Filed under: Abraham Harrison, Abraham Harrison LLC, Abraham Harrison Staff, Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management, Reputation Management, Reputation Rehabilitation, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Reputation Management, Search Engine Strategy, Search Moptimization, Search Reputation Management, Wombagging

Much like Search Moptimization, we catagorize “Wombagging” as Defensive SEO.

‘”Wombagging”: This exercise tries to protect, or sandbag, your brand from negative or undesirable word of mouth (WOM). This could include anything everything from buying negative keywords on search engines to putting videos on your Web site featuring your CEO begging for patience and forgiveness. For some companies, wombagging might even include employing staffers in defense of bad buzz. But again, all this falls into the defensive branding arena, not outright promotion.’ The Official 2008 Web 2.0 Buzzword Forecast By Pete Blackshaw

However, we at Abraham Harrison actually call the process online brand reputation defense, Internet land grab, domain name registration strategy, search engine brand protection, domain name strategy, and domain name protection — they’re all sort of part of completely owning your own space on Google, Yahoo!, and Live.com proactively, well in advance of anything going wrong.

Why? Well, if you own your first three pages of Google well in advance of an online brand perception crisis, there is a much reduced chance of some negative online buzz being able to shoot right up to the top-five results of Google. It is much easier to fortify your castle than it is to rebuild it. Wisdom, free of charge.  Tip of the hat to Jonathan Trenn, via ClickZ

No Comments » Posted on December 13th, 2007 by Chris Abraham

Filed under: Brand Protection, Defensive SEO, Online Brand Protection, Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management, Search Moptimization

While we call the service we offer Defensive SEO (also online brand protection and online reputation management, search engine cleaning, reputation rehabilitation, etc), I guess the newest term for our process of “mopping” up bad search results has been given a name, and that name is “Search Moptimization.” Tip of the hat to Jonathan Trenn, via ClickZ

‘Yes, that’s “mop,” as in to clean up. This is the increasingly common, if not essential, brand practice of attempting to clean up negative search results against general or specific brand-related queries. For many brands, particularly in the consumer electronics category, hostile CGM (define) is beginning to fill, even dominate, the organic search shelf, a zone that we all know has an unmistakable impact on the awareness and trial of new products. For many brands, the mopping process can take two to three years (often longer) and heavily depends on operational and product, rather than marketing, decisions. Dell, for example, still has lots of “search moptimization” to clean up Jeff Jarvis’s two-year-old mess, though it’s worth noting its customer service blog and IdeaStorm initiatives have already helped mop up or reroute some of the venom.’ The Official 2008 Web 2.0 Buzzword Forecast By Pete Blackshaw

No Comments » Posted on December 13th, 2007 by Chris Abraham

Filed under: Affinity Groups, Altruism, Authenticity, Blog Messaging, Blogger Influence, Book Reviews, Brand, Brand Advocacy, Brand Ambassador, Brand Intelligence, Brand Promotion, Brand Protection, Brand Reputation, Branding, Branding Online, Business Intelligence, Buzz Marketing, CRM, Consumer Generated Media, Conversation, Conversation Marketing, Customer Ratings, Customer Reviews, Customer Service, Customer Supprt, Guerilla Marketing, Honesty, Influencer Identification, Influencers, Influencial Bloggers, Influential Brand Advocates, Influentials, Integrity, Internet Culture, Managing Conversation, Market Research, Marketing Conversation, Markets are Conversations, Media Virus, Memetics, Messaging Online, New Media, Online Advocacy, Online Brand Reputation, Online Communities, Online Community Outreach, Online Conversation, Online Engagement, Online Evangelism, Online Messaging, Online Monitoring, Online Outreach, Online Participation, Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management, Online Reviewers, Online Reviews, Online Virtual Communities, Reputation Management, Social Intelligence, Social Meda, Social Networking, Viral Marketing, Viral Media, Viral Propagation, Word-of-Mouth, Word-of-Mouth Marketing

The culture of participatory social media is having some surprisingly significant effects on both the way satisfied customers play a role in contributing to the marketing message development of products and services. And it is also playing an increasingly important role in defining the key touchpoints that customers use in the deciding factors one what to purchase. What makes this all the more noteworthy is that much of this is rooted in offline purchases. I’m putting this together from two recent studies…

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1 Comment » Posted on December 2nd, 2007 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: Abraham Harrison, Abraham Harrison LLC, Authenticity, Blog Counter-Messaging, Blogger Influence, Blogger Outreach, Brand Intelligence, Brand Protection, Brand Reputation, CRM, Chris Abraham, Competitive Intelligence, Consumer Generated Media, Controversial Marketing, Conversation Audit, Conversation Marketing, Corporate Blogging, Corporate Intelligence, Corporate Responsibility, Crisis Management, Customer Ratings, Customer Reviews, Customer Service, Customer Supprt, Google Reader, Hate Speech, Honesty, How to Blog, Managing Conversation, Markets are Conversations, Media Virus, Online Attack, Online Community Outreach, Online Crisis Management, Online Engagement, Online Evangelism, Online Influence, Online Intelligence, Online Messaging, Online Outreach, Online Participation, Online Public Relations, Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management, Online Reviewers, Online Reviews, Online Strategy, Reputation Management, Reputation Rehabilitation, SEM, SEM and SEO, SEO, SEO and SEM, SERM, Transparency, Web Strategy, Word-of-Mouth

Here’s an amazing statistic:  a full 57% of marketing executives recently responded with the following answer to the question if their firm has a crisis response communication plan:  NO.  What makes it more amazing is that in the same survey, 53% said that their business had experienced a crisis in the past…one that resulted in a loss in sales, a reduction in profits, or negative press.  A majority of that 53% say that the recovery period took a year a more.  Only one-half have trained spokespeople.  And it shouldn’t go unnoticed that there’s an overlap of 4% here of companies that have suffered a crisis in the recent past but have yet to install a plan to address future crises.

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1 Comment » Posted on October 14th, 2007 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: Abraham Harrison, Abraham Harrison LLC, Advertising, Brand Promotion, Brand Protection, Brand Reputation, Buzz Marketing, Citizen Generated Media, Citizen Journalism, Client Service, Cluetrain Manifesto, Conversation, Conversation Audit, Conversation Marketing, Corporate Blog, Crisis Management, Customer Ratings, Customer Reviews, Customer Service, Customer Supprt, Email Etiquette, Google AdSense, Google AdWords, Influential Brand Advocates, Internet Culture, Internet Strategy, Managing Conversation, Market Research, Marketing, Marketing Conversation, Markets are Conversations, Messaging Online, New Marketing, Online Advertising, Online Conversation, Online Engagement, Online Evangelism, Online Influence, Online Intelligence, Online Marketing, Online Outreach, Online PR, Online Participation, Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management, Online Reviewers, Online Reviews, Online Strategy, Popular Culture, Promotional SEO, Protective SEO, Real Life, SEM, SEM and SEO, SEO, SEO and SEM, SERM, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Reputation Management, Search Engine Strategy, Search Engines, Search Reputation Management, Viral Advertising, Viral Marketing, Viral Media, Viral Propagation, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, Web Ads, Web Advertisers, Web Advertising, Web Metrics, Web Strategy, Website Design, Word-of-Mouth, Word-of-Mouth Marketing, Yelp, search

This morning I read two important posts written by Greg Sterling on his blog Screenwerk. One is Nielsen - WebVisible Data on Local Search. The other is New Findings on SMBs and User Reviews. It left me more and more convinced how local businesses must view the internet as a marketing and business development source, and as a customer relations and reputation management tool.

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No Comments » Posted on October 11th, 2007 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: Abraham Harrison, Abraham Harrison LLC, Astroturfing, Authenticity, Black Hat Marketing, Black Hat PR, Blog Counter-Messaging, Blog Messaging, Blogger Effect, Blogger Engagement, Blogger Influence, Blogger Outreach, Blogger Relations, Brand Advocacy, Brand Ambassador, Brand Promotion, Brand Protection, Brand Reputation, Branding, Branding Online, Citizen Generated Media, Citizen Journalism, Client Service, Cluetrain Manifesto, Conversation Audit, Conversation Marketing, Counter Messaging, Crisis Management, Customer Ratings, Customer Reviews, Customer Service, Customer Supprt, David Weinberger, Defensive SEO, Domain Name Registration, Domain Name Strategy, Domain Registration, Edelman, Flogging, Flogs, Google Gaming, Google PageRank, Google Search, Guerilla Marketing, Hate Speech, Honesty, Industry Reputation, Integrity, Internet Forensics, Internet Strategy, Managing Conversation, Marketing Conversation, Marketing Hubris, Marketing Industry, Marketing Language, Marketing Strategy, Markets are Conversations, Messaging Online, New Marketing, New Media, New Media Blogs, New Media Marketing, New Media Strategy, New PR, New Public Relations, Online Advocacy, Online Brand Promotion, Online Brand Protection, Online Brand Reputation, Online Branding, Online Communities, Online Community Outreach, Online Conversation, Online Crisis Management, Online Engagement, Online Evangelism, Online Influence, Online Marketing, Online Media, Online Messaging, Online Outreach, Online PR, Online Participation, Online Public Relations, Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management, Online Reviewers, Online Reviews, Online Strategy, Online Virtual Communities, Open Kimono, PageRank, Passion Chamber, Personal Brand, Pitching Bloggers, Professional Blogging, Promotional Blog, Promotional SEO, Promotional Strategy, Propaganda Warfare, Protective SEO, Public Relations, Public Relations Bloggers, Public Relations Blogs, Public Relations Industry, Publicity Blog, Publicity Blogging, Relationship Marketing, Reputation Management, Reputation Rehabilitation, SEM and SEO, SEO, SERM, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Reputation Management, Search Engine Strategy, Search Engines, Search Reputation Management, Strategic Consulting, Viral Marketing, Viral Media, Viral Propagation, Web Strategy, Word-of-Mouth, Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Check out the article in last Thursday’s Times, Dealing With the Damage From Online Critics, that addresses how to handle consumers who develop a personal vendetta against your company. Well, you could send lawyers but legal cease-and-desists generally just make the customer madder than hell and it isn’t hard to just start yet another attack site.

I hate to say it, sucking less always helps. Start with treating your customers better. Also, be sure to register lots of domain names and work on your online reputation aggressively before it becomes a problem.

Online, the best defense is a good offense and an ounce of online promotion is worth a pound of cure. Here are some great commented-by-me excerpts from the article, Dealing With the Damage From Online Critics, so you can get a gist:

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3 Comments » Posted on October 8th, 2007 by Abraham Harrison

Filed under: Abraham Harrison, Abraham Harrison LLC, Activating Bloggers, Black Hat Marketing, Black Hat PR, Black Hat SEO, Blog Counter-Messaging, Blog Ranking, Blog Search, Blog Search Engines, Blog Strategy, Blogger Effect, Blogger Engagement, Blogger Influence, Blogger Outreach, Blogger Relations, Blogger Support, Brand Ambassador, Brand Intelligence, Brand Protection, Brand Reputation, Citizen Journalism, Competitive Intelligence, Controversial Marketing, Corporate Blogging, Corporate Intelligence, Crisis Management, Defensive SEO, Google PageRank, Google Search, Hearts and Minds, Industry Reputation, Influencers, Influencial Bloggers,