SERM - Getting into it

Search Engine Reputation Management... diving into it as a client told me he needed to cover up all his bad ratings.


More specifically:

1. He hasn't done much SEO on his own business name.
2. There isn't much competition as his name is very specific.
3. He has 2 negative results showing the top 5. They are 1 paragraph or 3 tops articles about his business - the kicker is that they are all from the local news reporting sites.

My questions entering this game i s this - what is the BEST way to approach SERM? What I need to do is push down the two negative articles by having pages that outrank it - but is there any specific things I should be pushing ? Social media pages? Buying tons of backlinks to them? Creating dummy wordpress pages?


Alternatively - for reviews such as yelp, or google places, is there some software out there that is great for managing reviews or adding reviews as well?

Thanks WF in advanced. Just looking to dive in though - haven't had much experience yet with SERM, i'd imagine it to be the same as SEO.