Reputation Management and the New Economy - Is the “Rip Off Report” a rip off?

One of our online clients hired us to create a Google image for his practice. Within 48 hours, he was on the front page of all search directories. This was done organically through a series of strategic, emotionally compelling online Press Releases; video and audio on social networking sites and blog posting with back links to high PR sites, etc

We have extended his brand with a geo-targeted pay-per-click campaign and traditional off line marketing - radio. He has become an online authority, with the ability to say to prospective investors and clients “Google me, I am everywhere.”

We only take clients who offer transformational products, services or information, in other words, clients who share our passion and commitment to empowering others, whether in the area of health, finances, business success or spiritual and personal development.

Our agency is dedicated to this niche. In June, we met with our mentor Matt Bacak to review our business model. He whole-heartedly endorses this niche and recognizes the growing need for Reputation Management. He himself had been the victim of a flurry of negative blog postings, a tempest in a teapot based on a difference in philosophy which went so far as to question his integrity. Fortunately, he has all of the technical savvy to reverse this situation, which he did. In this context, Reputation Management can take the form of a series of steps or tactics that can “bury” a negative review, or likewise promote a positive review.

Reputation Economy

Immediately after meeting with Matt, we went on to attend a workshop by Marshal Thurber, innovative thinker, teacher and inspirational force of nature. He lead us through some exercises designed to generate greater awareness of the different models for social interaction – some cruel and exclusionary, others furthering the greatest good for the greatest number of people. One of these models demonstrated the power of something Marshal named the “Reputation Economy.” By no means can my superficial explanation of this concept hold a candle to the depth of Marshal’s eloquence and insights. I am bringing it up here to illustrate a point. The internet gives us the opportunity to make decisions based on someone’s integrity, creating an arena for people to expose unethical business people.

The problem is that the same techniques that can create “online experts” or bury dishonest information can and are being used to promote personal axes to grind, grudges and lies, all in the guise of “buyer beware.”

The Illusion of Objectivity in Review Sites:

My first personal encounter with this was with a local limo driver I had hired on numerous occasions to take me to the Burbank Airport from my home in Palmdale. He was always highly professional, on-time, reliable, pleasant – essentially everything you would want in a good service provider. I went to find his phone number on line and found instead some type of “business to business” review that went into a wild account of him being a rapist, child molester, etc. It was so preposterous in tone and so out of line with my own objective experience as his customer that I found it ludicrous. I made a post on the site saying that business to business review sites were not to be misused as a vehicle for personal slander and character defamation.

Move forward in this story a few months to my meeting a lady at Marshal Thurber’s event. She has operated a successful seminar company for over 30 years and is being plagued by a series of posts on the Rip Off Report that are taking on a life of their own. Unlike situations that are easily remedied by the tactics used to move postings backwards and forward, this one is like a pernicious weed, coming up from the crack in the sidewalk that can not be uprooted.

Regardless of whether you value these seminars or not, here are a few things I observed about this format that reinforces bias and flies directly in the face of the principles of honesty and open communication:

1) rebuttals can only be made by employees, former employees or owners of the company being complained against

2) the other choice is “filing a claim” with a let’s stick it to them invitation

So, if you are neither a former employee, owner nor another complainer, you have no voice.

Secondly, many of these complaints are several years old but have been “updated” so as to reappear at the top of the heap. And, they have been joined in by a bunch of “me too” folks that are adding their experience from 15 years ago. Yeah, I ate there once 5 years ago and found a fly in my soup too. And the waiter is a pedophile. How does that restaurant review add value to me or the online community?

Rip Off Report plants a link to the seminar site, which GUARANTEES it top ranking search placement on page one, because current SEO algorithms consider Rip Off Report to be an “authority site”. So now these postings which represent only a small fraction of a percentage of seminar participants stay top of mind, encouraging more and more momentum from the disgruntled past, rewarding complainers with the excitement of seeing their name and grudge in prominent placement.

This is internet thought pollution, not to mention that the Rip Off Report makes its money from advertisers. So keeping fruitless controversies alive increases readership and ad revenue. More complaints please. And is there any shortage of things to complain about?

I would like to hear of a site called the Solution Report where disgruntled people could get an honest opportunity for helpful mediation (kind of like people’s court) with the agreement that once the matter was settled, it would be dropped instead of purposefully turned into a promotional avalanche.

Freedom in Discernment:

A new friend of mine had a 360 degree perspective. People who have an iota of discernment are not going to be concerned with what a handful of hysterical complainers have to say. The crux of the seminars under attack is personal responsibility for your thoughts and actions. So let’s learn that lesson and move on.

Oh, and P.S., if my company shows up on the Rip Off Report as a result of publishing this article, please don’t be surprised.