Hotel Reputations, search brand value under attack

/in , , /by

The hotel and travel industry is suffering from one of the most aggressive issues of online brand and reputation attack, which is rooted firmly around the value of hotel brands and search phrases.

This is seen within primary search results, where 80% or more of branded search traffic on keywords directly related to a hotel’s brand are stolen by directory and trip review sites such as Orbitz, Expedia, TripAdvisor, Priceline, Hotwire, Hotels.com, and TravelPost. There are dozens of smaller sites and sub-properties involved in this marketplace attrition model, high-lighting an ongoing and growing problem.

Needless to say, that this is a monumental issue.

If we want to apply real world numbers to this problem, we can establish a baseline value of traffic redirected by encroaching on branded terms by looking at the monthly unique traffic of the top travel sites dealing with hotels and comparing those numbers against the percentage of traffic originating from search engines.

The chart below list some of the top sites involved in leeching off organic traffic through brand related hotel terms: Read more

Reputation Insurance, why it makes good sense

/in , , /by

Like any asset, there are hundreds of unforeseen risks that are associated with online reputation. A common viewpoint shared by many business executives is that they don’t know how to gauge how virtually explosive different aspects of their business model are. If you don’t know what smoke is, you probably can’t justify cost of fire insurance.

The cost and risk are real.
(Let us use a little example below)

As the size of a business increases, an exponential multiplier of risk is applied to the digital model:

  • more consumers increase opinionated reviews
  • more employees increase HR related violations
  • more marketplace share increases chance of competitive arson
  • exposure to social networks increases chance of
    • confidential leaks and privacy disclosure (family, friends, bedroom talk.)
    • ethical misbehavior (executive compensation, regulation violations)
    • employee / x-employee complaints (unions, disgruntled employees)

Read more

Reputation Toolbox, tools for online professionals

/in , , , /by

Just a few years ago, the traditional business professional didn’t need to worry much about digital conversations said about them. In today’s modern marketplace, your online reputation controls many of your professional opportunities. So far that online reputation is overtaking the traditional credit score as a means to identify if you are a worthwhile business partner. *If you would like to read more detail, you can read this four page whitepaper about reputation value or my CEO blog article on reputation score vs credit fiasco.

With that said, this reputation toolbox is a collection of resources to help you establish, maintain and protect your “online reputation score.”

Why should you read this? My company provides online reputation management services to executives and corporations. We believe that a good online reputation company doesn’t hide behind dozens of secrets or manipulative strategies to keep clients in the dark: if a professional wants to self-train themselves on hundreds of overlapping technical points and spend hours refining an expertise as a digital reputation specialist… they can. Read more

SuperMedia , Idearc, Verizon, GTE ? Reputations Don’t Fade online.

/4 Comments/in , , /by

In the past, corporations and big business developed into the mindset that you could “reset” a brand simply by changing your logo and developing a new slogan.  The mentality found within corporate America was that the average consumer had little or no long term memory. The lack of memory leads to the simple assumption that the non-digital consumer would never connect the dots with due-diligence and investigation.

The data repository now known as the world wide web has connected those dots. Companies (and people) now have a thousands of data points being historically interconnected. Stories and insight about topics of interest are no longer doomed to fade away, but are chiseled into digital stone to be remembered, recalled and renewed. Read more

Executive Reputation – digital trust in the enterprise

/in , , /by

Reputation is a growing concern for executives at many enterprise organizations. To help understand the wide range of impacts that reputation has on both an individual and corporate level, you must consider both a “top down” and “bottom up” effect.

We also have to keep in mind that the nature of healthy reputation relies on the ability for those “in the know” to pass along the correct information to the correct audience. Without having a mechanism in place to highlight success points and positive messages, the resulting absence of information creates a vacuum that is filled with the loudest voices (not always supportive or even correct.) Read more