It’s not vain to Google your own name —it’s in your best interests. After all, your clients, partners, employees and investors are already doing it. We can help you improve how you and your company appear in search results to protect, defend or build your online brand.
What is Online Reputation Management?
Online Reputation Management (often simply called ‘ORM’) is a service that helps companies, brands or people take control of how they are represented online.
ORM can be used as a proactive or reactive measure.
While it’s best and most cost-effective as a proactive tactic, the reality is most people learn about Online Reputation Management after stumbling across a negative article or webpage concerning them or their company/brand during a Google search.
It’s especially useful for board members, executives, CEOs and anyone who depends on their reputation for their livelihood.
Why people and companies use Online Reputation Management services
The natural reaction to learning someone has written unfair or untrue things about you online is outrage.
“What gives them the right?!” is quickly followed by “Surely it’s illegal to say all this stuff about me/us?!”
The reality is, in Australia, your legal options are limited.
Proving that what’s been said about you is defamatory is difficult, time consuming, costly and not guaranteed to achieve an outcome.
A cease-and-desist letter may work, but approaching the author to pull down or alter the content can have the unintended consequence of increasing their animosity towards you.
The results that show on the search page are there because Google (or any other search engine) believes that those results best match the search.
In some ways, the search results are a land grab, and if you haven’t been very active online – say if you haven’t released any media statements, blog articles or social media posts – you’ve left a vacuum for everyone else to fill. And the higher you climb in the corporate or government world, the bigger a target you are for people with axes to grind.
An Online Relationship Management service like the one provided by Wyatt Media is a quiet, confidential and efficient way to claw back control of your online reputation and brand.
How Online Reputation Management services work
Our confidential ORM services leverage the way search engines like Google naturally classify content to help our clients regain ownership of key search terms.
This works because certain publishing sources are trusted more by Google than others. For example, a public LinkedIn profile is trusted more than a random article posted on an obscure website that few people read. If like many individuals, you’ve decided that the safest path is to lock every profile down, or not set one up in the first place, you are essentially operating without a safety net.
When you engage Wyatt Media, we quickly establish a full, authentic and sanitised online Digital Identity for you. Time is of the essence, especially in reactive/firefighting reputation repair scenarios.
Actions taken can include creation of a professional website, social media accounts and various media publishing identities, as well as ongoing written, video and social media communications (including press releases). Our exact process is proprietary, but it has resulted in moving negative, damaging and unwanted articles off the front page of Google within weeks, and establishing ‘owned and controlled’ assets on up to 9 of the 10 results shown on the first page of Google.
While the process is not guaranteed to completely resolve your unfounded reputation problem, it is a much better option than either hoping it goes away by itself (it never does) or approaching the publisher directly to request a take down.
Due to the variables involved, ORM services are priced on a per-scenario basis and start from $2,500 ex GST per month with a 3-month minimum contract and monthly reporting on progress via an independent third party. We can work with your chosen traditional PR/Media Advisors or connect you with trusted experts in crisis and ongoing communications.
If you simply need a market-friendly Digital Identity, this can be created for $2,500 ex GST per individual.
Our Online Reputation Management Process
- Complete the form at the bottom of this page outlining the search terms that are or could potentially become problematic. Submissions are considered confidential, however if you are particularly sensitive or concerned, less information is better.
- We will meet or discuss the issue with you to gain further clarity.*
- We will review the problem and identify possible solutions, presenting costings and a timeline of activities
- Services will begin
*If an in-person meeting is required outside of Brisbane, Australia, you will be charged for business class travel and accomodation.
Things to note if you’re considering using an Online Reputation Management service
- We will not break the law
- We cannot remove someone else’s content from the internet
- We cannot create a false representation of you (that is, we cannot lie about what you have or have not done)
- We cannot guarantee a perfect outcome, but we can guarantee a considerable risk improvement
- We will need someone in your team (or you) available to provide source information to build your Digital Identity out from, as well as timely input on materials
- We reserve the right to politely decline requests on a case-by-case basis
- We respect your privacy and desire for this process to happen confidentially: we will never advertise, confirm or deny that we assist you or your business with these matters. Accordingly, we will never tell you the names of our other clients unless they explicitly approve, in writing to us, that we may disclose this to you. We ask that you respect this.
