All posts by Reputation Communications Staff

About Reputation Communications Staff

Reputation Communications Staff

Reputation Communications' staff of writers, editors and researchers contribute to You(Online): The Magazine.

Social Media, , , , ,

Twitter first introduced verified accounts back in 2009 as a way to stop celebrity impersonators. Since then, the significance of that blue checkmark has grown and evolved. Let’s take a closer look at this feature, which started with a lawsuit by St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa. It promises to become more important in the future.

The verification seal is intended mainly for “highly recognizable public figures,” and celebrities like Katy Perry and Justin Bieber still have the most popular verified accounts. But a study from last April found that “64 percent of all verified profiles are for users who do not work in music, television, government or sports.” By verifying so many users who are beyond the mainstream public spotlight, Twitter has eschewed red-carpet exclusivity in favor of a broader designation based on its own criteria. But as an invite-only privilege entailing special perks like filtering options and analytics (recently made available to everyone), a verified account has emerged as its own unique and coveted status symbol.

Lessons learned

Whether you’d like to join the @verified ranks or not, the advice that Twitter gives to this select group of users can provide helpful guidance for anyone interested in managing and strengthening a reputation through social media. In his fascinating walk-through of the verification process, blogger and technologist Anil Dash describes how Twitter imparts “a few bits of advice on how to be a good tweeter,” such as using hashtags, photos and detailed descriptions, live-tweeting events, and actively engaging with followers. It also encourages users to “increase trustworthiness by following other verified users.” Dash thinks that such lessons “should probably be incorporated into everybody’s Twitter experience somehow,” and he’s right. Anyone who uses Twitter regularly has surely encountered tweets that could have benefited from the tips mentioned above.

The verification process

Twitter generally sends invites to profiles they consider eligible for verification (though it might be possible to prompt an invite).

A verified account carries both advantages and cachet, and is worth acquiring. As the number of verified users on Twitter and other social media platforms increases, it will become a more critical emblem for establishing trust and legitimacy.

Twitter’s official FAQ page on verified accounts urges those seeking verification “to continue using Twitter in a meaningful way,” but it also offers an alternative for establishing credibility without a blue seal: “Linking to your Twitter profile from an official website is the easiest way to confirm the authenticity of your Twitter account.” You can further enhance that authentic image by using your real name, crafting a professional and representative profile, and making your tweets original, interesting and media-rich. That, after all, is what’s most important. As About.com VP Matthew Knell told CNBC last November, the focus should be “on sharing valuable content rather than on being considered ‘an influencer or an icon.’”

 
 
Google, , , , , , , , ,

Links to five New York Times articles have been removed from some search results on European versions of its search engine to comply with Europe’s “right to be forgotten.” The Times reports that Google recently informed them of the action. This excerpt provides an example of what is being removed:

One Times article that is being shielded from certain searches in Europe is a report from 2002 about a decision by a United States court to close three websites that the federal government accused of selling an estimated $1 million worth of unusable Web addresses. The complaint named three British companies, TLD Network, Quantum Management and TBS Industries, as well as two men who it said controlled the companies: Thomas Goolnik and Edward Harris Goolnik of London.

Links to such articles continue to be available in the U.S.  The full article can be read here.

 
 
Online reviews, , , , , , ,

Customer reviews on sites such as Yelp and Angie’s List have long posed major challenges to companies in industries like retail and hospitality. But now—especially with the advent of Google My Business— customer review sites reach every industry, and are a potential concern for every company.

How your company lands on review sites

If your organization is listed in public telephone directories, information about it is most likely published on a variety of content aggregators as well as on consumer review sites like Google My Business. Those sites often make the decision for you. In some cases, you often can’t opt out.

There are numerous consumer review sites on the Internet. Many work to maintain the integrity of their forums, but often their primary interest is in driving reader engagement—not protecting your company’s brand. The more businesses they have listed, the more visitors they attract.  The more clicks they receive, the more advertising revenue the site can charge.

Fortunately, there are steps you can take to ensure your business is represented better on review sites. The most proactive is using a review management service.

What review management services do

Review management services work by monthly subscription. They provide clients with a dashboard where they can monitor over numerous online review sites in real time as well as with aboveboard methods to invite customers to review your company or services.

As positive and legitimate reviews come in, you can amplify their exposure by publishing them on many online platforms after establishing a profile about your business on them. This does not prevent negative reviews from appearing on review sites. Instead, it simply posts the reviews you choose to emphasize on social media and review sites—providing an effective counterbalance to reviews that may be biased, or have low credibility but high visibility.

Review management services also work to make your company’s website more visible to search engines. A key way of improving a website’s SEO (search engine optimization) is to increase the number of highly ranked sites that link to it. By allowing you to easily create profiles for your company across many review sites, review management companies also allow you to create many such inbound links from high-ranking platforms.

Review management sites aren’t right for every business.  Many companies do not have storefronts and do not actively market their services and products to widespread groups of consumers.  They are less likely to utilize review management services and more likely to remain detached from the online review space.

If your business would benefit from taking more control over your brand, though, it is a service worth looking into.

Related reading: How to Handle Bad Reviews

Naveen Gupta, CEO of Birdeye, on Managing Online Reviews

 
 
Crisis Management, Internet Legal Issues, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Recent revelations about widespread hacking of celebrities’ accounts tell us a lot about the current state of online privacy and security.

While Cameron Diaz fairly called the hacking a “major violation” and Emma Watson noted that the reaction to the leaked photos has been even more disturbing, Kim Kardashian zeroed in on another important point. “I think it’s a big wake up call for people to make sure they have every privacy setting,” she told the BBC.

Steps to safety

Navigating the online world is part of our everyday lives, but the terrain can still be treacherous.

Despite the unwelcome attention, hacking victim Jennifer Lawrence has managed set a great example. By confronting the issue head-on, “she turned what could have been a minor embarrassment into marketing gold, reinforcing her own celebrity-brand values and differentiation,” writes Wall Street Journal columnist Gregory J. Millman.

Many tech companies have been reluctant to restrict questionable content such as the recently leaked photos (because of both free speech concerns and the valuable traffic they can bring), but there are signs of potential change. “Twitter, YouTube and others may ultimately decide to take a more active approach to policing user-generated content,” observes the New York Times’ Mike Isaac, and Facebook just introduced a new “Privacy Checkup” feature to help users manage what they share and with whom. Such steps might help, but for now the forecast for online privacy remains the same: cloudy with a chance of embarrassment.

 
 
Online reputation management, , , , , , ,

OUCH!, the security awareness newsletter from the SANS Institute, covers the basics of encryption in its August edition. OUCH! is the world’s leading, free security awareness newsletter designed for the common computer user.  It is available in multiple languages.

Check prior editions for information on email security, malware, safe social networking, and many other topics relevant to professionals and Internet users.

SANS is one of the world’s leading sources for information security training and security certification. It also develops, maintains, and makes available at no cost, the largest collection of research documents about various aspects of information security, and it operates the Internet’s early warning system – the Internet Storm Center. Other free SANS resources include the weekly news digest (NewsBites), the weekly vulnerability digest (@RISK), and more than 1,200 award-winning, original information security research papers.

 
 
Social Media, , , , , , , , , , ,
Trolls are profitable for many websites

Online “trolling” isn’t a new phenomenon, but it has grown alongside the prevalence of comment sections and social media, according to the New York Times’ Farhad Manjoo.

“As long as the Internet keeps operating according to a click-based economy, trolls will maybe not win, but they will always be present,” Whitney Phillips, author of This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things, tells Manjoo. Wired’s Laura Hudson recently offered a similar assessment, and back in 2011 Forbes.com contributor Larissa Faw zeroed in on the crucial reason why many websites haven’t done more to combat trolls: “They undeniably drive traffic.”

Websites like Huffington Post and TechCrunch have struggled with this issue, and Twitter has promised to do more, but it’s telling that some of its users have started taking things into their own hands through apps like Block Together. As Manjoo points out, “unless social networks, media sites and governments come up with some innovative way of defeating online troublemakers, the digital world will never be free of the trolls’ collective sway.”

The New York Times has since hosted an Op-Ed page discussion, The War Against Online Trolls, featuring multiple points of view. On Gizmodo, Ashley Feinberg explores the subject in depth: How Twitter Could Beat the Trolls, And Why It Won’t.

 
 
Online reputation management, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

As we discussed in March, Wikipedia was considering an amendment to its terms of use that would require more disclosure from editors that are paid to contribute to the online encyclopedia. Now the Wikimedia Foundation has made its intentions even more clear. “We are reinforcing that paid advocacy is not welcome,” spokesman Jay Walsh told the Wall Street Journal’s Jeff Elder in an interview following the announcement of a new executive director, Lila Tretikov. A closer look, however, reveals that this issue still has many nuances.

One major impetus for the proposed changes was Wikipedia’s clash last year with Wiki-PR (an unaffiliated agency). Offering editing as a service, the agency has attracted major clients such as Viacom and Priceline. Last October, when Wikipedia banned more than 250 editors that it suspected were being paid to promote clients, Wiki-PR was the most visible firm associated with those allegations. It even received a cease-and-desist letter. In a January interview with Business Insider Wiki-PR CEO Jordan French offers a much different perspective. While pointing out that Wikipedia’s current terms of service don’t specifically address paid editing, French says that’s not the only way his firm helps clients:

There’s no reason to directly edit. We’re helping people with other ways to do it. [We are telling them things like] here are the editors and other people you should talk to solve whatever the problem is.

A Complex Issue

Wiki-PR’s experiences reflect the complexities surrounding the practices that fall under the umbrella of “conflict-of-interest editing.” “The act of accepting money or rewards for editing Wikipedia is not always problematic,” states current Wikipedia guidelines. But “paid editing for promotional purposes, or paid advocacy editing as we call it, is extremely problematic,” according to former Executive Director Sue Gardner. A FAQ accompanying the proposed amendment, however, acknowledges that “it is hard to solve the problem of paid advocacy editing without accidentally discouraging good-faith editors, like the various GLAM (gallery, library, archive, and museum) projects.” And even the practices of such institutions as “Wikipedians-in-Residence” have been called into question. 

Wikipedia’s Conflict of Interest Guidelines

The encyclopedia’s own “Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia” entry provides a helpful overview of the issue. It mentions the open-ended “Ignore All Rules” policy, which some have used to defend questionable editing practices. The entry also covers specific incidents, such as Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales making edits to his own biography in 2005. “If you see a blatant error or misconception about yourself, you really want to set it straight,” he explained at the time. But “people shouldn’t do it, including me,” he maintained. Wales struck a more serious tone after the Wikimedia Foundation fired one of its employees for engaging in paid editing this January, saying that he “very very strongly condemn[s] such editing, and this is no exception.”

In an op-ed for The Daily Dot, management professor Dariusz Jemielniak argues that “paid edits from officially registered PR accounts would more likely adhere to the rules and serve the purpose of developing Wikipedia.” The new disclosure requirements in the amendment under consideration could make that possible, but the Wikimedia Foundation sounds eager to quash most forms of paid editing, not institutionalize it. Still, Jemielniak seems certain of one thing: “Paid edits do and will take place on Wikipedia. Just ignoring this phenomenon will not make it go away.”

 
 
Branding, Social Media, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

If you want to learn how to become an Internet celebrity, please continue reading. If you don’t care about becoming a celebrity but want to learn  more about how social media works, same thing. If you work in business, traditional media, the non-profit world or politics and your goal is to reach as many people as possible in the most persuasive, cost-effective way, New York Magazine has provided you with an essential resource.

“The Weird Wide World of Internet Celebrity,” New York‘s informative guide, is a step-by-step, how-they-did it view of how (mostly) ordinary people have used social media to deliver a message, attract huge audiences and sometimes monetize that visibility. The cover story features several different people who have become famous (and often well-paid) by using mostly free or low-cost Internet tools to entertain or educate vast audiences. Most are teenagers or in their 20s.

It is a definitive guide to how social media works in terms of publishing original content and attracting audiences. Equally important, it illustrates why millions of teenagers and other consumers have turned away from traditional media outlets and replaced them with the Internet and their smart phones.

Many people continue to be on a learning curve regarding how social media works, why it is so popular and what the social media culture responds most enthusiastically to.  If you are one, you won’t be after digesting this useful guide.