This article at the Telegraph is a wonderful exposition of the difficulties of online reputation. While people should not believe everything they read on the Internet, often they do. The article summarizes some of the most important parts very succinctly and gives people a glimpse into why reputation management services are so incredibly important.

Think about online recommendations and reputation: that is, checking out people you might like to hire and researching businesses you might like to build relationships with. If anything, hasn’t the internet made both tasks much more difficult?

Take Yelp. Even casual users of the web are by now familiar with the appalling reputation of Yelp’s anonymised business reviews, which have enabled bitter ex-employees, their identity shrouded by the reviews site, to destroy businesses. Anyone with a grudge can leave a nasty smear against a restaurant’s reputation. As for business services, there’s really nowhere to go besides expensive due diligence services like Kroll and nosing around credit agencies and Companies House.

The author points out that people widely recognize online reviewing websites as a place for individuals to take cheap shots at businesses. The general rule applies similarly to most review websites and to the idea that you can just Google someone and instantly know their reputation.

The article linked below is an excellent analysis for hospitality industry professionals. Not only is it interesting, it’s one hundred percent true–social media and the openness of the Internet has allowed customers to share the good, the bad, and the ugly about hotels, motels, and whatever other hospitality industry businesses.

The proliferation of web 2.0 or user generates content (UGC) websites like Trip Advisor, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc. have empowered your guests to share their opinion about your hotel at the speed of thought and in front of millions of prospective guests. Travel review websites and social media platforms are also becoming more credible sources of research for potential guests. It’s not only your guests who are sharing their opinion online. Travel bloggers and self-proclaimed travel experts are writing about your hotel without you even knowing about it. Travelers trust other travelers. Online reviews are immediate, in real time and considered to be truthful.

There is a danger, of course, of search engine reputation management problems anytime you encounter a situation in which the Internet is so influential upon consumers.

http://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/154000320/4047517.search?query=online+reputation+management

As Yahoo announces that it expects its search results to transition to Bing within the next couple of months rather than next year, Google had its own announcement to make. It may not be as immediately impacting as Yahoo’s own announcement but the purchase of Metaweb could still hold a few indications for the future of Google search results at the very least.

Before we get on to that, though, the major implication of the Yahoo Bing integration is that if your site currently performs better or worse on Bing than it does on Google then you should expect similar results from the world’s 2nd largest search engine too. Yahoo has stated that if there are any problems with the integration then they will regress to the proposed date of next year.

Metaweb is a search engine of sorts but it’s more a semantic database of documents and information with complex relationships between entries than it is a keyword based search engine. It stores entries on more than 11 million people, places, companies, films, and songs and users are able to search for the listings themselves or the relationships that exist between some of these pieces of information.

You can search for a list of female models from Birmingham that have appeared in GQ magazine and the relational database will find that information and provide you with a full list. What does this mean for the future of search and SEO? Well, not a whole lot just yet but it does show Google’s continued commitment to leading the search engine wars.

One of the most consistent problems for online reputation management professionals is determining who to help, and who to let solve their own problems. Search engine reputation management professionals are basically public relations managers who work online–and like that industry, online reputation managers often have certain minimum standards that must be met.

For example: Few online reputation management professionals would take up O.J. Simpson’s cause in the aftermath of his famous murder trial and publicize him positively. Similarly, convicted criminals or corrupt politicians would find it hard to find online reputation management professionals who would take their cases without certain reassurances. Prospective clients in need of help just need to prove that they have been unfairly maligned online in order to convince online reputation management professionals to take their case. Of course, there are also always going to be professionals in the industry who accept any case, regardless of merit.

To many organizations, social networking sites are their contact with the outside world. Facebook and Myspace do not represent ways to stay in touch with friends, but ways to stay in contact with clients, spread name recognition, and market products. However, businesses and organizations often make critical mistakes in the administering of these social networking sites.

These mistakes can lead to criticism in the blogosphere or to unsatisfied clients making negative posts about your company or organization elsewhere. For example: if a client complains about a product on the wall of your business’ facebook page and gets no response–he may decide that he does not like getting ignored and set up a blog all about how terrible your business is. This is a mistake that can result from under-use of a social networking site or from letting the intern do it. Social networking sites should be tools used in reputation management, not problematic sites which encourage the need for reputation management.

Many Internet users, and even those unusual few that never step foot online, have become aware of the term microblogging because of the Internet phenomenon that is Twitter. While it is certainly the most popular and renowned of all microblogging services it is surprisingly one of a few that can be used as a means to make your personal or professional voice heard over the dull roar of the masses. Microblogging can prove especially useful as part of a reputation management program because it is quick and simple.

The very essence of microblogging is that it should be simple and this is why the Twitter interface has long proven the most popular. Even now, when there are deeper options available, these are more hidden than obvious so the vast majority of people sign up with a new account by deciding on a username, adding their own name, and then starting to develop their network.

Another great benefit of Twitter is that thanks largely to its popularity it has become an extremely popular addition to other sites too. The Twitter API has been used by developers to enable users to post their own tweets and other people’s tweets onto sites like Facebook.

Extra content on social networking sites tends to mean greater credibility for the author and this means more effective reputation management online.

By now everyone and their mother has heard of the Deepwater Horizons oil spill off the coast of Louisiana. The entire thing is a mess, with everyone pointing fingers at each others. Everyone has an opinion on the issue, but we’re not going to talk about that here–my interest in bringing up the issue is to point out what British Petroleum has done to fight the negative publicity.

They have begun buying up AdWords like “oil spills” and “Gulf oil spill” in order to fight the avalanche of negative publicity that is coming their way. Apparently they have shelled out a fortune on the online reputation management campaign, too–according to this website the cost of their AdWords campaign is over $10,000 per day. This is a wise move by BP, which is being accused of things like “environmental terrorism” and the like.

Twitter has announced that it is banning all third party advertisements that appear in the user timeline. According to their blog and reported by Mashable, the move has been taken in order to ensure that the Twitter network retains its integrity but also to benefit Twitter especially by only allowing the use of their own Promoted Tweets in the user timeline display. The big problem in the eyes of most developers is the fact that they believe they have been misled and even fed misinformation on the subject in previous correspondence.

Twitter has an extremely active community of developers, who are responsible for creating a number of innovative and beneficial applications using the Twitter API. As such, they are also partially responsible for ensuring that a lot of users get the most out of the system encouraging them to return to the service more frequently and for longer periods of time. This recent move is the latest in a series of moves that the developer community believes undermines their position.

If you’re a regular user that enjoys looking through user timelines unimpeded then the news is potentially good for you. There will almost certainly be far fewer advertisements so that you can enjoy unrestricted access to the information that interests you most. Ads that are displayed around the Twitter display are still acceptable and, of course, Promoted Tweets will also still appear in the timelines that you view. If you make any income through third party Tweets then you may need to rethink your monetisation strategy too.

“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” – Winston Churchill.

The above quotation has always been extremely popular in reputation management services circles. That is because it is more true now, in the digital age, than it ever was before. Indeed, the quotation should probably be modified–in the digital age lies get all the way around the world before truth has rolled out of bed, instant communication and a worldwide reach means that misinformation has a way of traveling quickly and being pervasive. This is so unlike what companies had to deal with when newspapers were the main medium of communication, or radio after that, or finally television after that. All of those communications were conducted at a snail’s pace, comparatively. The result of the advances in communications have been almost universally positive–but the pace at which a lie circles the globe is certainly one drawback. Reputation management services are really the only options available to individuals and businesses which have been unfairly maligned–bloggers have neither the incentive nor the inclination to withdraw bold-faced lies.

There’s been a massive boom in the number and variety of social networking websites that have been launched in the past few years and while some have attempted to take on the world by offering general social networking, there are also a very good range of niche social networking websites that are geared towards specific people or companies, as well as geographically targeted websites for users from or related to specific countries.

Attempting to manage your own social networking program typically means using one or a small handful of networks and then concentrating your efforts on these. As such, it may be your first instinct to plump for those with the largest user base irrespective of their industry or geographic targeting. However, this might not be the best move and creating a portfolio of profiles that include both general and niche can give truly excellent results.

Social networking can be a great way to develop new customers and create a buzz about a new brand or a new company. It can also be extremely beneficial for online reputation management; ensuring that when potential clients use the Internet to search for details about you, they are presented with results that you control.

Set up free profiles and add relevant and existing contacts to that network. Find ways that the sites enable you to create new connections but first ensure that your profile is relevant, informative, and links to your own website and web pages if allowed.