Content Outreach for Reputation Management

Too many brands overlook the importance of monitoring their online reputation. According to Vandesta, 58% of executives believe their online reputation should be improved, while only 15% are actually taking steps to fix it.

There are probably a number of reasons that brands neglect their online reputation. According to a couple of entrepreneurs I have spoken with, they have not taken any measures to improve their online reputation because they don’t know what they can to improve it.

You will be a lot more motivated to fix your online reputation if you know what works. You should consider investing more heavily in your content outreach strategy. If you play your cards right, you should notice a significant improvement in your online reputation.

Why Content Outreach is Key to Reputation Management

Content marketing has changed a lot over the last few years. When I first started, I would submit articles to directories like Ezine. I made sure they had links to my client’s websites, so the benefits were two-tiered:

My clients received a fairly steady stream of traffic.
Their SEO rankings improved significantly.

Boosting their online reputation was fairly simply. You just had to write great content and submit them to the right directories.

Google Panda has made things a lot more difficult. If you want to improve your online reputation through content marketing, you need to collaborate with trusted thought leaders in your industry. However, it is well worth the effort.

Here are some things to keep in mind while drafting a content outreach strategy for online reputation management.

Look for Quality Publishers

According to The Library of Congress, there were over one billion websites by the end of 2014. This means there is no shortage of sites for brands to share their content.

Finding quality sites that can help you boost your reputation is a different matter. There are plenty of low-quality sites that fall into one of the following categories:

They sell links to manipulate search engine rankings.
They will accept any content they can find to get a little bit of traffic to earn advertising revenue.

They have a decent idea but simply don’t invest in marketing their own site.

These sites tend to have a very small audience of people that aren’t very engaged. You won’t get much benefit from them.

You should look for publishers that share great content, have an active social media presence and a growing audience. Industry publications, news sites and respected bloggers are all viable candidates.

Build a Strong Relationship First

I have run a few websites that accepted guest posts. Unfortunately, most of the requests I received were clear spam. The people requesting guest posts made all of the following mistakes:

They didn’t even know my name (even though it was on the editor page of the site).
They didn’t pay any attention to the nature of the site.
They didn’t even seem to be using their own names.

I usually just deleted their emails. Sometimes, I would forward them to my colleagues to mock. Do you think sending poorly written, unsolicited emails like this helped their brand?

You want to focus on building a strong relationship with the publisher ahead of time. They will be much more likely to accept content from you in the future.

There are a lot of great tools out there that you can use to build a relationship with top-tier publishers, such BlogEngage, BuzzStream or outreach service providers such as MagFellow and OutreachMama already connected with publishers and bloggers. However, you need to know how to leverage them effectively.

Pitch them With a Great Content Idea

Coming up with quality content is key. It increases your likelihood of getting published in a top-tier publication. It also proves that you are a leader in your field.

Before pitching an idea, take some time to browse their site. You want to get a sense of the type of content they usually share.