Online reputation management is exploding as an industry. As it has grown, so have its components, such as social media management and search-engine optimization, as well as reputation monitoring, which has become much easier to execute thanks to the renaissance in Big Data. There are reputation advisers, branding companies and crisis management firms announcing reputation management services, reputation monitors, global brand and reputation managers at mainstream and public companies, and SEO companies rolling out new reputation management tools.
Venture-capital funded online reputation management firms are preparing to go public. Mainstream PR firms are approaching firms such as this one to explore partnerships and buyouts.
As the fifth anniversary of Reputation Communication’s founding approaches in June (the fourth of our incorporation), this is an appropriate time to revisit the essentials of online reputation management and look toward the future. As the industry continues to expand, it will divide into niches. There will be an increasing need for specialization within online reputation management services. The more you understand them, the better the choices you can make for your organization – or for yourself. So follow these posts in coming days and weeks to learn what you need to know.
You can also follow us @reputationnews for a bird’s eye view of reputation management issues and resources that impact the highly specialized practice of online reputation management.
As Lizzie Widdicombe’s recent New Yorker article about Vice Media illustrates, YouTube has become the most important social media platform for reaching teens, 20- and 30-somethings.
It is also a major communications outlet for mainstream companies like Toyota, whose YouTube channel has attracted over 47 million views.
YouTube is even being used by conservative financial industry firms as a way to share documentary-style videos about how they benefit the world…in part to warm up frustrated consumers. So if you lead a business, political or philanthropic organization, The Woman With 1 Billion Clicks, Jenna Marbles, Amy O’Leary’s New York Times Style article, is illuminating.
Jenna Marbles is a 26 year old comedian who creates low-tech, self-deprecating, profane videos that teen-age girls find hilarious. Her viewers include future deciders of American political races, major purchasers of consumer goods, and our next workforce. If that audience is important to you or your organization, watching a couple of her videos is a good way to gain more insight into it…and into social media.
In the WSJ article, The New Résumé: It’s 140 Characters, Rachel Emma Silverman and Lauren Weber explain why Twitter is increasingly used as a recruiting tool. They also provide examples of how job seekers are using Twitter to attract positions.
Those who appeal to recruiters have creative, succinct descriptions of their skill set, often accompanied by short videos. According to Silverman and Weber, firms place value on the number of quality followers job seekers have, with 1000 considered a solid number. Their sidebar with tips on using Twitter in job searches, and podcast about how companies are using Twitter to recruit, provides invaluable information for job seekers.
The piece exemplifies how and why online reputation management (ORM) encompasses image and branding, and why it is important for everyone. The ORM industry has expanded far beyond its early beginnings as a tool for pushing negative information down online. With the majority of research about individuals and organizations now conducted online, social media offers everyone the opportunity to shape their online image to support their goals. Job seekers have many free online resources to help them master and utilize the social media tools that can help them add value to companies seeking employees with those skills.
Vala Afshar, chief marketing officer at Boston network-infrastructure firm Enterasys, is one convert quoted in the article. He used Twitter to recruit for a new position at Enterasys.
“I am fairly certain I am going to abandon the résumé process,” he said. “The Web is your CV and social networks are your references.”
The fast-growing market for buying fake Twitter followers has become a big one.
In this Bits Blog post, technology reporter Nicole Perlroth explains why. That you can buy 1,000 Twitter (fake) followers for $5 goes to show how many social media statistics are iffy. Social media has no barrier to entry: anyone can write, post, share and follow. Even the experts find it hard to detect fake followers from real ones.
This week the Securities and Exchange Commission ruled that “postings on sites such as Facebook and Twitter are just as good as news releases and company websites.” Some companies, like Dell and eBay, already use Twitter in conjunction with more traditional methods to deliver news and updates to investors, but the SEC’s decision could be a game changer for corporate communications and the ways in which shareholders get investment information.
Driving a Potential Surge in Business Communication
“With this news companies are likely to communicate more via social media and encourage investors to follow them on these new platforms,” says CNBC’s Julia Boorstin. “This could drive a surge in business communication and activity.” Jeff Corbin, author of Investor Relations: The Art of Communicating Value, told Boorstin that the SEC’s decision highlights “the importance of channels such as Facebook and Twitter to the way average individuals now communicate,” and Howard Lindzon, founder of Stocktwits, echoed that sentiment. “A press release on Yahoo finance—who reads that anymore?” he told Reuters’ Emily Stephenson. “You’re going to read news on your Facebook stream, your Twitter stream. The industry is changing, and it was a matter of time before it was going to be regulated.”
Implications of the Ruling
Content strategist Ryan Northover explored the impact it could have on the social media landscape for Social Media Today: “It means platforms like Twitter and Facebook will become networks where literally trillions of dollars in investment decisions will be made, beyond the trading desks and Bloomberg terminals of millions of money players across the world.” It’s impossible to predict the exact effects that the ruling will have, but companies would be wise to follow the SEC’s lead. With the right resources, strategies and content, social media may very quickly become the key way companies connect with shareholders. Many shareholders will become late adapters to social media; more companies will need social media managers; and more mainstream communication platforms will become less dominant.
Teddy Wayne’s New York Times essay about Justin Bieber is about under-age performers and their lack of a childhood. It is also about the media landscape that many millennials have grown up in. An excerpt:
“One reason Mr. Bieber has captivated our attention, beyond his talent and charisma, is that, alongside Mark Zuckerberg, he is the paragon of the millennial celebrity. Born in 1994, he has hardly known a world without broadband Internet, smartphones, social media and digital imagery (and, yes, public apologies by celebrities through those same conduits). He has exploited — and been exploited by — these tools to great effect, currently ruling the Twitter roost with more than 36 million followers…”
It is insightful reading for CEOs and managers at companies becoming more active on those platforms.
Authenticity has emerged as an important online trait.
“We live in an age when people are moved less by spectacle and more by what they consider to be actuality—what feels real,” Michael Drew writes on the Huffington Post. Andrew Potter, author of The Authenticity Hoax, takes it one step further, attributing our quest for authenticity to “a world increasingly dominated by the fake.”
While the new emphasis on it may be a reaction to factors like the ambiguity of reality television and the ubiquity of plastic surgery life, concern for it can be found in all areas of contemporary life. It could have been a factor in the selection of the new pope, who’s been called “humble, authentic and credible.”
The Struggle for Truth
Authenticity is certainly a desired trait, but it is also an elusive one. As described by Muhlenberg College professor Jeff Pooley: “The best way to sell yourself is to not appear to be selling yourself.” Meghan Daum explores this issue further in an LA Times opinion piece on authenticity in politics, distinguishing the dictionary definition from what she calls “aw, shucks authenticity.” The key takeaway? Trying to be authentic, strictly speaking, isn’t really authentic at all.
Entrepreneur and author Seth Godin offers a more useful definition. “Authenticity, for me, is doing what you promise, not ‘being who you are,’” he says. “As the Internet and a connected culture places a higher premium on authenticity (because if you’re inconsistent, you’re going to get caught) it’s easy to confuse authentic behavior with an existential crisis,” he adds.
When an engine fire left Carnival Cruise Lines’ Triumph drifting in the Gulf of Mexico for several days last month, the story swept across social media, even causing the hashtag #cruisefromhell to trend on Twitter.
As the Triumph disaster unfolded in real-time, Carnival’s response demonstrated how social media can be an important asset during such a crisis. Carnival did many things right. But the company was too slow in launching a social media response, most notably on Twitter. That crippled Carnival’s opportunity to participate in the social media discussion from the moment it started.
“Well aware of the potential fallout, Carnival Cruises’ crisis team has sprung into action,” AdAge’s Rich Thomaselli wrote on the same day that the Triumph finally reached port in Mobile, Alabama. Thomaselli observed that Carnival “has been consistently updating its Facebook page, which has more than 2 million likes” and “is also using two Twitter feeds (@CarnivalCruise and @CarnivalPR) to issue updates.”
The Groundwork for Success
Crisis expert Melissa Agnes said that the company “did a thorough and sincere job at communicating with their audience throughout this crisis on their social media channels.” Social media expert Allison Matherly even heard about the incident for the first time from Carnival’s lengthy statement on Facebook. “It put out the facts and needed information,” she writes. “In fact, I didn’t feel the need to read about the situation from another news source.” Carnival, Matherly observed, is “not only being transparent about the situation, but they are actively talking about it.”
Without such an established online presence, Carnival would likely have found itself in a situation not unlike the Triumph, stranded and powerless in a sea of viral outrage. This event is an excellent example of why it is important to have an extensive social media structure in place before a crisis hits.
Room for Improvement
Carnival did many things right, but some saw ways the company failed to capitalize on the full potential of social media. Carnival “could have turned its Triumph crisis into a social media success, but it did not,” according to Skift’s Samantha Shankman. She points out that the company’s “Twitter account didn’t kick into high gear until Thursday, four days after the Carnival Triumph engine fire” and, after the ship reached port, “both Facebook and Twitter went silent until Tuesday, February 19.” The Build Network expressed a similar perspective: “Loved ones monitoring social media for official updates from the company found radio silence on Facebook and Twitter.”
In a CNN opinion piece, David Bartlett, a senior vice president of crisis and issues management and strategic communications firm Levick, offers some good advice on how Carnival could have done a better job. In addition to showing that it was sincerely concerned and working to fix the problem, Bartlett says, Carnival should have “aggressively and clearly deliver these messages now, and for as long as it takes to restore the public’s trust.”
What Else Could Carnival Have Done?
The media focused far less on Carnival’s social media response than on the anger tweeted, posted and otherwise shared by customers and the general public. That could have been different. As The Build posted in a sidebar to their piece:
“Imagine if the Triumph crew had posted video of people spontaneously helping one another aboard the distressed vessel? Would this have changed the conversation about Carnival during the crisis? Yes.
“Online video has already become one of the most powerful tools in the crisis manager’s arsenal, yet many fail to fully realize the real-time ability of video integrated with Twitter to break through a crowded online conversation,” writes Dallas Lawrence, chief global digital strategist for Burson-Martseller, in a Mashable blog post. “The question every crisis manger should be asking today is this: If you had a significant crisis occur on a Friday evening, how long would it take you to shoot, edit, and tweet a video response?””
