by Celeste Moyers
Many campaigns, companies and individuals are operating in the technological Stone Age. While by now, they likely have a website and social media presence (i.e. Facebook and Twitter), they’re ignorant of the importance of high-authority content and legacy.
Think of your website as the “dust cover” of a book about you. Its purpose is to raise awareness of you, your campaign or your company. Think of social media as the “buzz” that can be generated about you, hopefully positive, and a rallying point from which to deploy your advocates, be they supporters, voters or happy customers. What’s missing from these two platforms is what’s actually inside the book. What’s inside the book, it’s content and the strength of that content can either elevate, injure or destroy a candidate, company or individual. Thus, it’s incredible that so many leave it to someone else to decide what goes in their book.
Technologically speaking, the “book” is Google’s Analytics. When anyone searches online for a campaign, company or person, Google’s sole responsibility is to provide 10-12 relevant search results per webpage. The more common a phrase, the more frequent that phrase is clicked on, the longer that phrase has been around, or depending on what person or entity is talking about that phrase, it has greater authority in Google’s Analytics and will show up towards the top of Google’s search results. Even if nothing is written about you, your campaign, or your company online, that leaves you incredibly vulnerable for someone else to control Google’s search results about you.
This is where Nexus Investigations can be of great use to you, your campaign, and your company. We work with individuals who want to be proactive about their online image. We also work with individuals who need to repair their online image. We work with political candidates and causes who want to raise awareness of their campaign. We also work with political candidates and causes who want to maintain their top dog status, be it a political victory or eminent authority on an issue. At Nexus Investigations, we call this “protecting the win.” These same scenarios apply to companies. Collectively, it’s called Reputation Management.
Nexus Investigations frequently receives three types of reputation management inquiries. We receive inquiries from political candidates who are long-term incumbents that want to keep their seat in office. We also receive inquiries from political candidates with little to no prior political experience that want to get elected to office.
Second, we receive reputation management inquiries from companies getting slammed by seemingly insignificant employee or customer complaints online. These complaints have begun affecting overall employee morale, customer retention and new business development.
Third, we receive inquiries from individuals that have finally decided to “clean up” their online reputation.
From a cost perspective, as is anything in life, being on the offensive is always cheaper than being on the defense when it comes to reputation management. It will always be cheaper to develop and protect an unknown political candidate, company or person’s online reputation just as it is will always be more expensive to turn the tidal wave of long-standing, deeply ingrained slander and negativity. However, with immense manpower, effort and enough time, it is possible to turn that tidal wave. The question you have to ask yourself is, how much could it or is it costing me if I do nothing? For some, it cost could their re-election. For others, they never win election. Some loose business deals, others loose companies. All because they never managed their reputation online.
Since 91.5% of searchers do not click beyond page two of Google’s search results, it’s particularly important what shows up about you online in those first few pages. For every position we can move the negative search results down, the less visibility it has.
At Nexus Investigations, we start with an online assessment of everything currently said about you and where it ranks in terms of authority (i.e. who/what said it and how long it’s been online). We then develop a strategy for what you want said about you online or online image concerns you’d like to address. As your online reputation improves, we maintain and continue to build upon those successes. Thus, if anyone tries to discredit you, your campaign or your company in the future, their efforts either receive no traction or your positives outweigh the negatives said about you.
At Nexus Investigations, our reputation management purpose is to clear the path so that your “book” gets read, the way you want to be perceived by advocates, supporters, voters and customers. With this cleared path, your website and social media receive more hits and the efforts of your messaging and marketing team get heard.
For more information, contact Nexus Investigations at (214) 736 – 7920. www.NexusInvestigations.com
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