I am sitting here this morning doing some final research and putting some finishing touches on the outline for my upcoming webinar on “Why pay for Reputation Management when you can get it Free” and it occurs to me I did the very thing I am railing against in the seminar… pigeonholed “Reputation Management” as monitoring the web for bad things people say about your dealership in the title and description on the sign up page for the webinar.

The fact is that Reputation Management isn’t just about bad thing people say online about your or your dealership its so much more than that, in fact its more about getting and growing a good reputation online than it is about curing a bad one, because:

“Having NO online reputation is worse than having a bad one”

In fact there is one instance I know of where an eyeglasses dealer in NY intentionally pushed for negative reviews because it got people to read and hit is website and was even getting more business from it!

  A Bully Finds a Pulpit on the Web. “Hello, My name is Stanley with DecorMyEyes.com,” the post began. ...

“At the end of the day it is better to be talked about… even negatively online than to not be talked about at all.” I am certainly not advocating this course of action in fact I condemn it, but the point is that some buzz is definitely better than no buzz.

You can have a positive buzz all the time if you just to 2 things: Genuinely ENGAGE and HELP.

So what's the point here you may ask?

“Tis the year to LISTEN and LEARN, that is the only way you ENGAGE and HELP.

Raise your social media ROI by staying abreast of the evolution of the social conversion. That means using monitoring tools and responding in a consistent voice. By doing so you will grow a positive online reputation, you can engage and help those influencers in your community who will in turn help you grow that online reputation even more and bring more  true friends, followers and fans to your dealership not thousands of fans just for fans sake as too many have done.

I’ll be discussing more on how to ENGAGE and HELP in my webinar Thursday March 17th this webinar also comes with a small e-book that will walk you step by step though setting up your Online Reputation Management Command Center, how to use the 10 free tools together to find and engage influencers get more TRUE Friends, fans and followers.

ONLINE YOU BUILD A LIST YOU CAN’T BUY ONE.

I hope this puts a clearer perspective on the webinar and encourages you to join in and if nothing gets you to think about Reputation Management in a broader way.

Larry Bruce @pcmguy

www.pcmguy.com