If there’s one area where the Internet has made a huge difference in our everyday lives, it’s with the amount of information that is now freely available to and about us. Just type some keyword phrases into Google and you can be privy to almost everything that’s ever been written about a person or company. Yet this isn’t always a good thing, as a friend of mine recently found out.
Typing her name into Google, she found herself on the Rip Off Report website, under a list of false accusations about her. What makes it worse with the Rip Off Report website is that the owner protects the names of the accusers yet will quite happily publish any story or complaint without checking the facts. Instead, the accused can issue a rebuttal but that’s it - the complaint (false or otherwise) stays on the site for the whole world to see.
This seems morally and ethically wrong to me. Unfortunately, it also seems fairly common when it comes to your online reputation. If anyone can go online and post lies about you or your business, the results can obviously be extremely damaging. While you can certainly take out a lengthy and potentially costly lawsuit, the damage has been done.
This is why it’s so important to keep tabs on what’s being said about you online. Although you may not be able to prevent something from being written, you can react to it a lot quicker. Some of the best methods of monitoring your online presence include:
- Google Alerts. Still in Beta, Google Alerts allow you to type in a certain keyword or phrase and whenever that’s referred to online, you’ll be alerted.
- Serph. Excellent tool that searches the web for any mention of you, your business or brand. Can take its time to find all the results but the information it retrieves makes the wait worthwhile.
- Technorati. The “blog bible”, this site allows you to type in keywords, URL’s or tags and any posts that make a mention of these words will show up.
These are just some of the free methods you can use to keep track of what’s being said about you online. There are various professional business services available as well, if you need a more corporate-led approach.
Whichever one you choose to use, make sure you use it regularly. Otherwise you may find yourself in the same situation as my friend currently does - and a reputation can be a hard thing to rebuild once tarnished.
Copyright © 2008 Press Release PR. If you wish to reprint this article, please list an author credit as “Danny Brown / Press Release PR” and link the credit to http://www.pressreleasepr.com
10 Comments
October 21, 2008 at 3:24 pm
You’re right Danny, defending the brand online can be an absolute nightmare. Constant monitoring of the social media is an absolute imperative for directing what is said about a brand online. One of the best books that addresses this is Groundswell.
One of the downsides of providing everyone with an electronic voice is that the amount of user generated content is becoming ever more voluminous. Clearly, as the volume of user generated content increases, it makes monitoring the internet ever more difficult. The best solution? Either specialised search engines such as those described above, or proprietary technology specifically designed to mine data. Both have their own specific costs, either in terms of time or capital, and strategies should be considered in context.
October 21, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Great information Danny! I’m sorry for your friend … I’ve had something similar happen on a forum and I wouldn’t have known unless a friend emailed me about it.
I love using Google alerts. A few times someone has blogged about me (positively LOL) and I was alerted right away. I was then able to go comment and thank them right away. If not for the alert I wouldn’t have known about the post.
I will definitely check out the other tools you’ve mentioned. Thanks! *SmiLes* Suzanne
October 21, 2008 at 3:41 pm
@ The Lovable Rogue. This may be the only way forward, unfortunately, and of course the problem is that it’s always the innocent party that has to fork out the money to try and stave off the lies of others.
@ Suzanne. I’ve also found Google Alerts to be almost indispensable. Sure, it has its funny moments with some of the info it sends to you, but overall it’s more than worth it.
Thanks for reading and commenting guys, appreciate it.
October 21, 2008 at 8:23 pm
I love Google Alerts, there’s a lot that they miss though, so I make sure to monitor other Blog search tools - like LJSeek (LiveJournal) and IceRocket. Also Twitter Search.
October 21, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Yes, I’ve had some great laughs at what has been sent to me! I’m not the only “Suzanne Franco” on the planet it seems. LOL
I’ve also found someone who was “stealing” my work this way … so again … awesome tool. I still need to check out the other too. I will bookmark this so I can find it tomorrow when I’m ready for it.
S
October 21, 2008 at 8:31 pm
That’s the only problem with Google Alerts - they are prone to missing stuff as well as sending you strange links from your keywords. Hopefully the Beta sessions will sort that out.
IceRocket is definitely worthwhile for blogs - yet to try LJSeek, as well as a few others.
Thanks for reading and commenting, appreciate it.
October 21, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Very interesting subject and suggestions. I wrote, in the past, about something similar from a different angle.
Web presence - piecing together an Identity
http://usingit.wordpress.com/2008/07/31/web-presence-piecing-together-an-identity/
You can also use tweetscan to monitor your brand, blog, name mentions on twitter: http://tweetscan.com/index.php
I tweeted once about LinkedIn and I got a response right away.
Yet, I wonder how many organization are actually doing this.
Maybe the way to protect from incidents like the one described in this post, is by building an online community and having friends like you.
Keren
October 21, 2008 at 11:14 pm
I hadn’t actually heard of TweetScan - certainly with the increased presence of Twitter and its users, it would definitely make for an important tool by the sound of it.
Of course, as you rightly mention, having a feeling of community would go some way to preventing it - although I doubt the likes of the accuser in this case would be party to that kind of involvement. We can but hope…
November 7, 2008 at 1:58 am
It is true by exercising the traffic and get your article upload on article directory, it is always a must to observe the existence of our sites, monitoring and evaluating what suceed and what doesn’t.
November 21, 2008 at 1:20 pm
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