Tag Archives: reputation management

Business use of social media

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Uncontrolled social media can burn your reputation

In 2006, as a keynote speaker was delivering their high-powered speech at a tech conference in Japan, a Dell laptop suddenly burst into flames.
Pictures and video footage of the burning computer became viral overnight and spread like wildfire across the internet. Thousands of bloggers started bashing the company and demanding they apologize. In a matter of days, the company’s hard earned reputation and goodwill in the marketplace was in jeopardy as Dell issued the biggest product recall in computer history.
In April 2010, BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil well exploded and the ensuing spill flowed into the Gulf of Mexico for three months before it was capped. This oil spill caused huge damage to the marine and surrounding environment. It also caused huge economic damage.
Meanwhile, BP’s reputation and business took a massive hit – thanks to the huge impact of social media – particularly a parody of BP’s global pr machine on twitter called BP Global PR. A good summary of the social media commentary around the BP disaster can be here: http://andysternberg.com/bp-oil-spill-crisis-management-compounded-social-media/
These are just two examples of how circumstances (the former no real fault of the company’s, while the latter very much the opposite) and the phenomenon of social media can impact on business nowadays.
Today many businesses have experienced, through no fault of their own, scheming competitors bad mouthing and spreading false rumours about them through social media. These days, the means to spread rumours about a business are many and as a result, it is imperative for businesses to proactively manage their online reputation.
Today, a customer can research a product or service just about anywhere including blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and of course, within the dreaded search engine result pages. Reputation Management online is not as tough as one would imagine and can be broken down into four solid pieces. Monitor, Listen, Response and Amplify.
Monitoring:
a starting point to online reputation management is for businesses to proactively monitor conversations happening about them. Automated keyword searches can quickly reveal the topics and themes that customers (and competitors) are talking about. Companies often feel overwhelmed in the beginning due to the large volume of content on the internet. But proper configuration and tweaking of keywords can help tremendously.
Listening:
A business needs to separate the noise from the real conversations taking place on social media about their products or services. The real conversations can be separated into two distinct categories; those that are actively talking about your business, and those that may warn of a storm on the horizon. The latter category requires you to listen carefully and diffuse the storm before it gains strength.
Categorize and separate these conversations into those that need “immediate attention” and those that require “active listening.” This allows time to prepare and to strategize ways to diffuse a situation before the conversation turns into an ugly rant against your company or brand.
Listening requires a careful plan of action with a fine balance between coming across as over protective and defensive and simply monitoring your reputation.
Responding:
An effective response to ameliorate crises is an art using social media. You don’t want your communication to sound like a well honed PR message. Social media users are highly aware of this and astroturfing ( a term referring to political, advertising, or public relations campaigns that are formally planned by an organization, but designed to mask its origins to create the impression of being spontaneous, popular “grassroots” behaviour) by companies or organisations
People complain on social media channels because they are not satisfied, and they are usually hoping for a resolution. Always be sympathetic, and put yourself in the customer’s position. This does not mean that you should allow a customer to take your brand hostage while they are ranting against your company. However, responding means first analyzing what went wrong and how you can make it right.
Amplifying:
A critical piece that companies often neglect is to amplify the positive actions the company took to satisfy the angry customer. Use social media to let the world know that your company goes to great lengths to satisfy their customers. Amplification of positive experiences with your brand or services goes a long way in the social media world. This amplification is not just leaving a comment behind but finding strategic, meaningful ways to communicate to the rest of the world. This is the art of social media.
These are some of the high level strategy pieces that a company or organisation can employ to manage its online reputation.

Managing your reputation

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BP's good name and profits go up in flames

Reputation management is the essence of any public relations, which is – funnily enough – all about managing relations with the public!

Managing you or your organisation’s reputation may not seem much of a priority when things are going well. However, when things are not going so well or your business experiences some kind of issue or crisis – then reputation management will take on a lot more importance and significance.

One only has to think back to the hammering BP took over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill to see how fast and how bad your reputation can suffer.

While, rightly or wrongly, BP has borne – and continues to bear – the brunt of the fallout and negativity for this environmental disaster.

Two other companies – Haliburton and  Transocean – who were arguably just as responsible, but did not suffer the same public or reputational damage. So how come BP suffered so badly and the other companies escaped relatively unscathed?

That is the million – or in this case billion – dollar question. I suggest it was more a case of good luck than good management – and the fact the media focus was entirely on BP – that Haliburton and Transocean did not take the reputation battering the oil giant did.

Now I am sure that BP would have had in place a vast public relations team with communications and crisis management plans coming out if its ears, but it still got whacked. Why? I am sure BP has asked itself this and has done PR audit after audit to find the answer.

However, I reckon it all comes down to the simple answer of perception. Early on in the crisis – rightly or wrongly – BP was percieved by the public and media not to be doing enough. And in the battle of public relations – perception is reality. 

Once people started believing that BP was not doing enough to stop the flow of oil or minimise the envionmental impact, that was when the BP’s reputation and name started to suffer. 

The company was also not helped by the actions – or inactions – of its then chief executive Tony Christie. He quickly became the personification of BP and his much quoted: “I want my life back” quip, as well as pictures of him sailing his boat on the pristine waters of the Isle of White while oil continued to pour into the Gulf only caused more damage.

Christie was portrayed in the media as a modern day Nero. But instead of playing the fiddle while Rome burnt, he was off sailing with his buddies while sludge and oil was runing livelihoods in Louisiana. Any slither of hope for restoring BP’s reputation with the US public was gone.

The simple lesson for managing reputation out the BP crisis – or any other – is that you or your organisation’s reputation is won or lost in the hearts and minds of the public. If you lose this early on – then you are always gong to struggle.

However, if you are shown or perceived to be taking action, doing all you can to remedy the situtation and front fotting things, then you are less likely to see your reputation suffer as much.