A seminar on "Online Reputation Management for U" in KL, Malaysia on 30th March'13

Online Reputation Management for U

Are you Alive Online?

Things in the online world are changing much faster than the mindset of the people. Few years back we were discussing that every business must have an online presence by having a website. But now, it is quite obvious that having a static website and dozens of web directory listing for a business are not good enough. You or your company must breath online, constantly you have to prove that you are alive online. In your real world you get up everyday in the morning, you conduct business, share ideas, give feedback, talk to people among doing other things.  If you do not do these things in the online world too, you are not going to be considered alive in the online world. Do you conduct similar activities online? Do you share your ideas, update your targets, and give feedback in the most professional manner? And do you monitor your online presence against any negative content published by others? It all boils down to creating high quality content in the online world. If you are not creating content online that the search engines can find and that people would like to share, then you are going to be left behind because on the web you are what you publish. If you publish great content, you are great, if you publish nothing, you are nothing, if you publish bad content, you are bad.

Just having a website and getting it SEOed it to rank at the top in the Google are things of the past. Your credibility is not what you say about yourself but it is what others say about you. Your online presence has to be a living thing, it should breath, It has to talk, it has to reach to its target, not always the other way round. Consider writing a blog, submitting press releases, content marketing, articles, social media marketing and many more options that will keep you on the top. At the same time monitor your presence against any content that tarnishes your online reputation. 
Please let us know what you think.

Regards,
Khalid Abdullah Khan

Kings and Queens of internet

This post is in continuation of my previous post, “Don’t fire your salesperson yet, s/he may be the best”. Everyone wants to be seen on the top of the page 1 of Google search result when their brand or services or their own names are searched. But is it end of it?

Of course being at the top gives you a warm feeling, you are seen, but ‘as what’? That’s the questions I will try to answer in this post.

Without a great content, your image will not be as of someone who is indeed great, knows the job and has a great reputation. This brings us to conclude that SEO has to be dealt with a journalistic approach in addition to the technical approach.  

I am sure everyone would prefer to be seen as professional entity or not being seen at all. None would like to be seen as a mediocre brand with lots of lousy content associated with their online presence. So here is the key to be successful on internet.

Great content – King of internet,

People Sharing and linking to it – Queen of internet.

We have seen very few individuals or businesses having journalistic approach in order to create their brand and position it accordingly in the minds of their potential targets. Most are addressing the SEO issues as something that is in a technical domain only. As a result, when people get these companies in their search result, they only get their website, and various web directory listings, that gives only who they are? What they do and where they can be found?

But people are looking for whether I can do business with them? Do they have a social proof? Are they credible? Can I trust them? Are they expert in the industry? Do they follow business trends? Are they up-to-date with the latest technological advancements in their field etc.?

You need to answer the above on an ongoing basis. This is what will make you rise above the crowd. Finding a service provider is not at all difficult today but to find a services provider whom one is safe in dealing with, is difficult.

Please let us know your thoughts in the comment box below and subscribe to know more about how to position yourself as an expert and an easy to deal with entity.

Regards,

Khalid Abdullah Khan

Don’t Fire Your Sales Person Yet, He May be the Best

Imagine a situation where you are the world’s best sales person and you had just delivered a nice and professional presentation about your product or services to a hot potential buyer and had a warm handshake before leaving their office. What do you think the first thing your hot lead will do once you start walking towards the exit?

Almost instantly your potential buyer looks at your business card and searches for your company name (not your website) in Google. Your potential buyer wants to check your credibility, reputation, how has been your dealing in businesses, whether they can trust you and do business with you etc. They would not go to your website but they will be looking for this information from the sources beyond your control.

As part of our research on Online Reputation for companies in SME sector, we found the following:

When we googled the names of companies, we found half of them got their websites listed in the first page and then 99% of them got some web directory listings in the first page. Getting the website in the search result when someone searches for your company is great but it is a fact that website is a kind of advertisement, where YOU talk about YOU. Which is only good if some one is looking for information such as, what you do and how to contact you. But if someone wants to check your reputation, your website is not the place they go to.

Reputation Management ensures many things including the following:

1. You have all the positive footprints on the internet, either there are no negatives or it is so low in the list that no one would be able to reach that page easily.
2. You(your company) are an expert in your industry and you contribute and share knowledge and your expertise in online communities as part of your social responsibility
3. You(your company) are dynamic, responsive, caring and professional in your all dealings

So if you do not get a call back from your leads after your best of the sales presentation, then it is high time you need to check your online reputation rather than firing your sales person.

Please leave a comment and subscribe to get more information on how to build great reputation online.

Warm Regards

Khalid Abdullah Khan

What is online presence?

I have seen many high potential organizations not realizing the returns what they rightfully deserve, just because there are not enough buzz created about them over the internet. It is very important to project an image of an expert in the industry. Anyone googling them or their services should find enough content about them which is the only way to establish the credibility in the minds of the potential buyer. 

I did an analysis on web presence of many organizations - large and small, and what I could find is, their website and some of their web directory listings. Though this shows, they have a web presence but it lacks in 3 vital aspects in my view:

a. The online presence is static not interactive,
b. The presence does not give an image of an expert in the industry,
c. The information is not pushed over the internet from the company to the chosen potential customers using various online media

If you take care of the above, I am sure you will see the results. Brainchild has expertise in helping their clients in the above three areas. Please follow us on this blog or get in touch with us to know more about it.

Regards,

Khalid Abdullah Khan

"Never knew online reputation is so important"...

Last night I found a mail in my inbox from a member of one of the mailing groups I subscribed to which was related to real estate investing. The mail had a link of a national newspaper about a high court judgement that has shown a particular real estate company in a bad light. I had been dealing with this particular real estate company since a long time and had found them very honest in their dealings. I called the MD of that company who is very well known to me and asked about that. He explained the complete case and also told me that they had contested the judgement and they have a very strong case of winning the judgement in their favor.

This particular company was a traditional company and never invested a penny on building their onsite reputation or even an online presence. I goolged their legal name and what I found was really astonishing. Eight out of top ten search results were about that court judgement. This company has huge real estate inventories to be sold and as all of us know that there is hardly anyone these days who would give their life saving without checking the credibility and the reputation of the company over the internet. The MD informed me that they are really having tough time in selling their real estate properties. I explained him the reason and then he realized the importance of having acceptable online reputation. "I never knew online reputation is so important", he said. All of us know that real estate properties are hardly bought or sold online alone, there are lots of discussions and negotiations takes place. Nevertheless, checking credibility online is the easiest, quickest and most inexpensive way for the potential buyers before parting with their hard earned monies. We have also learned that having no online presence too is equally damaging in the eyes of the potential buyers. Irrespective of the type of business online reputation goes a long way to establish you in the marketplace. And the great news is, it is not that expensive.

Please leave a comment or write privately in case you need more information on how to go about building online reputation for your own name, your business name or for any brand name.

Regards,

Khalid Abdullah Khan

Have you ever googled your name, what is that you get?

Type your name into the Google search box and see for yourself exactly what appears when people search for you online.

Some of the results you get may be positive and yet others may present an embarrassing  inaccurate and entirely improper image of who you really are. Some results may not even pertain to you personally and may simply appear in your search results by mistake.

Google displays every information about a person such as images, videos, legal records everything.  You have no choice but to ensure that your online image is as positive and as accurate as it can be. Many aspects of your personal life and your career may depend upon it.

We have been getting a lot of request from the individuals and the brands for managing their online reputation. We have the solutions and the technology that quickly addresses online image and reputation issues. It is simple and easy. Let me know if anyone is interested.

Regards,
Khalid Abdullah Khan  

Does this sound familiar to you?

Friends,

You have a facebook page, you requested all your friends to LIKE your page as soon as you created it. You are continuously in a run to increase your no. of LIKES, and by now you have good no. of LIKES, you are also active on FB, you post photos, links and quotes etc. Did you get the desired result for your business? Probably not. Because there is something fundamentally wrong with this approach. To know the winning strategy, come to the Workshop "Get the MOST from Social Media for Your Business & You". It is a one day weekend workshop in Chennai at Olympia Tech Park auditorium. To register please go to www.bookmytraining.com , the training id is 8286. See you there.

Khalid A. Khan

From 'Word of Mouth' to 'Word of Mouse'

Word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM), also called word of mouth advertising, is an unpaid form of promotion in which satisfied customers tell other people how much they like a business, product, service, or event. According to Entrepreneur Media, word-of-mouth is one of the most credible forms of advertising because people who don't stand to gain personally by promoting something put their reputations on the line every time they make a recommendation. Now the technology had made the transition from “Word of Mouth” to “Word of Mouse”. Just imagine the scale of reach the word of mouse can achieve. This is what makes social media something that no one can ignore. You may not like social media and you may have very good reason not to like it. But what to do, when your customers, relatives, friends, business partners like it.  You will be left behind. Just like word of mouth marketing, word of mouse too is a slow and time taking process. You need to get started early so that your community is big enough then only it can be used as an effective medium for marketing your products or services.  

Regards,
Khalid A. Khan

  

“First Impressions Matter and They are Often Online Today”

Friends,

In today’s competitive environment where consumers and businesses have many options, it has become a norm to do an online search before actually spending time in physically meeting the person, walking into a shop, hiring a candidate, voting for someone and other similar decision making. Certainly people are googling you, your product and your services. If they find favourable results, it’s much better than if they find unfavourable results or nothing at all.     

In just 9 years Facebook has crossed 1 billion registered users last year and the professional networking site Linked in crossed 200 million users early this year. This tells us that social media can’t be ignored even if we personally don’t like it since the people and businesses that matter to us are there on these platforms.  

We are organizing a workshop "Getting the MOST from Social Media for your Business & You". Benefits of attending this workshop would include, How to make a favourable first impression online, How to protect the privacy and use the social media without a fear, How to promote, generate lead, acquire customers in the most inexpensive way, and How to build trust with the people and organizations that matters to you. We will provide details in the next post.

Regards,

Khalid A. Khan