your e-reputation, why it matters

Copyright 2011 - 2013 NTLUX S.A. VAYTON IP - www.vayton.com

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Your e-Reputation,

why It Matters

The business and marketing buzz is all about how multiple and real time communication channels are driving customer interaction. No business, small or large, or individual, a celebrity or company employee, can ignore the power of digital communication technologies and accessibility. Internet, mobile and social media reach continues to grow globally. Customer relations has a new face and it is digital. Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, blogs, website posts—all allow us to engage directly with a company, a celebrity or a politician and to share with others our experiences. The power of social media has not been lost on marketing strategists. Customer interaction via digital channels has the potential to build loyalty to the product or service or company. The customer reach is broadened as millions go online to shop, to seek information and to simply share their experiences and opinions. This is the upside. The downside is the same technology and the same human drive to share makes room for negative feedback with the potential of damaging a company’s or individual’s reputation. Yet, e- reputation management is too often an afterthought. A damaging review posted on Twitter or Facebook or Youtube can go viral and reach millions of consumers in a matter of seconds. Social consciousness groups may launch a social media campaign to protest a corporation’s practices that negatively affect the environment, such as deep sea oil drilling or laying down oil pipelines in natural habitats or as with Apple, poor working conditions in China where iPhones are assembled. Everyone knows before you do. You have lost control of your image or your company’s image. Brand marketing alone will not withstand the onslaught of negative reviews—or the consequential damage. It is like the giant Goliath and the boy David. A single stone in a slingshot can bring down the biggest giant. A negative review gone viral can cause a corporation to totter and lose customer trust or a political candidate to withdraw from the race. All the time and effort invested in building the brand or image can be undermined in 24 hours.


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1.6 billion users worldwide; 820 million in Asia; 58% of Facebook users sign in every day.

Internet, mobile and wireless usage has grown by leaps and bounds in the last few years. One major driver is the availability of multiple platforms for social media allowing real-time communications. More channels mean more opportunities for customer engagement and interaction. North America (77%) and Western Europe (70%) have the highest percentage of Internet users. Mobile penetration across the globe is even higher (86%) with an astounding 5.8 billion subscribers. About one-half of Americans (50%) and Central and East Europeans (47%) use social media, followed by one-third of Western Europeans (36%). Source: European Internet Statistics Compendium 2012

CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT AND INTERACTION—A NEW FOCUS IAB Europe recently published a media consumption study (8th wave of Mediascope Europe) based on over 50,000 consumer interviews. The results below reveal the high stakes of online consumer interaction as 426.9 million Europeans go online:

51% say the Internet helps them choose better products/services

47% are inclined to find out more about products they see advertised online

46% of internet users say they often visit the website of their favorite brands

41% of European internet users agree that the way a brand communicates

online is important

30% of Internet users are more likely to buy a product of a brand they follow on

a social networking site.

96% of European internet users research online for purchases

87% shop online and almost one fifth (19%) of all their shopping is done via the

Internet.

Source: http://www.iabeurope.eu/2012

Multiple communication channels and mobile, real-time connections have quickly and dramatically changed the global marketing landscape. The challenges that drive growth and performance still define business strategy: how to best reach the customer, how to broaden the customer base and how to successfully secure the customer’s trust and sustain loyalty. But with multiple digital touchpoints, the game has changed. The focus is on customer interaction via those multiple communication channels. It is no longer a one-way communication with the advertising/marketing department dictating and controlling the message. Now there is a conversation about and with the brand. The pros outweigh the cons, however, as brand marketing taps into more customer interaction made possible through communication technologies and are able to reach millions of people in a matter in seconds. Recognizing the value of customer


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engagement is verified by research conducted by IDG Research Services. CIOs and IT leaders are seeing a strong imperative to ramp up customer interaction technologies.

25% rank customer interaction as their top priority

54% rate it as a top-five initiative

70% expect investments in customer interaction technology to grow over the

next 12 months

64% are either making or planning to make investments in mobile and wireless

systems, and of those, half are focusing heavily on customer interaction and

retention

Source: “The CIOs Mandate”; whitepaper; www.adobe.com/go/cio

Twitter Power – even small organizations can optimize the customer reach as with the Andy Warhol Museum: “With 500,000 followers, the Warhol is the seventh most "followed" museum in the world on Twitter, right after the Metropolitan Museum of Art and just ahead of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, according to Museum-analytics.org. “ [pewinternet.org]

IGNORING NEGATIVE PUSHBACK—NOT A WISE OPTION To ignore the consumer’s desire to self-investigate and to share is like an ostrich putting its head in the sand. Customer loyalty and trust are high stakes goals. Traditional advertising, such as celebrity endorsements, no longer has the same effect on consumers in this information-rich, visual-oriented, high-tech age. Consumers have at their fingertips unlimited opportunities for being informed about a product or brand—outside the official brand message. Consumers can find reviews online, chat in real time with other consumers, post their personal experiences with a company on Twitter, Facebook and on a brand’s or individual’s website. What drives the consumer interaction? Consumers value service and quality more than price. Brand Loyalty survey results showed 88% of respondents value quality and 77% value customer service compared to 50% who value price. How do they show loyalty? For the majority (78%), they show loyalty by spreading the word and telling others (Brand Loyalty survey; Zendesk infographics, 2012). On the front end (before the transaction), consumers choose to be better informed, outside the controlled advertising/brand message. On the back end (after the transaction), consumers choose to let others know if their expectations have been met.


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WHO IS PAYING ATTENTION TO THE THREATS? “Anything said online, particularly on social networking sites, can instantly be seen by 2.09 billion people” (VentureBeat.com) The risks of damage to e-reputation is well understood and addressed by CEOs of large companies, according Zeno Group:

A 2012 Digital Readiness Survey by Zeno Group (www.zenogroup.com) found

that more than one-third of CEOs fail to consider their company’s social media

reputation when making business decisions.

Business to Customer (B2C) companies are more likely to consider social media

reputation than Business to Business (B2B) CEO’s in decision making: 43% versus

30%.

B2C companies are more prepared to respond to an online crisis than B2Bs: 63%

versus 30%.

CEOs at larger firms are more likely to consider their company’s reputation in

social media: 71% versus 55%.

Larger companies are more likely to respond to a damaging issue online within

the first critical 24 hours: 63% versus 43%.

Over 10% will not take any action in response to a damaging article or social

media post.

WHO IS IN CHARGE OF THE CONVERSATION?

“Online reputation matters: 44% of online adults have searched for information about someone whose services or advice they seek in a professional capacity.” (pewinternet.org)

VentureBeat in “How to manage your company’s online reputation (infographic)” reports that 90% of online consumers trust the recommendations of people they know while 70% trust opinions of people they don’t know. This one piece of consumer survey data alone should sound off alarm bells for some companies and at the same time reassure others. Social media clearly has the potential of strengthening the company brand image and gaining consumer trust. Harnessing the power of social media has become a key marketing strategy for many Fortune 500 companies. Customer interaction is encouraged to sustain and strengthen loyalty. Multiple digital touchpoints create opportunities for favorably directing the conversation about your company, your product, your service, and your image. But, not having an e-reputation management plan places you at risk. You risk not being in control of the brand message. You risk no longer being in charge of the conversation or directing the conversation. Overnight, a bad review or post by a disgruntled customer

http://www.zenogroup.com/


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or employee could go viral and if not addressed within 24 hours could critically damage a company’s reputation. The frequency of people going online to search information about services, a competitor, or even a neighbor, is on the rise. Research by KBSD Digital Marketing in Geneva, Switzerland, found that 48% of recruiters and HR professionals refer to personal websites when making a decision to hire. A majority of recruiters (78%) check search engines to find out about the applicant for employment and social media sites are checked by 63% of recruiters. (kbsd.com) The Pew Research Center (USA) recently released the results of a comprehensive survey on Internet use and urged more vigilance about monitoring an individual’s e-reputation (pewinternet.org): “The increased prevalence of self-monitoring and observation of others creates a dynamic environment where people promote themselves or shroud themselves depending on their intended audience and circumstances. There are good reasons to be more vigilant.” • 27% of employed Internet users now work for an employer that has policies about how they present themselves online—such as what they can post on blogs and websites or what information they can share about themselves. That compares to 22% in 2006. • 31% of employed Internet users have searched online for information about co-workers, professional colleagues or business competitors, up from 23% in 2006.

E-REPUTATION MANAGEMENT—MORE THAN A SOLUTION TO A PROBLEM Optimizing your brand/image is the best way to take control of the conversation. At the most basic level, e-reputation management addresses threats and damages to reputation. Customer interactions, via multiple communication channels—mobile and wireless and real time—must be understood as a powerful force. If you invite customer interaction at your website, are you in control of the conversation? If you do not support social media channels at your website, are you in control of the conversation about your company when it takes place (in your virtual absence) on other channels such as Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, web posts and blogs? Initially, when a brand or individual was attacked with negative reviews on the Internet, the strategy to address the damage was reactive or there was no reaction. Since negative online reviews are especially harmful, reaching millions in a blink of the eye because of multi-channel technologies, the obvious solution is technology itself. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and social media monitoring are both a preventive and reactive solution. When a brand or individual’s name is googled, which website links come up first depend on the ranking. Here search engine technology may be used to prevent negative review sites from trumping the brand’s or individual’s website. Web browsers are less inclined to continue to search too far down the line. The richer the


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web content the higher the search engine rankings. Beyond optimizing search results with strategically chosen key words, SEO needs to be continually assessed and refined.

Nicolas van Beek, CEO of VAYTON Brand Capital, believes the best approach to reputation management is to take control of the conversation. Don’t wait until there is a crisis, Van Beek warns. Crisis management always places a company at a disadvantage. Resources and time needed to address a crisis are better spent building the brand presence and encouraging positive customer interaction. Silence is not an option. Adopt multiple, proactive strategies to optimize your business/marketing goals. e-reputation is a moving target in a fast-changing digital environment. This means a single solution is inadequate.

VAYTON recommends the following SEO practices:

First, SEO should be audited and assessed. What are the threats? What are the

opportunities?

Second, SEO assessment should be followed with recommendations by experts

with your marketing and business team.

Third, SEO should be continuously and systematically monitored, utilizing

technology tools.

Fourth, rather than being only preventive or reactive, SEO should be part of the

overall marketing and business strategy. Make SEO a way to extend your reach

as well as protect your e-reputation.

Companies and individuals should consider a full-fledge e-reputation monitoring system to anticipate and prevent reputation damage. Being in the dark about what is being communicated about you is risky. Yet, most companies and individuals do not have systems or the technology in place to monitor the constant information stream coming through multiple digital communication channels. Responding to negative comments or reviews may be an obvious practice for reputation protection, but common sense tends not to prevail. Most customers (75%) receiving a response to their complaints were satisfied and a majority (86%) would have appreciated a response from the company. (Zendesk.com)


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E-REPUTATION MANAGEMENT—HAND IN GLOVE FIT WITH CONTENT MANAGEMENT e-Reputation management is potentially a valuable marketing tool. The same business goals of securing the customer transaction and building loyalty and trust in the company or product or service are enhanced by strategically directing customer interactions via the Internet and optimizing conversion rate. Investing in Content Management is a proactive strategy. Richer content optimizes search engine rankings. This a hand in glove fit for proactive e-reputation management. More than a preventive measure, though, brand marketing strategist see Content Management having the potential of attracting and sustaining the business to customer relationship through engaging, rich content. Marketing professionals and companies surveyed by Outbrain and market research firm eConsultancy seem to agree. Their collaborative study, July and August of 2012, involved a survey of over “1,300 digital marketing professionals working for brands, publishers and agencies”:

91% of in-house marketers use content marketing to market their products or

services

More than 90% of all digital marketing professionals believe that content

marketing will become more important over the next 12 months.

64% of the survey’s respondents believe that content marketing is becoming its

own discipline

50% of companies are working with a content recommendation company to get

their content discovered

Content marketing is a leading digital priority. Conversion rate optimization and social media rank second and third (eMarketer.com). Despite the emerging understanding of the value of Content Management, few companies have the in-house resources to adopt this practice, according to Outbrain and eConsultancy:

54% of brands don’t have a person dedicated to content marketing in-house

66% don’t have a budget specifically allotted for content marketing efforts.

64% of marketers don’t even have a defined content marketing strategy

42% believe they lack the human resources needed to effectively execute a

content marketing strategy

Fortune 500 companies see the benefits of content management and marketing. Katrina Craigwell, Digital Marketing Manager at General Electric in the U.S., described their robust content marketing strategy in a recent interview (forbes.com May 2012): “GE Reports is our longest standing content property and has been the go-to online resource for an official account of our activities. ecomagination, healthymagination and

http://econsultancy.com/us


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Txchnologist are destinations where we can host conversations about clean tech, personal health and the future of science and technology. On GE.com, we’re working to take a 132 year old brand, and create a modern, dynamic window into its businesses.” The GE strategy is to tell stories for different communities. The corporate image is boosted with healthymagination: a GE sponsored mobile mammogram “clinic” and stories of women whose lives have been saved; ecomagination: GE presents content-rich reports on green projects; Txchnologist: GE presents yet more rich content on science and technology. At the end of the day, GE has taken charge of the conversation. VAYTON knows both the threats of reputation damage and the opportunities to optimize a corporation’s or an individual’s reputation in this dynamic digital environment. Clearly customer interaction is not a fad. Global penetration of digital communication technologies continues to increase. More communication channels and digital touchpoints mean more opportunities to grow and strengthen e-reputation. A single slingshot from a David will not so easily topple a Goliath. The VAYTON Team has the expertise and the technology tools to position you or your company to anticipate and prevent e-reputation damage. We offer each client a personal and thorough assessment of SEO capabilities, strategies for proactive e-reputation management, a social media monitoring tool, “cleaning” services, Google analytics, and consultation about how to gain trust and sustain loyalty through rich, dynamic web content and content management. VAYTON is ready to connect you with a project manager to begin assessing your SEO capabilities and identifying risks to e-reputation.

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your e-reputation, why it matters

Leadership & Management