Follow The Golden Rules of Online Reputation Management

One bad event or one angry blogger can spark a reputation crisis that hurts a company’s bottom line in the age of social media. “Just ask Dell, BP or Tiger Woods,” Elixir Interactive CEO Fionn Downhill said  Nov. 17, 2010, in the digital marketing class of Thunderbird Professor John Zerio, Ph.D.

“The Web is where reputations are made and broken, and where buying decisions are made and broken,” Downhill said. “The Web is not going away. It is not a pleasant place sometimes, but you must participate.”

Downhill, who helps her clients build and manage their online reputations through search engine optimization and other strategies, said one bad customer service experience can spread through the Internet in a matter of hours. Isolated incidents that used to be ignored or dismissed now live forever on YouTube, Facebook and other social media sites.

“Ignoring people makes them mad,” Downhill said. “And now they have tools to fight back and make their voices heard.”

PC manufacturer Dell learned this lesson in summer 2005, when blogger Jeff Jarvis began documenting his customer service ordeal with the company. By the time Dell responded and fixed the problem, stock prices had fallen.

Golfer Tiger Woods tried hunkering down and ignoring the furor when a sex scandal erupted in December 2009. Instead of fading away quietly, the story grew larger. Energy giant BP also responded slowly when oil started spilling into the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010.

“When the crisis first broke, BP did not have a particularly good online reputation management strategy,” Downhill said. “In fact, they got killed in the first few weeks.”

Downhill said job hunters and other professionals also need to guard their online reputations. She shared several Golden Rules for online success.

GOLDEN RULES
– It never goes away. Never put anything on the Web that you would not want to see printed in a newspaper. “Old newspapers and magazines go away,” she said. “The Internet never forgets.”

– The boss knows. Represent yourself online as if you were in front of an employer. “The line between your public and private life has become blurred,” Downhill said.

– Domains matter. Use your connections to syndicate your content on well-established sites with big audiences.

– Brand yourself. Set up a blog now. Create a name for yourself in your field. “Your digital footprint can influence your career,” Downhill said.

– Take inventory. Identify what you have already. Consider blogs, forums, RSS feeds, social bookmarking and tagging, press releases, photo directories, social media profiles, videos, podcasts, article marketing, e-zines and newsletters, white papers and wikis. “You may be surprised at the results,” Downhill said.

– Start the cameras. Pay attention to video sharing sites. Downhill said anybody can get a Flip one-touch camera and produce simple promotional videos.

– Be safe. Avoid giving out personal information on social media sites.

– Tag yourself. Name your content the way you want it to be found. Use logical, intuitive file names and tags to improve search engine optimization.

[This article has been reproduced with permission from Knowledge Network, the online thought leadership platform for Thunderbird School of Global Management https://thunderbird.asu.edu/knowledge-network/]