The Digital Tattoo project is a bit of brilliance from some students at the University of British Columbia in Canada. Not only because I find this analogy inspired and a great way of looking at your online reputation, but also because they provide some great information for peopled about the online environment. I mean if you think about it, a real tattoo is normally an expression of who you are, visible (although the degree of visibility can be different depending on your choice) and most importantly it is pretty hard to remove.

If you look at it most people today are participating online in various forms of social networks, whether on Facebook, Twitter or Foursquare. In participating they are automatically creating online information about themselves. This content as with a real tattoo is an expression of yourself, open for misinterpretation without context and visible, (depending on your settings). Since this online reputation, like a tattoo, is very difficult to remove after created, it is much better to approach it with the necessary knowledge of the risks and the various ways to control visibility and misinterpretation.

With this in mind a group of students at UBC obtained a grant to create a website called Digital Tattoo. Their focus was for it to be about giving the necessary relevant information objectively. They wanted people to be able to access the material both like an online course or they could identify areas of interest and just access those. Although the content is targeted mostly to students it’s got some really relevant information for all on Privacy Settings, Identity Theft, tips for taking part in online forums and intellectual copyright.

Ingrid Rubin features in the latest edition of the Journal of Marketing magazine. Get your hands on a copy to find out what guidelines she suggest for keeping your brand’s reputation on track in the digital world.

Ingrid Rubin featured in the latest edition of Journal of Marketing

This week’s Digital Edge takes a look at the topic of Online Brand Monitoring. As more and more people are able to influence their friends and peers over social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, finding out what people are saying about your brand becomes more and more critical.

Our very own Ingrid Rubin is featured in this eposide and she shares her valuable experience and insights in regards to this topic and how it is becoming more and more relevant for companies today. Be sure to check it out!

The explosion of Social Media has also increased the volume of conversations out there that you are not able to control. If you haven’t considered managing your reputation online then 2010 is the year to put this in place. Take some time to reflect on our ideas.

Transparency
2010 will see an increased demand from the public for companies to be more transparent in their business dealings. The recent Copenhagen Climate Conference showed that people are very passionate and aware about the environment and that companies will in the future need to be very transparent in terms of their carbon footprints, CSI and ethical business behaviour. This will in turn place a bigger focus on Reputation Management in general and specifically how people are talking about you online.

Real Time Social Media Search Results
Last year all three major Search Engines announced the integration of real-time data from Twitter and Facebook into the search results. Google is calling it Social Search and pretty soon, you should see not only what the Search Engine is suggesting, but also what others are saying via social media relating to the search terms you entered. Search Engines are trying to provide more relevant, timely and accurate results and there is much talk of searching for information in real time. These changes will play a hugely important role in the way companies are perceived online which will shift the focus to the importance of an online reputation strategy.

Tracking is Key
One of the biggest challenges of the emergence of Social Media Marketing is tracking the conversations that are taking place on all the different platforms.  It’s vital to be aware of what people are saying and therefore making use of a good tracking system will become more and more important in 2010.

Content is King
This might sound like an outdated cliché but the reality of it is that now more than ever ensuring you have relative, interesting and value add content on your site will not only ensure that you own that vital Google CV but also guarantee you have consumers coming back to your site time and time again.

Policies
As more and more companies become aware of the need to carefully manage their reputation online you will also see the development of social media policies for staff. If the company you work for doesn’t already have a social media policy in place with specific rules of engagement across multiple networks, it just might in the next year.

Always be Authentic
The reality is as much as in the past companies were able to push one sided message towards consumers, those days are long gone. If you communicate with consumers in a way that they don’t like they will be sure to tell you that, whether they don’t like your advert on television, think your billboard is horrible or are of the opinion that your service is lacking. 2010 is increasingly going to be the year where companies will be forced even more by consumers to be authentic and to put messages out there that are a true reflection of their brand.

In November I had the pleasure of attending The Annual Conference hosted by Jeremy Maggs.
10 leading trend experts, all in specialist areas have been asked to come up with ten things for 2010. The morning was packed with great insights and thought provoking information but ever since then I have been asking myself how 2010 will unfold in the world of Reputation Management.

In 2009 we have already seen a couple of reputation scandals with some of the big brands in the country feeling the effect of the collective voice of the everyday people. Domestic airline Kulula witnessed this first hand after a Spring Sale promotion caused the Kulula.com website to crash. In October FNB’s online banking site also experienced problems after a software update, leaving customers without access for nearly 4 days. It seems that slowly but surely the importance of Online Reputation Management is hitting home for companies and brands alike. I have put together my thoughts for what I would like to see happen in 2010:

Budget, budget, budget
At this point companies are not entirely  sure whether Online Reputation Management should fall within the PR or Marketing budget. Although offline tracking seems to happen more often than not, most companies don’t budget for proper tracking and monitoring of the online environment. This means that in many cases they are unaware of the types of conversations that are happening out there but also loses out on the opportunity to capitalize on the insights and comments from their customers. The world recession has put budgets under more strain than usual but this is one area where you can’t afford to cut back or even worse not budget at all.

Education
The South African market seems to be a slight step behind the rest of the world and none is truer than in the world of Reputation Management. Slowly but surely people are starting to realize the impact unmonitored conversations can have and recognizing the need to track and engage with these customers. Although I am aware that in many cases there is still a huge education process that needs to happen, I am positive that 2010 will be the year that more people are not only becoming aware of the necessity but will also start to  adopt strategies to monitor, track and protect their reputations online.

Legacy of 2010
One of the main highlights that everybody is predicting will have a lasting impact in our country is the FIFA 2010 World Cup. I agree, but for me it’s really not so much the actual event but more the legacy that 2010 will hold. I am hoping that with this event people from around the world will start to realize just how interconnected we all are and how the internet has the power to bring our worlds even closer together. That said, it just underlines the importance of knowing what is being said about you online.