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.

If you are interested in joining our sizzling team, take a look at the new positions available below:

Reputation Brand Analyst

Internship: Social Media/Brand Reputation Strategy

I came across the following post this morning, and it just highlighted for me exactly why we are in the business of ORM again and how it actually affects business worldwide:

This gentleman posted a negative article online expressing his frustration and anger regarding a particular Standard Bank Branch.

This negative mention was seen by many of his followers online and therefore affected the online reputation of the brand in a negative way.

However, due to ORM, Standard Bank was notified of the mention and responded immediately. Their quick response and the fact that they personally contacted him twice telephonically, left the man with a positive feeling about the bank. So much, that he even decided to blog about it again and add a compliment to his previous complaint.

In addition, the fact that Standard Bank has a Twitter profile and uses this to handle complaints on the site, gave him an immediate feeling that ‘the bank cares and listens to its customers’.

This is such a great example of how Online Reputation Management could and should be used:

• Monitor and track all the mentions regarding your brand / product / employees online and categorise according to the sentiment of the mention.
• Receive feedback from your existing and potential customer base in the online world
• Make sure that when crisis mentions come through, these are escalated to the correct person within the company immediately.
• Respond to negative as well as positive feedback immediately and provide the writer of the mention with the feeling that ‘the brand / company listens to what you have to say and cares about what you have to say‘. This can be done in the form of a company or ‘personal’ Twitter account, a Facebook Profile, a Facebook Fan Page, etc. Furthermore show the rest of the online community that you care as a brand and that you are online to engage and communicate with.
• In the case of a negative mention or complaint, follow up with a personal call, email or other form of communication to resolve the issue at hand.
• Make sure that the person that follows up on the complaint is aware of all the aspects of the complaint and can assist immediately. (Having a call centre agent call the customer and not being able to assist with the actual complaint will only result in more frustration and therefore more complaints online. Making the situation even worse)
• Leave the customer with a ‘warm and fuzzy‘ feeling that will often generate a positive mention from the customer online.
• Learn from the mistakes made and make sure that they do not occur again.

In addition, other factors play a role such as:

• Learn from your competitors and see how they (do not) engage online
• Build an online relationship with your target market and be available to them in the online space
• Identify the channels used by your target market and make sure to be present on these channels.
• Engage…engage…and engage some more

The Nestle Company is finding themselves in a bit of a mess all due to a parody video created by environmental protection group Greenpeace. The video suggests that the production of a key ingredient, palm oil, helps further the destruction of rainforests, which in turn threatens endangered species such as the Orangutang. Various social media platforms have caught on to this story and overnight created a Reputation nightmare for Nestle. It will be interesting to see how they proceed in trying to undo the damage that has been done over the last couple of days.

More on this:

The Facebook Nestle Mess: When Social Media Goes Anti-Social

Facebook Nestle fan page

Nestle mess shows sticky side of Facebook pages

Nestlé Makes a Mess on Facebook

Paul Jacobson from Jacobson Attorneys joins us this afternoon to help Demystify Digital Compliance.

Some of the interesting points from the presentation:

Do you think that you have some control over your brand the thing with social media is that often companies don’t
• Although people think that they have some control over their brand the thing with social media is that often companies don’t
• Web is a very different kind of space – its all about being social and are constantly evolving
• You want to get to a point where people care enough about what you are doing to tell their friends
• Not just dealing with one person in isolation, you are now dealing with one person that has 400 friends on Facebook, 200 followers on Twitter and so the reach of one person is much more important
• Traditional legal approach don’t really work when it comes to social media
• Need to also think about Employees and how they are using social media
• Manage your content licensing process – ensure you have the right license to enable sharing
• Privacy Rights is going to be the biggest issue facing us online in the next couple of years