15 RULES FOR ONLINE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT

1. Conduct an initial landscape analysis of your professional and company reputations online: Take a 12+ month look back into online sources such as blogs, social  networks,  forums  and  chatrooms  to  benchmark  and obtain a clear understanding of what has been said historically about you and your company.

2. Monitor your digital reputation regularly and embrace SEO: Search  engine  results,  blogs  and  other  forums  can  help determine what exists  in  the public view since competitors, customers,  allies  and  the  media  are  making  split  second judgments about your and your company’s reputations. Make online  monitoring  and  search  engine  optimisation  (SEO) a  critical  element  of  your  ongoing  reputation management process.

3. Engage in the online community: Identify one or more passionate employees who can participate in the social networking arena on your company’s behalf.

4. Build reputation shield early on: Plant the seeds of genuine positive content or stories in multiple destinations across the web as soon as possible to create an enduring online reputation. Realise that journalists may be getting  their  reputational  intelligence  from  the  internet,  too. If a company delays  its efforts until a crisis unfolds or other negative news appears on the horizon, its reputation will not be  strong enough  to  repel  the flood waters  that can engulf and wash away years of strong performance.

5. Know when to respond online: Create a plan for incidents that takes into account all categories of issues: those requiring an immediate response, a wait-and-see approach and no response at all.

6. Get inline using all your media assets: traditional and online: Recognise  that  reputational  power  lies  in  using  all  available communications channels. Also,  the growing number of new online media sites and new technologies are only going to increasingly wreak havoc in the corporate world. The core of any successful public relations programme will be a combination of online and offline (“inline”), not one or the other.

7. Identify reputation threats early on. Plan for the worst-case scenario: Rule out any surprises and always be on your guard. Many companies now have, or need to consider building, a ready-to-launch  “dark  site”  that  can  be  activated  if  a worst-case scenario suddenly occurs. Remember, whoever  talks first  is in a better position to set the tone.

8. Endlessly listen to your employees: Listen and respond to employees before they potentially attack you  online,  intentionally  or  unintentionally.  Listening means more than fielding a survey or putting a suggestion box in the lunchroom. It means reviewing employee satisfaction surveys and exit interviews, and monitoring your reputation daily using key words  that can be searched on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. Turn your employees into advocates!

9. Multiply your bad news online by 100: Realise that once bad news reaches the corner office, it may sound like a whisper but it’s already a shout. You can take this news and multiply it hundredfold.

10. Don’t neglect industry discussion: Boards and blogs: Enlist  your  senior management  and  other members  of  your workforce  in  digital  boot  camp.  Ignoring  influential  bloggers and complaining customers causes reputational harm. Reach out  to  bloggers  and  posters with  solutions  to  problems with your products/ services.

11. Review your website as if you were a prospective customer or competitor: Road  test  the  user  experience  of  your  company  website  in terms of functionality, interactivity and transparency.

12. Customerise the online reputation of your products and services: Ask  for  and  respond  to  customer  feedback,  and  include customers in new product development. Boost your company’s credibility  by  including  on  your  website  negative  customer comments (excluding those that may be slanderous or similarly inappropriate) as well as positive comments. Use  technology to build consumer trust.

13. Accept your employee nation: Understand  that  employees  will  go  online  to  criticise  and praise your company—so prepare,  review and communicate your  corporate  employee  blogging  and  social media  guidelines. Online conversation will only increase in the years ahead as online conversation continues to heat up.

14. Be on the lookout for errant emails: Use  technology  to audit outbound email content and monitor text in webmail and other HTTP traffic. Also use technology to detect intellectual property that should remain within corporate firewalls. Regular employee training in electronic message liability and propriety must be enforced at all levels.

15. Find your online advocates. Prime the pump for badvocates: Create an ongoing dialogue with your supporters, fans and enthusiasts before problems spread via word-of-mouth or on the web. These brand champions are a company’s best defence against  badvocates,  whose  words  and  actions  detract  from
brands or products.

5 Reasons Social Media For B2B Is Not “A Fad In Search Of A Purpose”

Here are five reasons why social media is relevant to B2B now more than ever.

1. Search Is Becoming More Relevant – The user generated content created on social media platforms means that the Internet is becoming flooded with data everyday. With this continued influx of data comes the need for businesses to sort and find the most relevant information to them. Think about how often your employees use search engines for researching every day. Think about the most recent searches you have done. You probably remember seeing results for  a YouTube video, message board thread, or a blog. This is not a trend that will go away. Search will get much more social. If your business continues to print sales collateral and brochures and your only data online is a five page company Web site then you will we be lost in the mountain of search data and become irrelevant.

2. Social Media Helps Sales Staff Merchandise Information To Prospects – A battle that I have long witnessed in the B2B world is ensuring that communication with sales staff and the marketing team are open. Taking that a step further, many marketers have a difficult time providing their sales staff with materials that the sales team can leverage to close a sale. A big part of this problem has always been relevancy.  The tactic in the past has been to get a case study or feature article published in an important trade publication and then provide the sales team with reprints to discuss and leave behind with potential customers. This is a good thing to do, but it leaves a lot holes unfilled: How does the sales staff stay current on industry trends? How do they get customized information that is relevant to their customers?

Social media can begin to fill in these gaps.  An organization should set up a Google Reader account for each sale team member and include industry news, as well as a shared feed where the marketing team can instantly share new articles with the sales team.

3. Social Data Enables Better Customer Dialogue – The long standing belief by those in the B2B world is that relationships are paramount to the success of the organization. Social media is all about developing relationships and sharing information. So shouldn’t B2B organizations and social media be aligned with each other? Part of having and building good relationships is understanding what is going on in your customers’ industry, with its suppliers and even locally within its community.  I talked about the industry news part in my second point in this post, but what about the local community aspect?

Let’s say you are flying into Seattle for a customer meeting and it has been awhile since you have been in town. You need to know what is going on there and you need to know it fast. I have two free social media related suggestions for you. The first is to do a quick blog search for local blogs that discuss Seattle related events and news. I find that local blogs get to the meat of the issues in a more direct way than traditional media. Additionally you can sign up for a service like Near.ly which will e-mail you hyperlocal news links based on your Twitter location. This will let you zero in on information from where your customer lives and works.

4. The “My Customers Aren’t On Social Networks” Excuse Is Quickly Fading – This is probably the biggest argument against social media in B2B organizations. They simply say, my customers aren’t online, and for some companies this is true. I contend that more B2B customers are online than most companies are willing to believe. I know that I have seen this happen first-hand with B2B clients that start in social media only to realize many more of their customers are there then they originally thought. I would also contend that if your customers aren’t there now, they will be soon. And this is the perfect time to take hold of the online market for your industry. The cost of entry is relatively low and I would suggest establishing your web presence. Also begin to monitor social media with a tool like Radiance 6 to help prepare you for your customer’s shifting online behaviors.

5.  Without Adoption Of Social Media You will Lose The Talent War – Most of the business owners I have worked with declare that great talent is the key to their success. I am here to tell you that unless you start to evolve your views on social media the next generation of worker will not want to work for you. I realize that the economy is bad right now and it is currently easier to find good talent, however great talent is also a competitive market. The future generation, whether you like it or not, does not want to work some place where they have to print e-mails for you to review or can’t access Facebook or YouTube. These social tools are a part of how they research and facilitate relationships. The companies that adapt and grow with the changing online landscape will win the talent war.

I am sure that my five points have sparked some thought and disagreement with you. If so please take a second and provide your thoughts in the comments and I will make sure I respond to each of you.

Happy Earthday 22nd April 2009

Earth Day 2009, April 22, will mark the beginning of  the green generation campaign  which will also be the focus of the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day in 2010. With negotiations for a new global climate agreement coming up in December, Earth Day 2009 must be a day of action and civic participation, to defend The Green GenerationTM’s core principles:

• A carbon-free future based on  renewable energy that will end our common dependency on fossil fuels, including coal.

• An individual’s commitment to responsible, sustainable consumption.

• Creation of a new green economy that lifts people out of poverty by creating millions of quality green jobs and transforms the global education system into a green one.