For the Love of Acronyms – SEO, SEM, SMM, ORM and Online Reputation Management

The internet geeks of the world – such as myself – LOVE acronyms.  Acronyms are sexy. For us, the internet is sexy.  Mix the two together and we get all glassy-eyed and giddy.

FTP = File Transfer Protocol
IP = Internet Protocol and TCP/IP = Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
ISP – Internet Service Provider

Those have been around for a long time, but now we have a whole slew of new ones cropping up ….

SEO = Search Engine Optimization
SEM = Search Engine Marketing
SMM = Social Media Marketing
SMO = Social Media Optimization
OMM = Online Marketing Management
ORM = Online Reputation Management

That last one’s a doozy.  Online Reputation Management.  Wow.

So, what the heck is Online Reputation Management?  To put it simply, it is the process of watching, seeking, evaluating, and taking action on information posted about you or your company, your products and / or services.

For us, THAT is totally sexy.

What does this really mean?  In Web 1.0 there were IRC chats, dating sites, and instant messengers as harbingers of the internet’s “coming out.”  Well, with the birth of Web 2.0 the internet became more than a data resource, an information pool; the internet became social.   Some will contradict me on this, but MySpace started it all.  Then came Facebook.com, Blogger.com, LinkedIn.com, WordPress.org and dozens upon dozens of others all begging for writers, readers, commentors.  Suddenly, every website allowed visitors to leave comments on articles, review products (Amazon.com), and the internet became this massive wall of grafitti that anyone and everyone could write on.

Well, for some people and companies, what people write about them on the internet is VERY important.  And when you consider how quickly information – especially MIS-information – can be spread across the internet you can just imagine the implications.

Let’s say you’re a cosmetics company and you’ve spent 100s of thousands of dollars developing a new anti-aging skin cream and you’re now spending 100s of thousands of dollars marketing your new product.  Then someone posts a blog about how that new anti-aging skin cream turned their skin blue.  They have pictures or even a YouTube.com video to show this.  Maybe its a joke – just some silliness.  But suddenly, the fotos explode virally across the internet loosing everything but the idea that this product turned someone blue.

Think this won’t happen?  What about the video below, “David After Dentist“, that was posted on YouTube.com on January 30th that now has 17 MILLION views?

This man posted his son’s post dental visit reaction because he thought it was funny.  Taken out of context and not knowing the facts behind it, would you think it was funny?  If you read the comments of folks you’d see a large portion of the viewers extremely angry with David’s father.

Now imagine the implications for your company and its product.  The product’s and the company’s reputation impuned, damaged or even wiped out by one single viral comment, picture, or video that, quite possibly has no basis in fact.

How would you deal with that?  WWYCD – What Would Your Company Do?

Well, one of the things you would do post-apocolyptia is hire an on-line reputation management firm to create balance  – an opposing view – as quickly and as naturally as possible.

How?   Well, that’s up to the ORM firm and you to decide.  Suffice it to say, there’s a LOT that can be done.

However, on-line reputation management not just about reacting to possibly negative data.  In fact, online reputation management should begin long before a product launch (remember, people are products, too) to develop a perceived reputation.  Also called “buzz.”  The entertainment industry is incredibly skilled in this regard.

Watch this site for more about ORM – Online Reputation Management or contact us today using our form on the “About Us” page or, better yet, call us at 971-207-4492 to see how we can provide Online Reputation Management for your company.

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