Online Reputation Management experiment – muscling in on page one
For the past few days I have been obsessed with two things: 1) find out if it’s really possible to use WordPress as a painless content management system (conclusion is still pending) and 2) online reputation management – in the sense of crisis management.
Don’t get me wrong, I agree any individual or entity should engage in a positive and collaborative manner with their online audience and create a positive brand perception by creating value; that’s all very well. But what “bakes my noodle” is what can one do when it’s to late for such long-term planning and a major crisis it at hand.
Now I suppose not all crisis are created equal, and having an obscure blogger – such as myself – badmouthing your brand is not exactly the same thing as being picked up by all the online media giants. Fair enough.
But even so, i think I would like to engage in a little experiment; wait, before anybody’s expectations go way off on a tangent, let me make the point that I cannot really afford to tarnish my own reputation just to see if I can save it. Not an option.
But what I can do is try to create as much positive buzz on free PR distribution sites; bookmarking/social sharing sites and relevant directories as possible and monitor which of them make it on page 1 in Google Australia, how quick and for how long.
This should at least generate a list of useful places to visit when one is in trouble :)
Before we start, one more caveat: my site is a fairly new and obscure one; and my brand virtually unknown. I will not have to muscle slashdot off the front page, nor wikipedia (random fact:,Apple comes third in Google when searching for “wikipedia”. Steve Jobs is taking over the world). Nevertheless, assuming at least 5 positions on page one are taken by less prominent sites, these would be the ones we would try to displace and fill up the vacant space with our own positive spin.
Ok, so the first two in line:
- PRLog – I don’t know who runs this site, where they are (although I have a strong suspicion it’s a Romanian gig based on the option to submit my press release to Google Romania free of charge), but within 2-3 hours my newly created company profile in their directory was ranking no 4 for my company name. So the stats are:
- submitted: 14 June 2008, 10am
- uptake: 3 hours
- position in SERPs: 4. UPDATE: down to 9.
- duration: still there
- FreePressRelease.com
- submitted: 14 June 2008, 10am
- uptake: 4 hours
- position in SERPs: 19. UPDATE: down to 20.
- duration: still there
- Digg
- submitted: 14 June 2008, 9pm
- uptake: 0.5 hours
- position in SERPs: 23. UPDATE: 16hrs down the road and it’s ranking third. 2 days down the road: not on page 1 anymore.
- duration: still there
- Mixx
- last post submitted: 15 June 2008, 6pm
- uptake: not sure
- position in SERPs: my profile showing up on position 4 after steadily climbing for 2-3 days
- duration: still there
So far so good. Stay tuned, more to come!
