Augie Ray, over at his blog, has a great post about the Return on Investment of Social Media Marketing. The most important part to people who follow the online reputation management industry is the part about how social media marketing effects risk management.

Traditionally, few brands have wholly evaluated their marketing in directly measurable financial terms, and my new Forrester report recommends a traditional measurement approach for innovative social media marketing programs.  Using a Social Media Marketing Balanced Scorecard, marketers can evaluate a diverse set of short- and long-term benefits that are both financial and not.  This approach furnishes several benefits, such as aligning measurement to all corporate objectives and not just sales; providing a means for gaining consensus from diverse stakeholders; and avoiding short-term gains at the expense of long-term brand health.

Social media can help to combat brand reputation management problems. But it would be interesting to see a breakdown of how social media marketing can effect long term risks associated with online libel.

http://blogs.forrester.com/augie_ray/10-07-19-roi_social_media_marketing_more_dollars_and_cents

Facebook has become a massive phenomenon that is used by businesses almost as widely and religiously as it is by individuals. Its appeal stems largely from the fact that it has a lot of different elements to offer visitors which keeps them and their friends coming back for more. It is used as a job hunting tool as well as a tool for prospective employers. It is used for social networking and staying in touch with friends and colleagues. It is even used for promoting businesses and managing online reputation.

During an interview with ABC News yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg revealed that the site has attracted more than 500 million users since it first started six years ago. To put that in context, it’s approximately 1/12 of the world’s population and the UK is right up there with some of the heaviest hitters in terms of registered members. Approximately 1/3 of the UK population are registered with Facebook. Talking about whether the site would make 1 billion users, Zuckerberg said “who knows if we’ll get there”.

There were also positive words regarding “that” ongoing lawsuit with Paul Ceglia. Ceglia is a developer that attended college at the same time as Zuckerberg and claims to have a contract which states he should now own 84% of the Facebook site. However, there’s no need to panic as Zuckerberg has always defended his position on this and continued to do so last night saying “We are quite sure we did not sign a contract that says he has any right of ownership over Facebook.”

If you need to create a blog for Internet reputation management reasons, there is no better system than Wordpress. They offer free blog hosting for anyone that can fill out some basic forms and utilize their platform.

Wordpress blogs are clean-cut, easy to use, and attractive to look at. Free blog hosting is one of the best ways to stake out a place on the Internet and fight online defamation.

Wordpress also offers all kinds of plugins for blogs which can be helpful. These plugins can do all kinds of things like monitor visitor’s IPs, analyze traffic statistics, etc. These are extremely helpful.

Wordpress.com is where you go to sign up for a free blog. Most industry experts will suggest it over the competition. This is because they have shown a propensity for improving and innovating their product over time, and keeping everything free of charge.

One of the most popular social networking websites that is available online right now is Gather.com. It’s headquartered in Boston, Massachussets and is home to around 465,000 registered members. Like most social networking sites, it is free to join. It is a massive community of people who are able to share links, photos, thoughts, and messages with each other. Each user gets a registered sub-domain to themselves.

hi5 is another social networking site, one of the most popular in the world. It has never really caught on in the United States, but it is very popular internationally, with over 80,000,000 users worldwide. The site is particularly popular in Latin America.

Each of these sites could be a vital tool to someone looking to improve their reputation management.

Viadeo is a professional social networking site that  is used in over 200 countries around the world and recent survey results have shown just how effective it has proven to be for professionals with 40% of people even securing job interviews thanks to social networks like Viadeo.

Viadeo is an extremely large social network and it is widely used by professionals and businesses from virtually every continent. It enables users to set up a profile, network with existing and potentially new contacts, and it allows individuals to search for new employment. Recruiters are also finding it an extremely powerful way to search for the best candidates to fill high profile jobs.

The social networking site can even lay claim to being the broadest reching professional social networking site boasting claims that it is used in 226 countries, five continents, and 322 industries. CEO and co-founder of Viadeo, Dan Serfaty said that more than 70% of its members are senior or middle level management making it an equally appealing destination for recruitment agencies and head hunters too. What’s more, they have the figures to back it up following an extensive survey of their users.

In the UK, 1 in 4 recruiters claim to have used Viadeo to find and recruit candidates for at least one position so if you’re looking for a high profile career then you should seriously consider registering with Viadeo.

Over 80% of business executives said that they used the site in order to develop their own business showing the worth and potential that the site has for professionals, job seekers, and just about anybody in professional industries.

Question and Answer sites can to some degree be considered social networking websites or social media sites. One user asks a question and other members who feel they can adequate answer the question do so. The original poster then has the chance to choose the most relevant or most accurate response and vote for that answer. The biggest complaint of sites like these is the same kind of criticism that has been levelled at wikis and other user edited content – there is no real way of qualifying whether a response has been written by somebody with relevant knowledge.

If you need the answer to a question then Q&A sites do still have some benefit as long as you take care before acting on the advice or response given. For professionals answering question, there is some benefit to be had with some of these sites too. Sites like Yahoo Answers can generate some good traffic if on the right topic and if the information provided is genuinely useful. It can also instil a sense of authority and expertise in those that read it, instantly increasing the amount of trust you garner from those readers.

A new breed of Question and Answer sites may be on the cards, too, in the shape of a more directed and qualified offering. As well as asking the question, posters can determine who is eligible to answer according to the information given in their profile. Question and Answer sites can also be useful for online reputation management as long as you ensure the site allows dofollow links in posts.

Digg is a site that has become very popular as a crowd-sourced news aggregator. What does this mean? Well, it is Internet democracy at its best. The front page is determined by voters–the articles with the most votes will make it to the front page. Each user can create a thread for people to vote for, and comment on, the article included. These threads move their way towards the top of the site by accruing interest from other voters. One can search for links by the top in the last day, by subjects like gaming or politics, or by the type of links–news, videos, images, etc.

Your profile on Digg will reflect how active you are. The more you vote, the more experienced you become. As a result, your reputation will increase within that network. Digg really is direct democracy in action. This social networking sites allows users with no audience to drive traffic to the links they have posted.

Twitter quickly became an online phenomenon that almost single-handedly launched the mobile blogging or moblogging platform. Almost everybody from singing celebrities to their star struck fans use the site to communicate with those that matter most to them. In the case of the individual user it means connecting with friends as well as businesses and celebrities. For the business user it can be a great way to manage an online reputation, build a brand, and deliver messages in a convenient and effective manner. But, the question is, can we learn anything from the way that celebrities use the site? Undoubtedly.

Justin Bieber, despite recent Twitter algorithm changes, remains one of the most discussed topics on the site. He has entire communities dedicated to him and his fans have an almost unbelievable level of control over the trends list. Following an algorithm chance that saw their adored singer disappear from the trends list, Tweeters changed their approach and blogged the name Bieber so often that he was quickly restored to top spot.

Twitter is also very useful for transmitting messages to fans and to potential clients. Following rumours that she is pregnant, singer and avid Tweeter Lily Allen used the service to inform her own fans that the rumours were untrue and that she isn’t pregnant.

Another sign of the popularity of Twitter is news that a new TV show based on Twitter account @shitmydadsays has been given the go ahead, will feature William Shatner, and will air this fall on CBS. How did William Shatner tell his fans of his latest part? Using Twitter, of course.

Much of the brand reputation management industry is focused on reactive solutions to problems instead of proactive solutions. The article linked below discusses four little-known tools for managing brands online. The article also mentions an interesting study by AdWeek which purports to calculate the value of a facebook fan.

The idea of brand management is growing and gaining momentum among the corporate and professional communities. Over the last two weeks, I have given three presentations on the topic to business and HR professionals and job seekers and received almost a dozen emails and phone calls. Bottom line is your reputation is everywhere and online is no different.Just recently, Ad Week released a monetary dollar figure attached to Facebook Fan (now Like) Pages. Based on Virtue’s research of their own clients, they determined the average value of a Fan is $3.60. This is the first ROI evaluation I have found that places a value squarely on a personal network. If your friend, fans, connections, subscribers, and followers are now being seen as having value.

The study is interesting, but certainly more study is needed on the topic. The tools that are mentioned, you’ll have to click the link to see them, are invaluable to companies looking to successfully manage their brand online.

http://www.ibtimes.com/contents/20100517/four-little-known-tools-managing-online-brand.htm

Newsine is a social news website that enables registered users to post news articles and general interest stories. The articles posted can include links to your website or blogs making it a valuable tool in any social networking or even article marketing campaign. It can be used by companies to help manage their online reputation too especially as it enables other users to comment on and discuss articles. It also has a number of useful features that make it worth adding to your list of social sites to use regularly.

Sites like Digg only enable you to add links to existing content while having your own blog or using sites like Blogger enable you to write and add your own posts. You can create your own channel or news column on Newsvine and this provides you with the means to add links to articles hosted on other sites as well as unique content hosted directly on the Newsvine website. Combining both of these can be a great way to make the most of a single account with regular updates for readers.

Newsvine does not concentrate on any specific topic or even general topics. You can find and indeed post articles and news pieces on absolutely any topic you wish from Internet marketing right through to football and politics. This means that you can use Newsvine in your reputation management campaign with great benefit regardless of the industry you serve, the products you sell, or the topics that interest you most.