Brand Reputation Management

Brand Reputation Management

So, what is brand reputation management and how can it help your business?

Its not necessary to be a professional programmer or web site developer to get your opinion viewed and read by others around the world. This fact should alarm any company concerned with their reputation. Imagine that you've spent years of hard work constructing a good brand reputation for your product or service, invested money in public relations, marketing and website design. Still, a few people will be enough to undo all this effort overnight. Fortunately, there are brand reputation management professionals that will help you maintain a robust online presence and save you from bad publicity.

There are plenty of people who may want to damage your company. Activist groups, unsatisfied clients, unhappy employees, all use the web as a way to promote their points of view. Sometimes, the sites containing your company’s name in an unpleasant surrounding of such words as “bad” and “awful” will rank even higher than your main corporate web site. Each day your reputation is thoroughly scrutinized. How can you prevent anyone from noticing the tiniest stain on it?

In the past, things such as brand reputation management and search engine marketing were separate activities. These days, with the advent of user-driven blogs, forums, social networks and other sources of content, they have to be carried out jointly.

Generally, any negative information appearing in the search engine results pages can be responded to by writing favorable content and knowing where and how to submit it. If the search engines consider this positive data more relevant, informative, and it appears on reliable web sites, the negative mentions of your company’s will be pushed down the result pages until that nasty article by a disgruntled client or a vengeful ex-employee is on page twenty and your good name is safe and secure.

Actually, it’s quite easy to get good rankings for a company name key word as there is usually less competition for these words than for the product its sells or services provided. Informative, high-quality content, such as press releases, is a great tool for managing traffic driven to your site and influencing the search engine results. A good brand reputation management specialist will use comprehensive and constantly evolving skills and knowledge of how the search engines evaluate web sites to work out both proactive strategies to avoid any damage to your brand reputation now and take steps to prevent it in the future. The more unique the name of the company whose brand reputation you’re striving to defend, the more significant and faster the effect you’ll achieve by implementing even the simplest brand reputation management techniques.

Reputation Management Software

Reputation Management Software paves the way
With the diversity of information that can be found on the web and the number of web sites that users have to choose from, they need some guidance in making their choices. Usually people follow the advice of search engines and pick out one of the top links offered to them by their search. Reputation management is essential for a company that wants people to find only those links that will lead them to the web sites with favorable or positive information about the organization, and its products and services. And reputation management software makes the process easier.

Reputation management software can take over a large part of the time consuming and complex activity of monitoring and improving your company’s online presence. There are various useful tools which help you to find your bearings in the overload of information presented on the web.

The reputation management software itself will not help to actually change or dismiss the things that people say about your company, products or actions, but once you are aware of what’s going on, you will have a better idea of which strategy to choose when interacting with the online world. For example, if most negative reviews come from common users in a forum, just a couple of positive posts in the same forum can influence the opinion of all readers. But when it comes to more credible sources, like popular professional blogs, or conventional media, the task of improving your reputation will require quite a different approach. Anyway, all managing should be left for humans, though reputation management software can give your people a target to focus on.

To start searching for the information about your company with the help of these tools you just need to specify certain key phrases that will be used to find any mention regarding your business online and their sources. No matter where or when your brand was mentioned - on corporate sites, forums or blogs - reputation management software will find it out and inform you. It will display every relevant link and content and let you view the detailed description of the one you may get interested in.

It will sort the results according to their relevance and level of harm to your company’s reputation and then present everything in a clear informative manner. With this kind of tool it becomes extremely easy to keep track of any information concerning your business that emerges on the web and take immediate actions if needed. This constant awareness allows you to identify trends and examine the strength of your brand’s position online. Most reputation management software is even capable of identifying and removing duplicate entries from its results.


Reputation Risk Management

With the ever increasing number of Internet users and places for them to freely express their opinion, online reputation risk management is something that should be paid plenty of attention too. When you discover that your reputation on the web is being assaulted, either on purpose or unintentionally, you should take measures immediately.

Any reputation management begins with clarifying of who is attacking your good name. It can be a malicious competitor, an ex-employee whom you fired, or a client dissatisfied with the quality of service rendered to him or her. Often you’ll learn that the offending post is written without any knowledge of the exact facts about your business. Sometimes it’s a single negative post in a blog, sometimes it’s a series of deliberately created articles that are aimed at ruining your reputation. Still, no matter how it turned up, the negative publicity is quite difficult to get rid of.

If you’re experiencing one of the above mentioned problems with your online reputation, hiring a good reputation risk management company can be a perfect decision.

Are there many positive online reviews and articles already associated with your business, or is your companies name rarely found on the Internet? Reputation risk management also includes maintaining and promoting existing web sites that positively mention your name, not just reacting against the bad publicity. New content is also very important. From posting in different professional blogs to creating your own pages in different social networks, there are many ways to introduce positive information, thus growing and managing your online reputation.

While implementing various useful reputation management practices, do not forget that monitoring your online reputation should be an ongoing process. It seems impossible to find anything in the avalanche of information on the Internet, still there is reputation management software that can help automate the process. All these various tools do basically the same things. They search the web according to the key words you specified in order to find any references to your company or its products in blogs, forums, corporate web sites, and so on. The best way to have control over the situation is to know when your internet reputation is being compromised and take appropriate actions.

Reputation risk management can seem tough and, to tell the truth, it is. The average reputation management project may take months to get visible results. Moreover, serious threats to your business reputation should be handled by professional reputation management companies, not by amateurs. Something will threaten your online reputation whether you employ reputation risk management or not. Still, if you are warned about problems quickly and take appropriate measures, you can lessen the impact they have on your reputation.

What CIOs Should Know About Online Brand Management

Managing corporate brands and identities online is a black art that combines Web technology savvy, a deep understanding of how search engines and social networking sites work, and an appreciation for the power of perception. Although this task doesn't typically fall on the CIO's shoulders, technology executives need to understand the issues at hand and the role they can play in helping to manage their company's brands.

Just as company executives charged the CIO's office looking for help in the 1990s with the emergence of domain squatting - setting up a Web site with a name similar to a certain company or brand and spreading misinformation about that company or holding the URL for ransom - upper management will no doubt look to the resident technology expert for rescue should the company's online reputation become compromised.

CIOs can help prevent this scenario by working with marketing and communications departments to optimize corporate Web sites for generating positive search-engine results, develop employee online conduct policies that dictate what can and cannot be said publically about the company, and evaluate online reputation management tools and services, experts say.

Online reputation management is more than just making sure that naked photos of the latest Hollywood starlet don't end up on someone's Facebook page. For corporations, protecting brands online is becoming an essential function as more and more consumers turn to search engines and social networking sites to gather the information that forms their opinion about a particular brand or company.

"The switch from traditional media and corporate monologues on websites to social media on the Internet makes every Internet user a journalist.

"People will judge you, your company, and your brand. Reputation management requires new skills in this radically transparent world."

Why does a company's online reputation need to be managed, especially if the business believes it has nothing to hide? Because the top search results from Google and other engines have become trusted sources of information for most consumers, and companies can't control what other Web sites are saying about them, who's reading them, and how those comments are ranked by search engines.

"Among users who search on a daily basis, 90 percent of them trust what's on Google page one [of search results], and 70 percent of those users rarely read beyond page two,". "That gives companies a narrow window to control their brands and reputations."
Many companies provide programs and services that - among other things -- manage the order in which information about their clients is ranked by search engines. There is also cadre of online monitoring tools available that alert a company whenever a brand name or keyword relevant to the company is posted.

Brand management tools and services employ techniques such as search-engine optimization of keywords to help their clients bring the most pertinent information about their companies to the top of the search results, burying older, more random, or less flattering links deeper within the results.

But managing a company's reputation doesn't end with search engine techniques; there's also the issue of monitoring what is being said on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, and who's saying it. There have been reports of companies having unauthorized Twitter accounts opened with names similar to the corporation or brand name; in one case a company's competitor did just that, and the tweets it sent out were less than flattering.

For the most part, sites like Twitter won't verify the authenticity of a new user account, so it's up to companies to monitor these sites themselves for unflattering comments or for the spread of confidential information, which sometimes can come from within. Beyond employing online monitoring services and tools, CIOs should make sure that the company's policies regarding online use by employees specify what kind of information can be posted about the company on a public forum. That means working closely with the marketing folks to come up with these guidelines, something many IT professionals aren't necessarily used to.

"Today, it is more essential than ever to have IT and marketing on the same page," in a blog post earlier this year. "As data becomes the currency of relevance and customers demand real-time interaction with the brands they do business with, it is even more important for marketing and IT to join together and drive efficiency for the business and value for the customer."

Brand Management's Evolution Lesson

If you are ever in London for the January sales, can I suggest a quick pit-stop? Just across the road from Harrods in trendy Knightsbridge is a lovely tree-lined road called Montpelier Street. Immediately on your left, tucked between the sandwich shops and cafes, is a boutique bearing the name Mary Quant. It is a small shop - more than six customers makes it feels crowded - and it contains a limited combination of clothing, accessories, handbags and cosmetics. Yet it is a shop that presents marketers with an invaluable lesson in brand management.

Thirty years ago Mary Quant was at her zenith. She was set to launch the mini-skirt on an unsuspecting world and her designs were a global sensation. By 1969 it was estimated that more than 7m people owned at least one item bearing the designer's daisy logo. Despite its global appeal, Mary Quant was indelibly linked with London, a brand that came wrapped up in the cultural attraction of the swinging 60s.

Quant herself was an iconic figure who took great pleasure in breaking the conservative rules of women's fashion, once famously dyeing her pubic hair green and referring to this taboo area as 'the crutch' during an interview with The Guardian.

What happened next was as predictable as it was avoidable. The very strength and ubiquity of the Quant name became its weakness. Because Mary Quant had been so successful during the 60s, the brand became associated with the decade, and when the fashion scene moved inexorably on to the 70s and 80s, Mary Quant was left behind. The iconic designs that made it first cutting edge, and then contemporary, finally made it seem stale. Even loyal customers did the brand no favours at all. Their continued patronage meant that as they aged, so did the brand. New, younger customers were turned off by this brand gentrification and sought their fashions elsewhere.

Today, the Montpelier Street shop and two other small boutiques in Paris and New York are all that is left. Since 2000 the Japanese have been running the brand, with the result that the price tags of Mary Quant cosmetics and accessories are now displayed in yen, with the equivalent in sterling written beneath.

Mary Quant has ultimately become everything it was not. Where once the brand was British, now it is Japanese; where once it was contemporary, now it is historic; where once its fashions were the centre of the brand, the make-up range is now its focus. It used to be the label of choice for those at the epicentre of international fashion, but now its London store merely attracts a sad little flow of retired English women and Japanese tourists. Ironically, this reversal of fortune was caused by a fixation on brand consistency and an inability to recognise and embrace change.

Good brand management is not simply a matter of keeping everything from the logo to the product consistent. A good brand manager must also strive to reinterpret brand equity as times, competitors and customers change around them.

One way of doing this is by dragging an old, iconic brand such as Burberry or Bentley back into the light with a dramatic strategic revitalisation.

However, a better approach is to implement a continual revitalisation of the brand in which new customers are wooed at the expense of short-term sales, and the iconic elements of the brand are excised in favour of contemporary but brand-consistent designs.

The truly great brand managers are those who are unable to rest on their laurels and who perceive the successes of the present as the biggest challenge for the future. A walk up Montpelier Street is a sad but vital journey.

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Perceptions of Branding among Television Station Managers

The tremendous proliferation of media outlets and the continuous fragmentation of audiences during the last two decades have changed the landscape of today's media market. Increased competition is facilitating the application of brand management in many media industries as media firms race to establish clear and memorable brand images in an increasingly complicated marketplace filled with infinite content offered by broadcasters, cablecasters, Internet, telcos, and DBS. In a nutshell, brands can help media consumers cut through the clutter by identifying the brands that are compatible with their needs and expectations. Developing a sound branding strategy (i.e., business activities that establish a recognizable and trustworthy badge of origin, and a promise of performance) is an essential step for a broadcaster to increase its value for consumers and advertiser's. In short, to succeed in a noisy media marketplace, today's broadcasters need to establish a consistent brand image using multiple platforms. Furthermore, broadcasters have to increase the efficiency of their marketing plans given the rising cost of marketing expenses.

The purpose of branding is to create high brand familiarity and positive brand image, which contribute to the building of brand equity. Marketing researchers have long advocated that managers need to start managing their brands more like assets--increasing their value over time (Keller, 1993). Management has to invest in understanding its brand today to make better brand decisions tomorrow. Such a notion holds true for the media industries as well. As the theory of "brand lifecycle" suggests, a brand, if well managed and perceived, may enter a stage of fortification with the objective of leveraging a brand's value by extending the brand to other related product categories (Liebermann, 1986). Successful brand extensions require marketing strategies that reasonably establish a connection between the new and the old product and transfer the perceived benefit from the old to the new in a meaningful continuation of brand identity. Note that established brands are most valuable in those extensions where the perceptions of brand identity are relevant to the potential consumer of the new product.

For a broadcaster to expand its business into niche paid programming services, it needs to first assess whether its current brand has acquired the value to fortify and benefit the new business line. The age of convergence is approaching. Broadcast television stations will have to compete with an ever larger number of content providers. By the same token, more broadcast services such as Intercast (a means of transmitting HTML pages over broadcast television signals), data broadcasting, multiple program feeds, and electronic commerce will soon be available for broadcasters to generate additional revenues. A strong brand equity opens the door of opportunities for service expansions.

This study attempted to assess the perceived role of branding and branding practices among the general managers of commercial television stations. General managers were chosen because of their role in directly shaping a television station's business strategies and because of their increasing involvement in determining a station's programming environment. We also focused on commercial stations because of their need to establish competitive advantages in the marketplace. Specifically, we addressed the following research questions: Continues

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Corporate Profile

COMPANY PROFILE

INTRODUCTION

DIAMOND STAR INT’L PR LIMITED, a brand support services company is a firm with competences in publishing, advertising, Public Relations, Events Managements, designs, Information Technology, Printing and General Supplies.

We provide total marketing communication services through our service offerings that meet our clients’ expectations in brand building and perception management.

DIAMOND STAR INT’L PR LIMITED is peopled by a crop of young, dynamic and highly experienced professionals, undaunted by challenges and ever willing to proffer new and exciting solutions to clients' needs.

DIAMOND STAR INT’L PR LIMITED is a foremost corporate branding company, a discipline for the corporate world to ignite it, promote it to the untold, the unheard, shaping your products and services the right way that would attracts your target audience, and thus; making the perception of the company a reality.

DIAMOND STAR INT’L PR LIMITED has been around in the industry for quite a while, developing people and company’s brand, getting it just right, giving our clients a cutting-edge above its competitors, this is very important has there is nothing new under the sun, you would agree with me about that, no idea, no business is new again in this present world, but what makes you stand-out in the midst of the crowd is your understanding about the market based environment and how you package your products and services through branding, marketing, advertisement and public relations affairs that would project your product and services “just right” in the minds of the target audience.

DIAMOND STAR INT’L PR LIMITED, that’s what we do right for you and in-turns; maximize your profit margin and also opening other relevant business opportunities that would foster our relationship through experienced team of design, brand, marketing communications and public relations experts that knows how to do-it-right to get the right results and services worth money rendered.

We are a young brand support services and communication agency using multi-disciplinary approach in meeting our clients brand objectives with measurable results.

OUR MISSION is to make brand communications creatively and extra ordinarily exciting, easy to understand and relate with and achieve desired results for clients.

OUR VISION is to make non traditional brand communications a top drawer of both local and foreign investments.

OUR ACTIVITIES

• Brand Communications
• Designs
• Printing
• Advertisement
• Marketing Communications
• Public Relations
• Events Managements/MC
• Information Technology
• General Supplies

QUALITY ASSURANCE
It is the company’s fundamental policy that we shall provide products and services that meet and exceeds the customer’s expectations, requirements and ensures complete satisfaction.

This is achieved by the use of creative ideas coupled with professionalism, which guarantee quality that conforms to National and International Quality Standards.

To this end, it is a base requirement that employees shall participate in the development of, and comply fully with the quality procedures relating to their work and be totally committed to the company’s and Client’s quality system at all times.

Kind Regards

Adejuyigbe Francis Adegoke
08060037277, 07093175098, 08059035403
diamondstarint.brand@hotmail.co.uk

TYPES OF BRAND

Product

The most common brand is that associated with a tangible product, such as a car or drink. This can be very specific or may indicate a range of products. In any case, there is always a unifying element that is the 'brand' being referred to in the given case.
Individual product

Product brands can be very specific, indicating a single product, such as classic Coca-Cola. It can also include particular physical forms, such as Coca-cola in a traditional bottle or a can.
Product range

Product brands can also be associated with a range, such as the Mercedes S-class cars or all varieties of Colgate toothpaste.
Service

As companies move from manufacturing products to delivering complete solutions and intangible services, the brand is about the 'service'.

Service brands are about what is done, when it is done, who does it, etc. It is much more variable than products brands, where variation can be eliminated on the production line. Even in companies such as McDonald's where the service has been standardized down to the eye contact and smile, variation still occurs.

Consistency can be a problem in service: we expect some variation, and the same smile every time can turn into an annoyance as we feel we are being manipulated. Service brands need a lot more understanding than product brands.
Organization

Organizations are brands, whether it is a company that delivers products and services or some other group. Thus Greenpeace, Mercedes and the US Senate are all defined organizations and each have qualities associated with them that constitute the brand.

In once sense, the brand of the organization is created as the sum of its products and services. After all, this is all we can see and experience of the organization. Looking at it another way, the flow also goes the other way: the intent of the managers of the organization permeates downwards into the products and the services which project a common element of that intent.
Person

The person brand is focused on one or a few individuals, where the branding is associated with personality.
Individual

A pure individual brand is based on one person, such as celebrity actor or singer. The brand can be their natural person or a carefully crafted projection.

Politicians work had to project a brand that is attractive to their electorate (and also work hard to keep their skeletons firmly in the cupboard). In a similar way, rock stars who want to appear cool also are playing to a stereotype.
Group

Not much higher in detail than an individual is the brand of a group. In particular when this is a small group and the individuals are known, the group brand and the individual brand overlap, for example in the way that the brand of a pop group and the brand of its known members are strongly connected.

Organizations can also be linked closely with the brand of an individual, for example Virgin is closely linked with Richard Branson.
Event

Events have brands too, whether they are rock concerts, the Olympics, a space-rocket launch or a town-hall dance.

Event brands are strongly connected with the experience of the people attending, for example with musical pleasure or amazement at human feats.

Product, service and other brands realize the power of event brands and seek to have their brands associated with the event brands. Thus sponsorship of events is now big business as one brand tries to get leverage from the essence of the event, such as excitement and danger of car racing.
Geography

Areas of the world also have essential qualities that are seen as characterizations, and hence also have brand. These areas can range from countries to state to cities to streets and buildings.

Those who govern or represent these geographies will work hard to develop the brand. Cities, for example, may have de-facto brands of being dangerous or safe, cultural or bland, which will be used by potential tourists in their decisions to visit and by companies in their decisions on where to set up places of employment.