Reputation management isn’t (just) a public relations discipline … It’s also a customer relationships discipline. This presentation introduces some ORM do's and don'ts for social media.

1. Online Reputation Management:
The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
Melanie Phung
November 2014

2. Q: What’s easy to pick up and hard to
put down?
A: A (bad) reputation

3. Online Reputation Management
ORM is the practice of influencing perceptions held
about you or your company.
This includes trying to manage what people see when
they search for you on the web as well as how you
interact with customers online.

4. Reputation management
isn’t (just) a public relations
discipline …
It’s also a customer relationships
discipline.

5. Customers’ perception of a “brand” has
little to do with the company’s
logo.

6. Customers’ perception of a “brand” has
little to do with the company’s
tagline.

7. Customers’ perception of a “brand” has
little to do with the company’s
corporate style guide.

8. So what is a brand?

9. A brand is the set of expectations,
memories, stories and relationships that,
taken together, account for a consumer’s
decision to choose one product or service
over another.
- Seth Godin

10. Word of Mouth has always existed, but
the Web allowed individual opinions to
grow virally.
Now everyone with a compelling story
has a bullhorn.

11. With the Internet connecting
everyone together, companies
are becoming more and more
transparent whether they like it
or not.
An unhappy customer or a
disgruntled employee can blog
about a bad experience with a
company, and the story can
spread like wildfire by email or
with tools like Twitter.
Tony Hsieh
CEO, Zappos

12. Why Care?

13. Do people go out of their way
to tell the world about their experiences
with a company?

14. 24% of American adults have posted
comments or reviews online about the product
or services they buy"
Pew Research Center's
Internet and American Life Project

15. Do people go out of their way
to seek out reviews?

16. 88% of Americans say they look at
reviews before taking the next step to
conversion.
- "Zero Moment of Truth”

17. The average consumer today checks
10.4 information sources before buying.
- Social Trends Report 2012, Bazaarvoice,

18. Selected Theses
• Markets are conversations
• Markets consist of human beings, not demographic
sectors
• Conversations among human beings sound human
• The Internet is enabling conversations among
human beings that were simply not possible in the
era of mass media
• Networked conversations are enabling powerful
new forms of social organization and knowledge
exchange to emerge
• As a result, markets are getting smarter, more
informed, more organized
• People in networked markets have figured out that
they get far better information and support from
one another than from vendors.
• There are no secrets. The networked market knows
more than companies do about their own
products.
• The community of discourse is the market

19. Markets are conversations

20. Where could these
conversations be happening?

21. The first page of…

22. Click-Through Rate by Position (2014)

23. So What Should Brands Do?

24. Good Ideas for Brand Managers
• Use social media to support customers.
• Use “social listening” tools to pay attention to
what’s being said about your company (and
competitors).
• Get customer service, PR and marketing
departments working together closely to
deliver on a cohesive messaging strategy.
• Be proactive about protecting your reputation
before it becomes an issue.

28. Bad News for Your Brand
• Unprofessional behavior
• Domain/user name squatters
• Outdated or incorrect info
• Disgruntled ex-employees
• Fake reviews by competitors
• Intellectual property infringement
• Site hacks/malware

29. Things Get When …Ugly

30. You disrespect your customers.

33. You get snarky on social media, forgetting
everyone can read what you said.

35. You let someone manage your social media who
doesn’t understand what’s appropriate for your
brand.

37. You don’t pay attention to social media norms.

39. You put your messages on autopilot.

41. How not to #fail at the reputation game
Understand that people expect to be heard. And they will make
themselves heard.
Ignore online complaints at your own peril.

42. How not to #fail at the reputation game
Engage with people where and when they are
talking about you.

43. How not to #fail at the reputation game
Don’t be a robot.

44. How not to #fail at the reputation game
Have a plan

45. B2C Social Media:
Customer Service Expectations
Increasingly, customers expect to get customer service over
social media (both publicly and in private messages). These types
of interactions have the potential to strengthen or damage
perceptions of a company’s level of service.
We strive to…
Be human/Be honest
Be responsive
Embrace interaction

46. "Every employee can affect your
company's brand, not just the front-line
employees that are paid to talk to your
customers."
- Tony Hsieh

47. Reputation Management Do’s
• Look for online mentions of your name
• Monitor the rankings for complaints and kudos
• Pay attention to Google’s auto-suggest
• Actively promote positive discussions/testimonials
• Take ownership of your domain names and social media
handles
• Integrate customer service, social media and marketing.
• Develop social media policies and rapid response plans

48. Reputation Management Dont’s
• Don’t astroturf
• Don’t engage in shady link-building practices
• Don’t threaten bloggers/customers
• Don’t ignore online feedback
• Don’t get complacent

49. Take-Aways for Brands
• Be awesome
• Make it easy for others to tell the story of how
you’re awesome.
• Be engaged, active and authentic in everything
you do

50. ”You’re on the wrong side of history if you stay offline
because you’re afraid of what people will say."
- Nancy Proctor

51. Thank You!
www.melaniephung.com
@melaniephung
/melaniephung
+melaniephung