Steps needed to create a simple, web-based, dashboard for monitoring the online reputation of a business (some ideas originally appeared in How to Build a Reputation Management Dashboard at http://www.aimclearblog.com/2009/03/16/how-to-build-a-reputation-monitoring-dashboard/)

1. Building a Reputation
Management Dashboard
Scott Thomas
About the Inn
Freeport, Maine

2. Why you need reputation management
You can not react to what is being
said about your business
unless you can find out about it.

3. Finding out what is being said
● Search the web
● Search for blogs
● Search social media

4. Finding out what is being said
● Alerts
– Let the searches come to you

5. Overview
● Creating the searches
● Automate the searches
● Assemble the Dashboard

6. Manually Search the Web
● If you have accounts (such as gmail or a Google
login), be sure you are logged out (or disable
personalized search)
● Search
– Your business name
– Names of primary owners/employees
– Social media usernames
– Your web address(es)

7. Search for blogs
● In addition to blogs that appear in conventional
search results, you can also perform a blog-
specific search
– Google Blog Search
– Technorati
– Other blog search engines

8. Automating the Search
● Alerts provide automated notifications when
there are new search results
– Yahoo Alerts
– Google Alerts

9. Automating the Search
● Yahoo Alerts: alerts.yahoo.com

10. Automating the Search
● Yahoo Alerts: alerts.yahoo.com

11. Automating the Search
● Google Alerts: google.com/alerts

12. Automating the Search
● Google Alerts: google.com/alerts

13. Automating the Search
● Google Alerts: Results by RSS Feed

14. Automating the Search
● Google Alerts: Results by RSS Feed

15. Automating the Search
● Social Media mentions
– TweetBeep.com
– SocialMention.com
– WhosTalkin.com

16. Automating the Search
● TweetBeep.com

17. Automating the Search
● SocialMention

18. Automating the Search
● SocialMention

19. Automating the Search
● WhosTalkin.com

20. Automating the Search
● WhosTalkin.com

21. Viewing the Results
● Email
● RSS Reader
or...
Convert email to RSS with toRSS from
makeuseof.com

22. Viewing the Results
● Create a Dashboard
– www.google.com/ig

23. Set up the Dashboard
● On iGoogle (www.google.com/ig)
– Add tabs for
● My Brand (property name)
● People (names to search for)
● Competition (competitors and their people)
● Industry (keywords specific to the industry)
● Intent Words (words that mean “you're great” or
“your place is terrible”)

24. Prepare for Searching
● In a spreadsheet (or on sheets of paper) create
sheets for
– Brand
– People
– Competition
– Industry Keywords
– Intent Words

25. Prepare for Searching
● On each page, make a list of the names or
words that you would search for in that
category
● Use keyword search tools to find more industry
keywords (and variations)
– MSN Keyword Mutation Detection Tool
– Google AdWords keyword tool
– There are others

26. Prepare the Alerts
● On each alert site
– Create an alert for every search term you have
identified
● There should be a LOT of them

27. Assemble the Info
● RSS search results
– Google Alerts
– Who's Talkin' (via Google Gadget)
● Email search results
– Tweet Beep (last time it was available)
– Yahoo Alerts
– Social Mention

28. Assemble the Info
● Convert email alerts to RSS feeds
– Convert email to RSS with toRSS from
makeuseof.com
– (create separate email address for this purpose,
if necessary)
● Add the RSS feeds to your iGoogle tabs
● Scan them at least daily

29. Protecting Your Reputation
● Your goals should be to have your business seen
as:
– Transparent
– Responsive
– Unbiased
– Trustworthy
– Honest

30. Thank You for Your Attention
Scott Thomas
scott@AboutTheInn.com
www.AboutTheInn.com