The data can be tracked and recorded via the Google Dashboard.  You can do this by setting up search alerts for data points included in your Google profile, like your name and email address. It has long been possible to set up these type of alerts using another section of the dashboard, but now it takes fewer clicks.

Managing your own online identity and being able to remove content are key aspects of this new feature. You need a Google account of course.

We are in the age of the Super Injunction , and businesses have been created on the back of this. These businesses use similar approaches as we have outlined here to manage the content for both individuals and businesses.

For us mere mortals, we can now keep an eye on what is being said about us on the web. Moreover, it is highly effective, and considerably cheaper than hiring a lawyer and taking out a super injunction!

If you need advice on setting this up, or would like to know more about our own Online Reputation Management service for our clients, please get in touch.

So who are you gonna call? Us…

Why? What difference can you make?

We come in, and this is roughly what we do in our introductory meeting. Listen to you, your issues and your objectives. Then we would let you know how we could help.

With everything, you need to have a plan. A social media strategy would help define where you are going; and the stages in which you can complete the tasks step-by-step.

But it’s not as easy as that. Time is a major constraint. Small business owners have too many things to do already. They cannot take themselves away for a few days to swot up on social media, and then give an 1hr/day to managing their company’s social media activities and online reputation. It’s just impossible. And taking a staff member away from their everyday tasks for the same purpose; is an important business decision, which undoubtedly will have an opportunity cost.

The lack of time is creating another barrier to progress.; Knowledge. You need the time to build up the knowledge base, to work an effective strategy. Facebook may not be the right target audience for you. But it may well be many hours wasted, with no measurable results to show for your efforts, before you reach that conclusion.

So, Morello has been set up, to solve these issues. We figure that not only can we provide a social media management service in a more cost-effective manner than yourselves (remember the time and knowledge factors), but we can provide you with measurable results and ROI every step of the way. Your strengths lie in managing and driving your business forward. Our strengths lie in marrying your business objectives with an effective and measurable social media strategy tailored to your goals.

How can we do this for you?

1. Sit down with you to gain an understanding of your business and your objectives. What is it that you want to achieve, and then we can determine which areas of social media can fit into your overall objectives?
2. Create a strategy for your social media activities broken down into very specific and measurable objectives along with target dates.
3. Build and engage a community based around your products and services through targeted social media marketing.
4. Manage your online reputation on an ongoing basis.

Social Media offers an unparalleled opportunity to engage with an empowered community of potential customers. But in return, they expect fresh and interesting content and platforms for discussion with their own networks. They will do the work for you…promote and share your brand; but you need to give them some calls to action. A pretty Facebook page or a Twitter account won’t suffice. Give us a call if you want to gain a whole new network of active marketers for your business.

The next meeting, we will have a framework of a social media strategy to fill in together…Your input will maximise our output for you…as the next blog post will reveal…

You need to either be trained in this ability yourself or at least be aware of the tools you can use to help manage the reputation of your business. Online reputation management is a key aspect of running a business in today’s environment and it will probably become more and more important as more people use the internet to help them decide on products and services.

Of course it could be that your business or organization currently has an excellent reputation. Perhaps your support team, your sales group, and other customer-facing pieces of your business do a wonderful job and their efforts are reflected as such on the internet. While this may be true, you have to know for certain this is the case. Guessing is not wise.

If, on the other hand, you have a bad online reputation, deserved or not, you need to know. Perhaps there was an incident that caused a pain for one of your customers, or maybe your competition is being malicious. Either way you must be up to speed on what is being said, where they are saying it, and what your options might be.

If you are going to run a successful business in today’s internet environment you will need to be aware of both the good and the bad things that people are saying about your products and services. You will need to recognize the way these comments can help to determine your company’s bottom line at the end of every month.

With the popularity of the internet all it takes is one bad apple, so to speak, perhaps even something typed as a joke on a social networking site, to bring your reputation down considerably. News travels fast on the internet, and bad news travels even faster, and consumers will stick together if they believe a company has taken advantage of a customer.

Managing your reputation online is not a single action but rather a process. This includes maintaining high visibility, positive publicity, and the right kind of marketing. They move beyond the negative you need to do everything within your power to gain high web site rankings from search engines. This can help to keep the negative comments off the first page of search results.

You will find it necessary to keep a close eye on the opinion of the public. Watching social networks and blogs are essential. You will have to take a long look at the comments being made and you must make every effort to protect and defend your company’s trademark and logo.

As you research online reputation management you will find there are a number of companies available to help you keep your reputation clean or help you cleanse one that has been tarnished. Find out what each company offers and consider using one to help you manage your business image and reputation. Remember that information on the web travels fast and you need to be one step ahead of those who might seek to affect your bottom line in a negative way.

For every person that “adds” your company, in whatever social website environment, you know that all their friends will see that they have expressed an interest – great news for your online reputation. Some will be curious and check your business out for themselves, and this is the key to social media; if you can get one person’s attention, you can get the attention of their friends without trying.

The first thing to tackle, obviously, is finding people who are likely to take an interest in your company from a social media angle. This might be quite easy if you are a small business  – since you probably already have a large number of Facebook friends (or similar) that might be happy to register their interest in your company’s profile page. If this doesn’t sound like it will work for you, why not offer your existing customers an incentive for following your business online? Maybe a link to a printable voucher every week.

Once you have a following, it is only a matter of interacting with them and producing content that will either get them talking or get them interested in what your business has to offer. If you have the sort of business that relies on repeat custom, then you are in the ideal position to offer special deals to your social media followers. If not, simply send individualised messages to your followers until they are willingly interacting with the discussions on your business’s main page – and if you don’t know what to talk about, you can always hire a writer to take care of your online reputation!

Interacting with people is what reputation management is all about at its most essential level. Your online reputation will hinge upon your ability to stay in touch with at least a small sample of your market and keep abreast of what they want. Using Facebook, or Bebo, or any other website to create a small following is a fantastic way of keeping a sample of people on hand to give you feedback about your business. The most important thing of all though, is that once you have gotten involved in social media your reputation (whether good or bad) will become wider.

We can help you build and then manage your online reputation. Simply get in touch, and let us see how we can work together.

Employees will waste time with social media:
Many large corporations block their employees from accessing the Internet altogether. Others try to block employees from accessing personal email or social networks like Facebook during work hours.

With the advent of smart phones, internet access is available to workers everywhere – and employers can’t stop them from accessing the Internet.

The value of workers of having internet access – in terms of research, communication, and speed – is far greater than the threat of lost productivity. Companies like Best Buy, Dell and many others have increased not only customer satisfaction, but also sales, by having hundreds, and even thousands, of employees monitoring and resolving complaints and issues in social media.

Companies have a right to make policies and rules about personal use of the internet, but blocking it during work just doesn’t make sense.

What if people say nasty things about our brand?:

Most people exercise common sense, when reading reviews. That is to say, any obviously vindictive and negative comments will simply be ignored.

And besides, complaints may very well mean that there may be things you need to change about your brand. In that case, you should thank them for letting you know what they are. Then you should make changes.

If you have built an online community that includes people who don’t hate you, that community will rise to your defense and they will handle the problem for you.

We’ll lose control of the brand.

Every person with a computer and even a tiny skill level has the tools to make their opinion about your brand heard by other people. They’re already talking about you.

You cannot control the message in the internet Age. You can affect it, but you cannot control it. Your workers are talking about you in closed Facebook groups designed to keep you out so they can talk about you in peace. Your customers are emailing, Tweeting, Facebooking, and that old standby – calling – their friends about their experience with your brand. You don’t have control. You might as well join the conversation. At least that way you can influence what is being said.

Employees will give away corporate secrets on social networks and that will help our competitors and affect the stock price.
If you don’t already have a social media policy, you need to create one.

If you don’t trust your employees to talk to customers, or to represent the brand, you need to look at 1) your hiring practices, 2) your training practices.

The truth is that there are more emerging media success stories than there are failures.