At the Reputation Monitoring & Management Through Search track at the SMX West Conference, author Andy Beal led a session on keeping your web credibility intact.
Even though we’ve been taught the childhood rhyme, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, words will never hurt me,” keep in mind this was written prior to the Internet! Andy talked about how the explosion of social media – blogs, social networking sites, and video sharing sites – has given the power to consumers to enhance or destroy a reputation. It’s important to pay attention to your online reputation as 52% of individuals put their trust in what others say about your brand. Other statistics: 83% of companies will face a reputation crisis that can impact their share value by 20-30% and 87% of consumers look at the reputation of your CEO, when judging your company's reputation.
Andy Beal proposes seven steps to identify, respond to, and repair an online attack:
1. Check the facts. There are two sides to every story.
2. Determine the impact and if the online attack deserve a response. If an important detractor started the attack, or the conversation gets big and spreads widely, or influential online writers chime in, then it’s time to act.
3. Bring together trusted counsel. The response should come from the top (a senior, transparent and humble voice) before deploying an attorney or the public relations team.
4. Understand your detractor. Whether it’s a first time customer who had a bad experience or a disgruntled ex- employee, it’s important to identify the root cause of their motivation.
5. Decide on the appropriate response. If the report is false or defamatory, one does have the right to make contact and request a retraction. However, if the screw-up was on your end, then it’s time to fess up. Three keys: Sincerity, Transparency, and Consistency.
6. Host the conversation on your web channels. Steve Jobs wrote an open letter addressing the price drop of the iPhone, which was widely disseminated via the Internet. One speaker termed Apple as “empathy arrogant” towards providing a great customer experience.
7. After the dust has settled, seek online supporters for promoting your reparations. Monitoring your brand name and adding positive content to the web via influential bloggers, forum moderators, and social network owners will help. Of course, you can search the Internet via Google! Stepping up a search engine optimization campaign and creating a presence in multiple different services like LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, and MySpace can help control your message on the first page of keyword results.
There’s a Free Online Reputation Management Beginner’s Guide available for download at Marketing Pilgrim.