more sources, such as third-party providers, user edits, and verified business owner records.” While Google Places allows you to create free business listings, don’t confuse Google Places with its more robust advertising program (that is not free) called Google AdWords. In addition Google has an “offers program” that allows you promote discounts to your customers – also not free, but highly targeted for local businesses.

Google Places for Businesses help make things simpler for management by including an updated dashboard that allows you to expand your business listing, adding graphics and additional descriptive features. For example, you can add facts about your business, address and other information. The updated dashboard also allows you to add or change that information as applicable. In addition, you can provide more photos of your business – which is especially important if your business is product-driven and you have new merchandise, etc. you wish to promote or highlight. Your map information will be updated in Google Maps as well.

Don’t confuse Google Places for Business with Google+ Local for Business. Although the two are integrated, Google+ Local is a social network for a business to post updates and share information online in real-time. With Google+ Local

With Google+ Local, visitors can:

Get place recommendations based on social circles, previous reviews, and location
Publish reviews and photos of favorite places
Read Zagat summaries of business reviews
View the local Google+ page for a business to read reviews, photos, posts, and other useful information
Find reviews from people in a user’s social network and trust highlighted in your search results

More about Google+ Local for Business in a future post!

Facebook Advertising for Business

February 24, 2014 by Todd William Leave a Comment

Facebook advertising opens the door to over a billion users, a thought which can be overwhelming to the online marketing professional, but Facebook also provides the flexibility to target a specific region, age group, affinity group or industry at a cost that you can preselect and change over time.

Facebook for business offers a comprehensive advertising program that allows you to make sense of your fans and followers for your business and customize your messaging for maximum impact on any device. It costs a bit of money and many businesses have recognized that it has become more difficult and more expensive to get your message out there, however Facebook advertising can be a strategic addition to your marketing plan if that is where your audience spends their time online.

Facebook will give you several reasons for advertising, including increasing your business page “likes” and drawing traffic to your profile. If you have an “app” Facebook can assure a certain amount of consumers trying out your online app.

Advertising on Facebook is not hard and they have instructions to help you better understand how not only to create interesting ads, but how also to target demographics that will see the ad – thus increasing likelihood for success, whether you are measuring it by clicks or conversions.

According to Facebook, here are some of the basic things to understand about Facebook advertising:

Name your campaign, select your budget and set the schedule for your campaign
Unless you chose Advanced Options in the goals section, you’ll pay for impressions (CPM)
These impressions will be optimized so your ad shows to the people most likely to help you reach your goal
You will never pay more than your budget, and you’ll never pay more than the actual cost to reach the people who are more likely to help you achieve your goal

One of the major advantages for a business advertising on Facebook is the ability to develop several ads and then decide which one has the most impact. Facebook will do a test/control so you can see what graphics or storytelling is resonating with your audience.

Facebook reminds users that, “[w]hen multiple ads are running in a campaign, we’ll automatically allocate more of your daily budget to higher performing ads so it’s important to put your ads in different campaigns when you’re testing them.”

3 Online Reputation Management Tools You Already Own

February 20, 2014 by Todd William Leave a Comment

online reputation management tools In 2008, Facebook had 100 million users and in March 2013 Facebook has grown to 1.11 Billion users. The world’s largest audience is literally a click away.

With powerful (and free) social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and others, the ability to improve and market your reputation for your business or yourself is limited only by the hours you have available in the day to type, tag and toggle.

You’re probably wondering what is the best way to improve a reputation online? Is there a way to target your efforts so they are not so all-consuming? While you could spend hours and hours tweeting and posting – many people have jobs or a family or a social life – not just a social media life.

I thought I would share three free online reputation management tools you already own that are 100% free and very effective for improving your personal or business reputation online.

1. Use social media to brand your business or yourself – and be active

Whether it’s Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn or Pinterest, there is a social media site that is appropriate for your business. The key is to join these free platforms and to ensure you are actively updating your personal or business profile with new engaging content to keep the profile fresh and dynamic.

For instance, joining Twitter is great but to get followers you must tweet and follow others who share your interests. Also make sure to utilize some of the business services on these social networks to better target your brand and business to the right audience. LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter all have advertising services that allow you to promote your company to your target demographic.

You don’t need to devote hours a day to social media, a half hour a day is really all you need to post something thoughtful and creative. It’s quality not quantity that counts.

2. Target Your Efforts By Joining Vertical Groups

Most social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn offer affinity groups and organizations you can follow. There are groups for lawyers, doctors, marketing professionals and more – some with hundreds of thousands of members. If you are a plastic surgeon, for instance, you may want to join health and beauty or surgical sites where you can share practice management tips with other professionals in your field of expertise. You can also create a group of your own and be a “thought leader” within your field.

2. Be a Better Blogger

If you want to make sure your brand comes up in search engines, an active, frequently updated web site is a great way to get there. For example, having an on-site blog will not only showcase your expertise but it will provide a place to interact with customers, add photos of yourself or product and much more. The best part, if you update your blog regularly – once a week or at least twice a month – you may find yourself or your business first in online searches. One of the best online reputation management tools I know is your blog.

Improving your business reputation is not about doing hundreds of things right, it’s about doing a few things right a few hundred times. If you can leverage social media and blogging on your website, it costs you next to nothing for an opportunity to grow your brand and improve your business reputation using free online reputation management tools you already own.

Smart Ways to Improve Your Online Reputation

February 17, 2014 by Todd William Leave a Comment

smart online reputation management Online reputation management comes in all shapes and sizes… and all types of prices. But it doesn’t have to be as difficult or as expensive as you think. In fact, some of the best reputation management strategies are easy to do on your own.

I thought I would share a few suggestions about how to take charge of your online reputation that are easier than you think.

1. Be Smart vs. Ridiculous

Search Engine Journal writes that many new businesses as well as individuals are looking to enhance their online reputation will veer toward the ridiculous or provocative to attract attention. We are used to seeing eye-catching tabloid headlines at the supermarket checkout line and the same strategy is being used all over the web to generate clicks and shares, but sometimes those antics can backfire.

In a recent article, Search Engine Journal writes, “Time and time again we see a new company post something ridiculous or offensive on their social networking pages, then it becomes a big PR disaster. It’s not just about being active on your social pages, it’s also about being smart and connecting with your audience.” Does this mean you cannot have a sense of humor? Of course you can – but soft sounding your idea first with a smaller group of friends and colleagues can go a long way to avoid a communications crisis.

2. Use Social Media to Promote Your Personal Brand or Business

There are many ways to promote yourself directly to your customers or constituents and Twitter Chats are an exceptional tool for promoting and enhancing your online reputation. There are twitter chats for virtually any subject, from the mundane to the miraculous, and it is a great way to meet others who are passionate about the same topics as you and establish yourself as an expert or influencer.

3. Support a Worthy Cause

Supporting a good cause is always a plus – for you as a person as well as for your online reputation. It is easy to find charities and not-for-profit organizations that can benefit from your financial support or volunteer efforts. If you are active on social media, you can promote the charity to your social and professional network. This creates a “halo effect” for your business by associating your brand with a charity and gives the charity a way to connect to a wider audience.

4. Reputation Management Services

Individuals and companies of all sizes are increasingly looking to reputation management services and public relations firms for brand management and online reputation management. Although reputation management can be very expensive, it doesn’t have to be. If you are too busy to create and maintain professional profiles and update blogs regularly and/or if you find a negative comment regarding you or your business online, an online reputation management company can help bury the negatives and highlight positive content for less than you might think – as the saying goes, “you never have a second chance to make a first impression” so it pays to get it right the first time!

How We Use Online Reviews

February 13, 2014 by Todd William Leave a Comment

Reputation Rhino Reviews Online Consumers, more than ever, are turning to online reviews to make purchasing choices for restaurants, hotels, and even doctors according to a recent survey from BrightLocal, a local marketing company. Yelp, TripAdvisor, Healthgrades, Google+ and other business listing sites offer a chance for consumers to rate their experiences.

In addition, just about every major retailer offers people the opportunity to comment on products and read unbiased reviews from other consumers — social marketing is a major factor in how purchasing choices are being made today.

Below are some highlights from the survey:

The BrightLocal survey asked consumers how many times have they used online reviews to find a local business. 37% of consumers used the internet to find local businesses at least one time per month (up from 34% in 2012) and only 5% said they do not search online for a local business.

Restaurants – 67% of consumers searched for restaurants (up from 57% in 2012)
Doctor / Dentists – 35% (up from 27%)
General Shop – 35% (35% in 2013)
Hotel/B&B/Guest House – 30% (down from 35%)
Clothes Shop – 28%

In addition to locating the right business, consumers said they read online reviews to find a reputable business, product or service. As a matter of fact 85% of the survey participants say that they read online reviews for local businesses (up from 76% in 2012) and only 15% of consumers say that they don’t read online reviews, according to BrightLocal.

An interesting question posed was how many online reviews do people in general read before they make a decision. The BrightLocal survey found that 67% of consumers read 6 reviews or less* (up from 52% in 2012).

These online reviews carry significant weight as 79% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations (up from 72% in 2012). In addition, 73% of consumers say positive customer reviews make them trust a business more (up from 58% in 2012) and 65% of consumers are more likely to use a business which has positive online reviews (up from 52% in 2012).

I’m a Belieber – Reputation Management for Justin Bieber

How Low Can You Go – The Fall of Facebook Organic Reach

Google Places for Business Help

Facebook Advertising for Business

3 Online Reputation Management Tools You Already Own

Smart Ways to Improve Your Online Reputation

How We Use Online Reviews

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