How wonderful to live in a country where you can speak up without fear of reprisals. Your free speech rights are protected by the courts and the power of the Federal government. It’s a beautiful thing – or is it?

If all things written or spoken were actually and factually true, then yes, free speech is a beautiful thing. But when it’s used to damage with lies it’s not so pretty.

Take for instance the internet, a vast communication avenue. Is what you read on the net true? If you haven’t already found out, not everything you read on the internet is true or accurate. Yet many people use information from the net without taking the time to check out the source or accuracy of the information.

For example, a few years ago the members of the U.S. Congress bowed their heads in silence to reflect on the passing of the great patriot and comedian, Bob Hope. When Bob Hope’s publicist told Mr. Hope about it, he was rumored to say, “Gee, I didn’t know I was dead. I’d better check my pulse.”

Someone had put this out on the internet and not even the U.S. Congress took the time to verify the story.

A person’s reputation can be destroyed or badly hurt by a negative article that comes up whenever his name is Googled. Welcome to the 21^st Century of the internet. Take as an example, Sam’s Super Subs has franchises all over the country. A franchisee violates the franchise agreement and buys cut rate meat from a local butcher friend in violation of the quality standards that Sam’s has set. The franchisee loses his license and is not happy. Disgruntled, and without a leg to stand on the franchisee decides to take his revenge by using the internet to post negative blogs and articles on numerous websites. Because of the high ranking of these sites these negative posts are the first things that appear when someone Googles Sam’s Super Subs.

The executives at the Sam’s home office now have a PR nightmare to try to handle. One way they can fight back is by using an internet service called Reputation Management. This employs a systematic approach that will slowly but surely relegate the negative posts from the first page on Google to the tenth page where it’s very unlikely that they’ll be read by anyone.

Reputation Management can be the fastest, most economical way to handle negative blogs and articles about you or your company. It’s worth knowing that there’s a service available that can allow you to control what people say about you or your product or services on the internet.

In the world of big box stores and large national firms, the idea of starting a small business or home business can easily make you feel like a small fish in a big sea.  With only a tiny marketing budget, how can small business compete with big business? The secret to most successful small business’ survival is their ability to build a strong reputation.

Working with a limited budget, as most small businesses do, it is important to develop a marketing plan and use your resources efficiently and the greatest resource for small business is their customers.  Developing personal relationships with your customers is important for establishing trust.  That is trust in you as a supplier of goods or services and trust in the products and services you supply.  Customer loyalty transforms into word-of-mouth and soon news of your reputation becomes well known and your business name is not far behind.

It is important to start with your current client base.  The best way to help your business grow is to establish strong ties with your already loyal fans.  Always be honest and always make the extra effort to please your current customers, especially your returning customers.  Sincerity, transparency and consistency and letting your customers know that they play a huge role in the success of the company are vital to establishing a solid business identity.  Build from there.  Once you have a strong reputation then you can use that and slowly build on your visibility.

Establishing relationships with other small business owners is equally important.  Many small businesses will refer people to fellow small businesses for needs they cannot fulfill themselves.  Networking with other local small business owners, exchanging business cards and attending functions or open houses that they sponsor, helps establish you in the small business community.  Participating in the community is another inexpensive way to generate a good reputation and can lead to some great press releases as well.  It is important to remember that volunteer work should be done with an organization that you have sincere interest in and should not be personally rewarding.

It is also important to realize that building a reputation in your local community is equally as important as starting to build your online reputation.  Even your local customers conduct research online before deciding what to buy and who from.  There are plenty of ways to start building your online identity without spending big dollars on search marketing.  Building a blog is a great place to start and participation in some of the social networks can also be a free way to start creating a buzz about your business.  It is important to remember that you must treat your online reputation just as you treat your reputation in your local community.  Using online tools simply to build and drop links on forums without sharing, communicating and offering information about your business, industry and experiences is just not cool and will only get you labeled as a spammer and help you lose more business than you will gain.

Medium and large companies have the budgets to help their reputations and hire reputation management teams to monitor and protect their “good names”.  For small businesses, this is not always an affordable luxury, but local and small businesses can and do survive on word-of-mouth, so take the time to give your customers the attention and service they deserve.  It costs nothing and can keep your small business in step with its big business neighbors.

Rafferty Pendery
CEO Studio98

There has been continuous movement in Internet marketing towards social platforms for promoting individuals and businesses.  Social networks have offered consumers and net surfers a new vulnerability and transparency that they appreciate and enjoy in terms of businesses and products.  If you have considered initiating a social media platform to expand your business, but got lost wandering aimlessly through the millions of people on Myspace to find individuals interested in your brand, then you may be interested in focusing your own social network around your brand or industry and NING offers the tools to do just that.

Introduced in 2007, NING allows professionals to build personalized networks quickly and easily.  Essentially, you can create a niche in your own marketplace while developing your personal brand.  Members of your network can post discussion items, blogs, photos, videos and a bundle of other things, but unlike larger social networks, your network remains focused on your industry or area of interest.

This social platform offers an easy way to monitor your brand and reputation while keeping in touch with how people "feel" about your industry and the direction your company may be going in it.  Creating such a network for your existing clients also networks out to potential customers and can provide opportunities to network within your own industry.  Advertising your NING network through your private email list, on your website and on other social network profiles (MySpace and Facebook badges included) can help you build a strong brand presence on the web and with the search engines.

It can be difficult to establish a solid online presence.  Maintaining a large social network can often seem like an impossible task or simply too much to handle and in many situations, becomes completely impersonal, doing more damage to your reputation than good.  NING makes brainstorming sessions easy and learning from your consumers and clients a breeze by giving your target audience a place to “hang out” and share their thoughts, experiences and ideas.  The best part about NING is that it is free to launch your own network, making it an invaluable tool for promoting your business on the web.

Rafferty Pendery
CEO Studio98

One of the keys of reputation management that many people overlook is honesty.

Unlike many businesses today, I am confident that today’s consumers have no problem seeing through false promises in advertising. I admire honest marketing and believe it to be the best marketing approach. It is surprising how many companies are still pumping out ambiguity and doubt in their advertising because they reveal no facts to back up their points.

Three cheers to companies like Progressive Insurance who is confident in their rates and service and in their customer’s ability to make their own informed decisions. They freely post the rates of their competitors right next to their own. Never claiming to have the very best rates for every one in the world and offering options for customers to find a policy that works best for them, thereby restoring consumers’ faith in their own decisions.

Dishonesty would obviously never fall under the category of “good marketing”, but all too often it slips in through the crack under the door. You can’t fake honesty. As a business or industry you must provide quality and content that are credible.

This all leads me to wonder, how might an inferior company then promote their product or service? The first step would be to start being honest with themselves and then with consumers. How would a company make the change to honest marketing? I suggest starting at “home”. Try asking your customers and employees for some honest anonymous feedback and build from there.

We can’t all be the best at everything all the time. Being honest in your marketing campaign is a start to developing quality customer relations and building a great reputation.

Studio98 develops full reputation management strategies for companies and individuals through a full integrated marketing campaign.