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Reputation Management Services

Controlling or managing search rank for your own name is fairly easy for an SEO (search engine optimizer), but what can the average person do? Below I outline a number of free, quick, easy and effective ways to populate the first page of results for your name. I highly recommend people start creating content for their name now as it will be much more difficult after waiting for someone else with your name to muddy the search results to spur you to action.

1) Create a Blog Even if you build just a one-page site using your name on a free blog network, you can quickly use your blog to create pages about yourself and link to other pages you are going to create on this list. Use your name in the blog name. Estimated time to complete: 10 minutes Free Options: Blogger (blogspot), WordPress, LiveJournal

2) Create a Wiki Several wiki platforms have done a great job of creating publishing tools that are even easier to use than most blog technology. Though wikis are best suited for group collaboration, the will also work well helping you link to your blog and other pages. Use your name in the wiki name. Estimated time to complete: 10 minutes Free Options: Wetpaint, Wikia Wikia

3) Register your domain If you are lucky enough to have [insertyourname].com (or .net, .org, .info) available, snatch them up. The $8 a year fee is well worth it even if you don’t actively build a site using it because, at the very least, you are preventing your competition (other people with your name, or people who don’t like you) from ranking high for your name. Even better, use your domain for the site or wiki you are going to create. Estimated time to complete: 5 minutes Cheap Options: GoDaddy, Yahoo, 1&1

4) LinkedIn Set up a LinkedIn profile and make it publicly available. Add background info like education, employment history, awards or certification (or anything else you are proud of). Add links to your other sites/pages. Estimated time to complete: 5-10 minutes

5) Jobster Some people are a little shocked when they find out their profile shows up in search. Not you, because you want it to! Create a jobster account, allow it to be publicly available, fill out a little employment info, answer a couple questions, but write it keeping in mind that your current employer could come across it. Estimated time to complete: 5 minutes

6) Myspace pages tend to show up in search as well. Though Myspace has probably ruined more people’s reputations than helped, you will create a clean Myspace page for your name and, if you feel the urge, put the racy stuff on a different profile. Estimated time to complete: 5 minutes

7) Flickr accounts and images have a great chance of showing up in the engines, especially for image searches. Creat an account, upload a few photos you like and label them with your name. Estimated time to complete: 10 minutes

Comment on Popular Post Sometimes I see a commenter’s name show up in search. Find a popular blogger site or newspaper site that allows comments, and find a post that you feel comfortable commenting on. Use your real name for the name field. Try this on a couple sites. Estimated time to complete: 5 minutes

9) Employer Site If your employer features profiles on their website, ask them to add one for you. If not, talk them into it or author a post on their blog (if they have one). Estimated time to complete: 5-30 minutes, depending on your company

10) Join a Forum Do a search for a forum that you might want to participate on. For example, if you are into guitar, you should search for “guitar forum.” If it looks like a place where it would be easy for you to make five or six posts, then sign up and use your name for your profile name. Make your five posts and fill out your profile page with information about you and use your name at least once in the profile description. Estimated time to complete: 15 minutes

*Disclosure: I work for Wetpaint, but honestly believe their wiki solution is the best option

In the future, Facebook might also be an option. They recently allowed profiles set to public to be crawled, but they are showing logged-out status of your profile, which is basically your name and picture right now. Eventually, I believe, Facebook will open it up to show your full public profile (probably in ‘08).

Keep in mind, Google usually only shows two results for any one site. That’s why I have you contributing on multiple sites. A couple more tips:

• If you ever receive a great interview or bio online, link to it from your sites.
• For online activity that you don’t want to be associated with your name, use a nickname or “handle” that is completely different from your real name.
• If you have stiffer competition for your name, you may need to spend more time building out and linking to the various options I list above.

Other options:

a) Wikipedia If you have a strong brand you can list your company in the Wikipedia online encyclopedia. Estimated time to complete: 30-45 minutes, depending on your company

b) Press Releases Press releases do well in news search, and if you point a few links at them it could also help them outrank other pages. PRWeb is popular. Estimated time to complete: 30-45 minutes, depending on your company

c) Writing Articles This is another easy way to create content that is highly relevant to your brand or name at places like Article City. Estimated time to complete: 60 minutes, depending on your company

Monitor what is being said about you or your company and protect yourself.

Search engine reputation is the the feeling a web surfer takes away when querying a search engine for a name, product, or service, regardless of whether the surfer clicks on any results.

Do it Yourself Reputation Monitoring  
While paying for monitoring can be very effective, individuals can use free tools to monitor their reputation online. Below is a number of free, quick, easy and effective approaches to monitor results for your name. 

Google Alerts  
You can configure Google Alerts by different areas: News; Blogs; Web search results; Google Groups.

RSS  
Create a folder in your RSS reader for reputation monitoring feeds. Create custom RSS feeds based on keywords: Technorati.com, Feedster.com, Google.com/blogsearch, Google News, Blogpulse.com, MSN Spaces, MSN News Yahoo! News, MSN News. Filter the feeds into one RSS Reader for easy monitoring options using Newsgator, Google Reader or Bloglines.

Create your own Search Engine  
Rollyo.com can track sites that do not offer RSS feeds for keywords such as Consumerist, Complaints.com, Better Business Bureau, RipOffReport, PlanetFeedback and ComplaintCenter.

Monitor This  
Monitor This allows you to monitor keywords across dozens of search engine feeds at the same time.

Key Words and Phrases  
Not sure what keywords to track? Use Google Keywords Tool for ideas.

Technorati  
One of the great search systems for bloggers is Technorati, which has a Watchlist feature.

URL Monitoring  
WatchThatPage, UpdatePatrol, and WebSite-Watcher monitor URLs.

Whois  
Research the background of bloggers and web site owners using domain name search tools such as Whois.sc.

Recommendations  
Please email recommendations to improve this page.

Search Engine Reputation Monitoring

Author Christina Laun

100 Tips, Tools, and Resources to Protect Your Online Reputation

Provided by Kelly Sonora at http://www.mastersincriminaljustice.com

With the advent of online tools that make it easy to share information, meet new people and keep in touch faster than ever, reputation has taken on a twofold dimension. Individuals and businesses no longer have to worry about their reputation in real life but in the virtual world as well, making it twice as hard to keep up with what’s being said. There are some ways that you can work to manage your online reputation, however, whether you’re doing it for yourself or for your business. These resources provide tips and tools to make it easier to track, control and manage your online reputation so you stay on top and in control of your personal and professional image.

Tips

Here are some general tips to consider when managing your online reputation.

1. Create official online profiles. Don’t let just anyone talk about you online. Create your own profiles and websites complete with the kind of information you actually want to be available about you.
2. Check what people are saying about you online. Whether good or bad you can do yourself a favor by finding out just what is being said about you online. Use some of the tools mentioned later in this article to keep yourself in the loop.
3. Stay on the ball. Don’t get lazy about monitoring your reputation. If necessary, perform monthly checks to see if there’s any information about you that could be potentially harmful.
4. Google yourself. The simplest way to find out where your or your company’s online reputation stands is to Google yourself. See what kind of results pop up first. If they aren’t what they’d like them to be, you’ve got some work to do.
5. Assume everything can get on the web. Both in your personal and professional life, what you say online and off can come back to bite you. Be safe and assume any emails, conversations or photos out there can eventually end up on the Web.
6. Choose your words carefully. If you are blogging, running a website or just have a social media profile, be careful what you post. Unless you’re looking for controversy what you say may cause you problems in the future.
7. Know your weaknesses. If you know your business has a particular weakness or are just familiar with your propensity for getting wild on the weekend, keep this in mind and have it as your top priority for checking on your online reputation.
8. Protect yourself from hackers. This may seem like it goes without saying, but many people fail to adequately secure their online information. Make sure yours is as safe as it possibly can be.
9. Keep social networks private. One way to deter prying eyes is to keep your social networking profiles private to all except those you approve. This will keep casual viewers from seeing your information, good or bad.
10. Consider pseudonyms.If you do want to keep a blog or engage in hijinks on internet message boards, create a name for yourself to hide behind so you can’t be easily tracked.
11. Be proactive. Instead of waiting until you have an issue with your online reputation, stay ahead of the game. Search for what’s being said about you regularly so you’ll stay up-to-date.
12. Act fast. If you do find something said or posted about you online that you feel could be particularly damaging to you, take action immediately. Whether its your friend posting photos from your Vegas trip or someone you don’t know slandering your business, taking care of it sooner rather than later is best.
13. Keep your cool. You may be incensed at what someone has said about you online, but don’t let it show. Keep your anger to yourself and off the internet where it can do more harm than good.

Articles

These articles provide some useful and informative reading material for anyone wanting to know more about online reputation both for businesses and individuals.

1. Protect Your Online Reputation: This article from SEO Chat lays out some basics for monitoring and protecting your online reputation.
2. Ten Tactics That Could Save Your Online Reputation: The CEO of Trakur gives some great advice in this Mashable article on how your company can avoid reputation meltdown.
3. How to Manage Your Online Reputation: This article goes through a number of tools and how to use them to keep your reputation intact.
4. Social Networks Become Powerful Tool in Online Reputation Management: Find out how social networks are playing a bigger role than ever in online reputation from this short article.
5. How to Create Online Reputation Tools for Your Brand: Worried about the online component of your company’s brand? This article gives some advice on creating custom tools to monitor and control your online rep.
6. Online Reputation Handbook: You’ll find just about everything you ever wanted to know about online reputation in this helpful handbook.
7. Manage Your Online Reputation: Lifehacker gives some great tips and pointers, as well as links to tools that can help you get control of your reputation.
8. How To Protect, Fix Your Online Reputation: From keeping problems from arising to fixing them when they do, this article is full of helpful advice.
9. Using Social Media to Manage Online Reputation: Find out how social media can be a help, not just a hindrance, to online reputation.
10. Basics of Online Reputation Management: Here you’ll learn the basics of getting your online reputation in order.
11. Managing Your Reputation Online: Technology Review provides this informative article that can help you understand and take action when it comes to your virtual reputation.
12. Online Reputation Management for Individuals: Online reputation isn’t just a concern for businesses, and this article explains how individuals can keep their name in good standing as well.

Personal Identity

These tools can help you manage your numerous online profiles, monitor your personal reputation and more.

1. ClaimID: Check out this program that uses OpenID to manage your personal identity over several sites, meaning you only have to remember the password for one, not numerous ones.
2. FindMeOn: Want to connect your identity over several sites? FindMeOn lets you do that while keeping your information private and secure.
3. FreeYourID: Make maintaining your online identity easy, with this tool that bases it directly on your name.
4. Garlik: If you’re worried that your identity may be more than marred and straight out stolen, give this tool a try. You’ll be able to search for mentions of you on the web that might involve identity theft.
5. myOpenID: Don’t worry about having multiple logins with this OpenID site.
6. SpyShakers: Try this tool to get access to any of your profile passwords remotely. It specializes in protecting your information from spyware.
7. TypeKey: TypeKey allows you to integrate your blog into your OpenID, allowing you to manage pretty much everything with one main profile.
8. Realmee: Here you can create a personal profile that will allow you to more easily control what others can see of you online.
9. LookUpPage: Want to control what people find when they search for you? This site helps out, by giving you a central page that comes up at the top when your name is searched for.
10. MonitorThis: Try out this site to monitor and track keywords over multiple search engines, giving you clues about who’s talking about you.

Professional Identity

Keep your business’ name out of the mud by protecting it with these helpful tools.

1. Trust-Index: Find out how well your business is trusted with this tool.
2. Google Alerts: With Google Alerts you can get email updates of the latest google results based on your name or other topic of your choosing.
3. BoardTracker: Whether you post on boards yourself or want to see if anyone else is talking about you, this tool makes it easy to filter to threads.
4. Vanno: Get an online reputation the democratic way, with this site that allows others to vote on the stories, videos and blogs about your company.
5. Serph: Use this search tool to look up your company and find out just what kind of buzz is going around the web about your company.
6. Searchles: This social search engine can help you keep up with the news out about your business.
7. Omgili: Search through the numerous forums out there to find out what people are saying about you using this helpful tool.
8. BoardReader: This tool is especially useful, allowing users to search through forums, videos, Twitter conversations, IMDB and more.
9. Joongel: Zoom in on the type of media you’d like to search with this online tool. Choose from videos, photos, shopping sites, and more.
10. Techrigy: This company makes it easier and simpler to monitor your business’ reputation online.
11. Keotag: Match blogs with tags that reflect talk about your business or related topics using this tool.
12. UpdatePatrol: This tool makes it easy to watch websites for updates and changes, which can sometimes be useful when you want to know what a particular site is saying about you.

Blog Tools

With the great proliferation of blogs out there, it’s worth your time to keep track of what’s being said about you on them. These tools make it easy and convenient to do just that.

1. Zuula: If you want to get posts just from blogs, try out this search engine. Users can also limit results to photos or videos.
2. SezWho: Follow who’s important in the blogging world and what they may be saying about you with this tool. Also useful to find out where your personal blog may stand.
3. Technorati: Whether you’re blogging personally or professionally, listing your blog with Technorati can be a big help in managing your online reputation. You’ll get updates whenever someone links to your blog so you can keep tabs on what people are saying about you or your business.
4. BackType: BackType is a service that lets you find, follow, and share comments from across the Web, allowing you to keep track of where you’ve been and what you’ve said on blogs.
5. TweetBeep: TweetBeep will let you keep track of conversations on Twitter than mention you or your business or anything else you’d like to track.
6. co.mments: When you sign up for an account with this site you’ll be able to track comments and conversations that can influence your online reputation.
7. Blogpulse: Keep your finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the blogging world, especially in relation to your business using the tools offered on this site.
8. Trendpedia: For businesses, this can be a valuable tool to track when and what your business is getting attention for and how you’re doing compared to your competitors.
9. Twist: Twist allows users to compare mentions of several different topics and view recent tweets about each one, making it easy to track info about businesses.
10. monitter: This tool lets you do much the same as Twist, but you can monitor topics in real-time or by geographic region.
11. Buzzlogic: Track buzz in the blogging world with this site, and find out just who’s word matters when it comes to blogs.

Profile Management

These tools make it easier to keep track of your social networking profiles and your online reputation in turn.

1. Comwat: Use Comwat to organize your social networking profiles into one so that its easier for others to find and easier to control what they see.
2. onXiam: Here you can establish a central online identity, use this identity to link up all your other sites, and even promote this new online location as well.
3. OtherEgo: Show off everything that you’re involved in on the net through this centralized site.
4. Zoolit: Check out this landing page service that makes it super easy to manage all the social networks you’ve been using.
5. Venyo: From lengthy blogs to simple comments, this site allows you to access everything you’ve done online, building up a trustworthy reputation at the same time.
6. ProfileMat: Pull all your existing online profiles together into a “mat” and allow users to comment on this new singular profile instead.
7. SimplifID: This site allows users to organize the online world by creating one central place you can access your blogs, social networking sites and more, allowing you to categorize it by type of viewer.
8. SocialURL: Here you can connect all your online identities by linking your social networking profiles to one URL.
9. ProfileBuilder: Want to create a professional looking profile using material from your existing social networks? This site lets you do just that, keeping or blocking the elements you choose and giving you a super useful home page to visit.

Managing Your Reputation

These tools allow you to hunt down what’s being said about you and find out just what others think of you or your business.

1. Naymz: Give this site a try to get feedback from people you’ve worked with, customers and friends.
2. Rapleaf: Here you can look up your personal or professional reputation, rate other people and businesses and get your own ratings.
3. RepVine: Using a search engine is the easiest way for people who want to know about you to find out more. This site helps you to control what they find when they do this.
4. Keotag: Manage the blogsphere with this site that allows users to find tagged blog posts over several blog search engines.
5. TrustPl.us: Are you trustworthy? This site works by analyzing your or more like your business’ trust scores and giving you a ranking.
6. FriendFeed: Whether you want to keep up with what your friends are looking at or keep up with what’s being said about you personally, this site is a useful tool.
7. Social Media Fire Hose: This helpful tool tracks your name, brand or product across sites like Digg, FriendFeed and others that specialize in social media.
8. Radian6: This tool makes it easier to monitor social media, often to the benefit of businesses who can use the information to their advantage to build better reputations and products.
9. Cision: For a fee, this tool can help you monitor “100 million blogs, tens of thousands of online forums, and over 450 leading rich media sites.”
10. Web of Trust: Ensure your website is considered trusted by joining up with this site. After all, no one wants to be associated with a dangerous site– it’s just bad for business.

General Tools

If you haven’t already, bookmark these sites which can be a big help in maintaining your reputation positively online.

1. Digg: Check out Digg regularly to see if anyone has submitted stories about your or your business.
2. Reddit: Similar to Digg, this site will allow you to see how much interest there is you on the Web.
3. delicious: This social bookmarking site is a good place to see if your webpage or information about you or your business is being passed around by others.
4. Flickr: Think there may be some less-than-impressive photos of you out there? Trying searching this photo site to see if you come up.
5. Facebook: Facebook can be a great place to network, just make sure you keep your profile free from things you wouldn’t want spread about you.
6. MySpace: With millions of visitors, this popular social networking site can be a great place to get your and your business’ name out there.
7. LinkedIn: Here you can create a professional profile that will allow you to interact with others in your profession in a safe and positive manner.
8. Google: There’s no easier way to find out what your online reputation is than to do a simple Google search.
9. Rollyo: If you want a more customized option for searching, try out this great search engine that you can tailor to your online reputation finding needs.
10. Furl: Another social bookmarking site, here you can track who’s interested in your sites.
11. Twitter: Whether you want to communicate with others or track the buzz about you on the net, Twitter is an essential tool.
12. Wordpress: If you’re going to start a blog to be the face of you or your company, this site makes it easy to do so.

Ten Tips To Clear Search Engines of Negative Press

What do you see when you search for your company or brand name? Is there anything on the first page of the search engine results that you wouldn’t be proud to display on your home page?

What do you see when you search for your company or brand name? Is there anything on the first page of the search engine results that you wouldn’t be proud to display on your home page? Consumer review sites, blogs and forums have made it easy for anyone to say whatever they want about your company, whether they be disgruntled customers or competitors who like to play dirty.

If you’re in a situation where negative publicity is front and center in search results, there are ways you can reclaim search engine real estate for your corporate identity. Though you can’t make negative results disappear from the search engine indexes entirely, the following strategies can help them slip off the first few pages of search engine results.

1. Good Old Fashioned Networking

Even if you take none of the advice following in this article, the first thing you should do is contact the webmasters of the sites in question with a polite request for removal of negative comments. There’s a good chance they’ll be willing to co-operate. Note that, even if they do remove the listing, the cached pages may remain in the search engine indexes for some time. But users who click through the search engine results will land on a page with the comments removed.

Check out some of the sites that already have something good to say about you. Send them an appreciation note, and offer them a link back from your site. You could even create a special page called “Gary’s Garage On The Web” (if that’s the name of your business) or “Press Room.”

2. Tap Into the Power of Wiki

Wiki websites allow users not only to add their own content, but also edit pages. They get their name from the Hawaiian word “wiki wiki” meaning “rapidly.” There are many wiki pages like AboutUs.org and LoveToKnow.com that you can use to create content about your company. If your company name is “notable” enough (meaning there are objective third party sites that already have pages citing facts about your company), you might also be able to create a page in Wikipedia. This is easier if your company is publicly traded.

3. Raise Your Profile

Some websites like PR.com allow you to post your company’s profile. An annual fee might be required. It’s not easy to find these sites, but you may find some opportunities by searching your competitors’ names and discovering where they are listed.

4. Wet Your Pen

Articles can help you kill three birds with one stone. Not only can articles rank for your company name, they also build valuable backlinks to your site and position you as an expert in your field. You can use your company name in the resource box at the end of an article along with a link back to your site.

Using your company name in the article body gives it a better chance of ranking well. You can research potential sites to submit your article to by searching for one of your industry keywords in a search engine like this: “car mechanics” + “submit article.” Or submit it to various article directories like Article Alley.

5. Become A Socialite

Using social bookmark sites like Netvous and Del.icio.us is an easy way to quickly create a page that ranks for your name. You can create an account for yourself that bookmarks all of your positive press, and anything interesting on your website, such as articles or videos. Make sure you use your company name in the titles of the articles (even if they are not the real titles) and in the descriptions. Although this may seem to be “spamming” the bookmarking sites, it really is not, as the purpose is to create a page that ranks for your name, and there is no ethical reason why you should not be able to create an account that keeps track of all your company’s press. You are simply choosing to make the list public for those that may be interested.

The links themselves are not given much weight by search engines, but you have an opportunity to use your company name in the titles and descriptions of your bookmarks and photos. Make sure you make good use of the tagging feature, using general keywords as these will also begin to rank for your name. For example, Gary’s Garage should tag: “Garys Garage,” “garage,” “autobody,” “mechanic,” mechanics,” “body shop,” “car,” “auto body” and so on. When you are first starting out, the more popular tags will start appearing on pages 1-5 in Google. They will eventually drop off as Google finds and indexes your content as you get it out there on other websites.

6. Become A Lensmaster

A company blog is certain to rank well, and it’s easier than ever to create one with Squidoo.com. When you create a “lens” for your site, you can easily upload pictures and also make use of tags. Unlike other blogs, Squidoo won’t show the posting date, so your lens won’t look neglected if you ever stop posting. You can build your blog’s link popularity by submitting it to blog directories like LSBlogs and BlogHub, and linking to it from your site.

Once you’ve done that, why not drop some other lensmasters a line and exchange lensroll links (Squidoo’s answer to blogroll). This may be a tactic that is passee in search engine optimization link building, but remember that Squidoo is a community. So it’s not as much link building as networking. In my experience, Squidoo lensmasters are quite keen to cross-promote.

7. Broadcast Yourself

Do you have promo videos or other visual media about your site? Why not create a channel on ? .

8. Explore Shopping Engines

If you sell products online, consider listing them in comparison shopping sites, or “shopping engines” like Shopping.com, Bizrateor Nextag. If you are not ready to manage a new e-commerce channel for many products, you might consider listing one product in one engine to start.

9. Use Directories For Deep Links

Search engines still consider a page’s number of relevant backlinks to be a strong indicator of quality and relevance to a search term. Octopedia, WorldSiteIndex and Microsoft’s Small Business Directory are a few examples of solid directories that allow you to link to deeper pages of your own site, like your About Us page, to help raise their rankings for your company name.

10. Post An E-Help Wanted Sign

Leverage the strength of sites like Craigslist.org to post your company’s current job offerings. Make sure you use your company name first in the posting headline: “Gary’s Garage Now Hiring Junior Grease Monkeys,” for example. This will ensure the title tag for that page is optimized, which is very helpful for SEO. And make sure to describe your company in the ad, repeating your name three or four times.

Tracking Results

I strongly recommend setting up an account with Google Alerts (free) which monitors the top 50 results, or with Google Alert, a professional tracking system that will monitor the top 200 results for you for as little as $4.95/month. You will be notified daily when new references to your name have been found in Google – not only to see when your articles, profile pages, blog posts and so on get indexed, but also to keep on top of any new negative or positive references to your name outside of your own reputation management efforts.

How Long Will This Take?

Results may vary but they won’t come overnight. You will get out of your reputation management efforts what you put in. It could take anywhere from a few months to a year. Expect monitoring and tweaking your strategy to be a long-term activity. As new pages are being added daily to the Web, search results for your name can fluctuate daily, even hourly.

The danger with social media optimization for reputation management purposes is that whatever you create easily through social media sites can easily be re-created by users disgruntled with your company. Using sites like 43Things to quickly create a high ranking page using your name in the title bar for “Buy XYZ Product” can attract similar posts like “Boycott XYZ!!!”

Wrapping it Up

As the World Wide Web turns, you may come across new or different ways to help your cause, especially as social media sprockets keep creating new opportunities. If SEO’s not your bag, consider hiring a consulting firm skilled in copywriting and public relations. The key is to look at reputation management as a long term activity and to take advantage of all the options you have to keep the search engine results positive.

By Authors articles-hub.com 128430.html

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By: Victoria Brown

Distributing promotional gifts is one of the best ways to win your consumers and earn a good brand reputation. The promotional items are used as promotional gifts by many well known brands as these promotional gifts advertises the brand without incurring heavy investments and are easily affordable by everyone. The promotional gifts are gifted to the target consumers and shows that the company cares about them. This attracts them to it and helps in creating a positive brand impression. Thus, the promotional products not only help with advertisement but also help in increasing organisation reputation.

You may use any good quality promotional items and use them to promote and advertise the brand. The promotional products that are used for this should be something that should be useful to the consumers. The promotional gifts with utility attached to them enjoy a good amount of exposure and are apt at promoting and advertising the company. When people use these promotional items, they get reminded of your brand and are attracted to it. The printed brand name on the promotional items advertises the company and informs the target consumers about it.

Do not compromise on the quality of the promotional gifts as that can harm the reputation of the organisation. Cheap quality promotional items show that you do not care about the consumers and they might not rely upon the quality of goods and services provided by your company. Good quality promotional items are very essential for good organisation reputation. The promotional products that are selected may be designed to suit your brand image also so that people are easily reminded of your company.

The promotional gifts can be a part of various events and occasions. You can use them as promotional giveaways at trade shows and exhibition. This would help the target consumers to know about the brand. At the same time you can gift them to the existing consumers of the company so that they are loyal to the brand and are pleased with it. These would also help you to get good publicity and attract people to your brand.

By: Michael Fleischner

If you’ve ever Googled your name, you know how important managing your reputation online can be. Each day, thousands of individuals are searching online for information about others simply by searching on Google or other leading search engines. With information being so readily available, managing your reputation is more important than ever.

How to Manage Your Reputation Online

Fortunately, managing your reputation online isn’t all that difficult, but it does take work. Here are 7 basic steps you can take to ensure that your reputation doesn’t become negatively impacted by what’s being said about you online.

1. See where you stand. Start your reputation management initiative by Googling your name. Try it with quotes and with out (first and last name together). Look through each of your results on page one and page two of Google. Are there any there are are negative or you wish to remove?

2. Set up a Google alert. Visit Google and set up an alert for your name. After setting up the alert Google will send you and email to confirm that you wish to receive the updates. Accept the alert and each time your name is published to the Web, you’ll know about it.

3. Contact website owners for name removal. If there are sites that include your name and commentary that is less than desirable, contact the appropriate websites requesting that the information be removed. More often than not, website owners will agree to remove your name and/or inappropriate information.

4. Purchase a domain with your name. Add sites and webpages associated with your name and watch negative search results get pushed lower on Google rankings. Visit GoDaddy or another provider of website URLs and hosting, and purchase a domain that contains your name. Even if your name is rather common, experiment with variations until your name can be established in the form of a dot com. Once you own a domain, publish a webpage with your personal profile.

5. Start a blog under your name. Blogger is a great tool for setting up your own blog which can be used to publish information about yourself. Popular blog sites are often picked up by Google and you can control the content. Be sure to sign up for Technorati after your blog has been published. Submit your blog for review and its popularity will increase, improving search rankings and continuing to push down negative search results.

6. Free press release. Use free-press-release.com or a similar free press release site to publish favorable information about your and your reputation. This form of reputation management is easy and costs nothing. Be sure to use your name throughout the release and in the release title.

7. Author articles in your field. Publish article relative to a particular topic or area in which you’ve done some work or have experience. Use article distribution serivces to build online references to your content.

By: Matt Bacak

Advertising and Reputation are both integral to the success of any business. Without advertising, few people will be able to locate your business or understand why they might need your services or products. Advertising budgets need to be used effectively to reach the potential clients, and your public relations efforts must ensure those potential clients become repeat customers.
What Is The Difference Between Advertising and PR?
Advertising and PR are two different functions, however, many business do not know the difference. Since spending your advertising budget and your PR budget effectively is crucial, how can you expect to accomplish this important goal unless you understand the difference?

When thinking of advertising, billboards, glossy spreads, quarter-page newspaper advertisements and other forms of highly visible promotional material comes to mind. This is clearly advertising. Branding or creating a well-recognized presence for your company is a clear example of effective advertising. Business cards with pizzazz are a form of advertising.

What, then, is PR? Public relations are those things that must be accomplished to let the world know who you are and what your company offers. Press releases, news conferences, professional networking and exhibitions or trade shows are examples of PR work. PR is not as flashy as advertising but it is every bit as important.
Effective Advertising and PR
In today’s competitive marketplace, it is crucial to spend every bit of your advertising and PR budget strategically. Public relations can provide a mix that uses advertising but also enhances the efforts of your advertising dollar.

It has long been a “supposed fact” in business that word of mouth is the best advertising. This is not necessarily true. It is an unfortunate fact that a customer who has an exceptional experience dealing with your business will tell one or two people about their experience. A customer who has a bad experience will tell at least a dozen people and your business gets negative advertising.

Word of mouth is, however, one of the most effective PR tools available. Offering school tours, sponsoring science fairs or children’s’ sports teams, volunteering for public speaking opportunities, attending trade shows or presenting at conferences are rather inexpensive ways to build a wealth of good will and put your name out front.

By: Kim Haas

Reputation is one of the most important factors in how you are perceived by the public at large. It is the relationship between your business and your customers, past customers, community and potential customers.

There are two ways of obtaining PR. One way is through press releases, in which you share news about events or accomplishments within your company or organization. This form of PR gives you full control over how your company looks to the public. Your public, is anyone who has an interest of one type or another in your business such as your employees, customers, suppliers, competition and the press. How you are percieved by the public has a huge impact on the future of your business.

When issuing a press release make sure that the information provided is of interest to the readers or viewers of that particular publication. The heading of the press release should grab the readers attention and prompt them to continue reading. Make sure you are targeting publications which would be interested in your information. You wont have much success submitting a press release about christmas ornaments to a publication which targets outdoor life.

Testimonials and case histories are useful when overcoming objections, building credibility, and demonstrating customer satisfaction with your company and products. Generally, testimonials do not make up the bulk of a press release. Although it helps to add in a positive quote from a satisfied customer, make sure the comment is in direct relation to the focus of your press release.

Good PR from satisfied customers can bring you a whopping customer base, yet at the same time one shred of negative PR from an unhappy customer can cause your business considerable damage. When in a one-on-one meeting your customer should do most of the talking.