The team at Reputation Management LLC has been together since 2001. Internet based, anonymously driven smear and negative campaigns had been directed at both companies and individuals for years even then. Since that time, the frequency of these types of attacks has increased dramatically. Stories with no basis in reality and completely untrue misinformation are now posted in blogs, articles, and websites by anyone with internet access. Un-moderated forums, chat rooms, and boards are additional venues for negative campaigns due to the fact that anything can be written and then posted immediately. The opportunities for these types of attacks continue grow whether the purpose is for competitive advantage, revenge, or some other malicious agenda. Our experience is that the most dangerous of these campaigns are based on gaining competitive advantage and are therefore corporate sponsored. The reason for the danger is these types of negative campaigns are often thoroughly planned and well funded. They can be planned to stage negative content for regular release indefinitely and can have enough money behind them to get their content optimized and marketed so that it gets high rankings on search engines. It’s not unusual at all for untrue negative content to actually rank higher than the targeted company’s own website due to a sponsoring company’s commitment of time and money to getting and maintaining that high ranking. As you can imagine, situations like that can cause major problems for the company being attacked. That type of situation is usually the result when a company does not act immediately to being under attack. Our experience shows, without a doubt, that a swiftly implemented counter attack can contain much of the damage that might otherwise occur including lost revenues and downgrading of a company’s reputation. Our response begins with a fast yet comprehensive study of the structure and origin of the attack to determine the best options for our counter attack and to help us anticipate how the balance of the negative campaign will be conducted. Keywords are analyzed to see which ones are being used by both the sponsor of the attack and consumers and whether those in use are high traffic words or more temporary in nature. That information provides the foundation for our counter measures including legal action, if there are trademark or copyright violations, and online tactics including our own campaigns to develop and post as much positive content as is warranted. Our content writers create well written, fact based, intelligent commentary to rebut and build credibility against less talented and less knowledgeable posters. The end result for our clients is a counter measure which has either eliminated negative commentary, pushed it down the in the search engine rankings to the point where it is unfindable, or surrounded negative commentary with a much greater number of positive articles. We know that an attack on your company’s reputation is an attack on everything your company stands for. If an attack is headed your way, call Reputation Management LLC at 866-530-7703. We’ll meet your attackers head-on.

A week ago I kicked off a survey on whether people use Twitter for business, pleasure or both, and if for both do they separate their accounts (original post here). After a great response from the wider Twitterverse, the results are in.

Reputation management is not a new concept since everyone from Fortune 500 companies to plumbers to the gas station on the corner relies on their reputation to protect and enhance their livelihood.

Lookuppage.com is an online reputation manager that allows you to create your own personal home page with information about yourself, your interests and your goals. The main goal is to gain exposure for internet searches, including Google and Yahoo, regarding your name. It is also meant to help you reach out to people with your interests.