“ORM” or “ORA”?
ORM is an interesting term I hadn’t heard before. It stands for “Online Reputation Management”. I encountered it in a very interesting article by Kalena Jordan about “Social Media: The Instant Brand Killer”. (As an aside, it’s fun and refreshing to find someone who is not ga-ga in love with social media and networks.)
The article makes numerous excellent points. When the concept of “Online Reputation Management” comes up though I am a little less on board. Why? I am not so sure about the “M” there, as other than being careful about what *you* say, it’s next to impossible to “manage” what others say. The closest I know how to get is by working hard at not giving people reasons to denigrate your product or service. That’s why I like “ORA” better - Online Reputation Awareness.
Google doesn’t forget. Once it’s out there, it’s hard to pull back. The more workable approach is to be quick to find out when you, your company, your product, or your segment is being discussed and join in. And talk personally, give your (company, product, self) a human face.
It’s important to realize that there are excellent tools out there (from Google Alerts to BlogBridge) with which it’s possible to set up “standing sentries” that catch mentions both positive and negative of your product or company, instantaneously, almost. Tools such as BlogBridge offer a lot to Public Relations and Marketing professionals.
They give you a chance to get into the flow of news, commentary - even gossip. And when you encounter something that has an impact or resonates with you, then jump into the fray and participate.
(This post itself is an example of what I am talking about 
)
I couldn’t live without BlogBridge checking my ORA all the time
Comment by Markus Merz — November 8, 2007 @ 12:58 pm
[…] recently wrote about the notion of “Online Reputation Management” and why in my mind a better way to look at it is “Online Reputation Awareness.” The […]
Pingback by The blogosphere as a giant focus group - BlogBridge — November 9, 2007 @ 4:02 pm
[…] BlogBridge can play a significant role in this. With BlogBridge you can create arbitrarily sophisticated “SmartFeeds” to form kind of a funnel that monitors most of these sources and distills the information to a point where you can actually have a prayer of keeping up with them. These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. […]
Pingback by BlogBridge is good for reputation monitoring and management - BlogBridge — December 5, 2007 @ 9:55 am
[…] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerptORM is an interesting term I hadn’t heard before. It stands for “Online Reputation Management”. I encountered it in a very interesting article by Kalena Jordan about “Social Media: The Instant Brand Killer”. (As an aside, it’s fun and … […]
Pingback by aaia » “ORM” or “ORA”? — December 11, 2007 @ 11:59 pm