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.

Reputation Brand Analyst

Internship: Social Media/Brand Reputation Strategy

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

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

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

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!

On the 21st October 2009 during the Web 2.0 Summit, Bing officially confirmed partnerships with Twitter and Facebook to integrate public tweets and Facebook updates into its search results. A few hours later Google also announced a partnership with Twitter at the Web 2.0 Summit.

These two announcements have far reaching implications, the most important one is in relation to how this will affect Online Reputation Management. With the explosion of Social Media the power has gradually shifted from advertisers and brand custodians that control the message to consumers through advertising to the citizen journalist that are able to comment, talk to each other, post pictures, post videos about your brand or company that you have no control over. This has effected brands all around and created a new awareness of the importance of managing your reputation online. However the changes announced by Google and Bing have now added another layer onto this already complex area. Not only does a person have the power of changing and influencing perceptions about your brand but this will also now be available in real time on the search engines.

So think of it like this, you are on your way to a favourite restaurant and as you are about to leave you do a quick search on Google or Bing only to find that somebody posted two minutes ago about the bad service and food they have just experienced at this restaurant. Will this make you think twice about going?

The reality is as the world of digital keeps on changing so will peoples priorities on how they manage their brands. You can no longer consider reputation management as a nice to have for the future. With the real time changes in search you have to take action and be proactive otherwise it will affect your bottom-line.