The full impact of film executive Harvey Weinstein’s sexual harassment scandal is yet to be seen. But the collateral reputational damage is spreading to his associates, company, employees and, reportedly, some movie stars. Even a prominent lawmaker is not exempt.
Daniel Bukszpan of CNBC interviewed me and several other experts on this topic. “It is far too early to predict what outcomes will transpire from this crisis,” I told him. “It touches on many issues and has sparked a multifaceted conversation within and beyond the industry…one that has just begun.”
We have written extensively about the power of women’s activism when directed toward corporations and public figures. Now, we are seeing how such activism plays out 24/7. Stay tuned: there is more to come.
To gain insight into the forces that are playing into this issue, watch the livestream of this week’s S.H.E. Summit, taking place in New York City on October 19 and 20th. The annual conference is dedicated to “accelerating the global advancement of women and gender equality.” Gretchen Carlson is one of many speakers.
This week, The Wall Street Journal‘s “Crisis of the Week” column focuses on Equifax. An excerpt:
“The massive hack of personal information of around 143 million people has put credit-monitoring service Equifax Inc. in the crisis bullseye as the company contends with the legal, financial and reputational fallout. Cyberthieves swiped Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and driver’s license numbers, leaving consumers trying to figure out their next moves—and very unhappy with how Equifax was handling the situation.
“The breach is under investigation by the FBI and at least one state attorney general.
“Equifax issued a statement notifying the public about the breach on Sept. 7—weeks after it first learned of the incursion. It followed its initial statement with progress updates on Sept. 8 and Sept. 11. The company also is under pressure after Bloomberg reported three executives sold stock days after the company learned of the breach in late June, but NPR said Equifax said in a statement not posted on its website that the executives “had no knowledge that an intrusion had occurred at the time they sold their shares.”
My Wall Street Journal Analysis
My commentary inthat column uses the statements made by the company to evaluate how well it has handled the communications side of this crisis:
“Few firms possess as much detailed information about the financial and personal data of Americans as Equifax. That is why Equifax’s response to this crisis has been so disappointing. In tone, timing and execution, Equifax has failed to convey the gravity of its responsibility to consumers.Waiting one month to inform the public of the breach increased peoples’ risk of identity theft. Had they known sooner, their credit freezes could have been quickly put in place; now Equifax is overwhelmed with requests for freezes and its systems can’t handle them.
“The CEO’s short apology failed to resonate with consumers who now face the potential cost of protecting their data more securely. It lacked empathy and a sufficiently apologetic tone appropriate for the impact of this crisis. Equifax did the right thing in quickly creating a website to provide consumers with one year’s worth of free credit monitoring and protection and a $1 million identity-theft service. Only after consumers complained did Equifax remove the fine print requiring consumers who registered for the free service to waive their legal right to sue.
After that, two executives, including the security director, left the company–an important symbol of Equifax’s steps toward rebuilding its security system, albeit after the fire has destroyed the firehouse. What Equifax will do after its free credit protection services run out in one year is unclear. Millions of consumers will need protection for decades as a result of this breach and accommodating that need is a process the company needs to prepare for.”
I recently described online reputation management to a group of new acquaintances. This is what they had to say:
“It enables people to achieve the future they want,” observed a media executive.
“I had always thought of online reputation management as suppressing unwanted Google results,” said another. “Now I see it entirely differently. It is about positivity and being proactive about the story that Google tells about you. It is a major career development tool and establishes you as a leader.”
Online reputation management is a cutting-edge industry that enables you to shape the public’s perception of you and your organization by taking control of the story the Internet tells about you. That can entail anything from optimizing the order in which that information appears in a Google search to the creation of new content.
Your Challenge
One challenge for many professionals is the third-party content. You may be mentioned on blogs, consumer or employee review sites, legal reporting sites and high-ranking media outlets. Counter-balancing and replacing that type of content with new, positive and authentic material is an essential online reputation management (ORM) strategy.
Google prizes well-written content that is not duplicated elsewhere on the Internet. It can punish fake news, tricks and “black hat” strategies used in some ORM programs.
That is why using only ethical ORM and high-quality content is important. Our approach is to develop online messaging, blog and social media content, website creation, thought leadership and public relations strategies that are custom-made to support your image while attaining your online reputation goals.
Your Future
This month, while you envision the future you want for you or your company, assess whether your Google results are conveying the image you want the decision-makers in your world to see. Consider these questions:
Who is your audience?
How do you want to be perceived by them?
Is that how you appear when they research you online?
What future do you want to achieve?
If your Google and other search results are not delivering the image that supports your answers, I invite you to make a list of everything you want to create, change, or publish on the Internet. Then, contact us.
We specialize in working with executives, professionals, and their organizations. Our typical clients hold leadership roles in their industry, or are mid-level professionals actively building their careers. In addition, we have a long history of assisting VIPs and high-net-worth individuals with their online reputation goals. To learn more, visit Reputation Communications.
This post was excerpted from our September eNewsletter. It kicks off a new monthly series that will hit on every part of online reputation management and provide you with actions you can take to enhance yours. Please share it with your friends, and join our mailing list to receive future editions.
Social innovator and technology consultant Rachel Botsman is the leading global authority on the new era of trust. Her name often surfaces during conversations about the reputation economy. She’s an award-winning author, speaker, university lecturer and media commentator. Her specialism is an engaging and intelligent long-view of how technology is transforming human relationships and what this means for life, work and and how we do business.
A recent EUobserver article, Trust is ‘gold’ in digital age, quoted her on this topic. “Many parts of the world do not appreciate that trust is society’s most precious and fragile asset,” she said.
As early as 2012, she observed that we are at the start of the shift from trusting people more than corporations or government. She called for a measure for this new era, “reputation capital,” defining it as the ‘the sum value of your online and offline behaviors across communities and marketplaces.’ That year at the annual TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, she posed this question: “If someone asked you for the three words that would sum up your reputation, what would you say?”
Botsman has spoken of a time where you won’t need to answer with a traditional “elevator pitch,” or even a list of references or credentials. Instead, she sees “a future in which resumes and even credit scores are irrelevant, replaced by an aggregated digital reputation based on our interactions in the collaborative economy.”
“I believe we are at the start of a collaborative revolution that will be as significant as the industrial revolution,” Botsman told the TEDGlobal audience in Edinburgh. She has further explored such ideas as the co-author of What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption. Pointing to services such as the vacation rental hub AirBnB, errand outsourcer Taskrabbit and community-based learning marketplace Skillshare as examples of how “the old market principles of sharing, swapping and bartering” have been “reinvented for the Facebook age,” Botsman notes that “we have moved from sharing information and music online to transferring trust about how we get things done.”
She forsees an “age where reputation will become your most important asset” and “reputation dashboards” will provide “a real-time stream of who has trusted you when, where and why.” Botsman acknowledges that privacy would be a major concern and a simple algorithm or score wouldn’t suffice, but she still believes the outcome would be worth it: “When we get it right, reputation capital creates a massive positive disruption in who has power, influence and trust. Reputation data will make the resume seem like an archaic relic of the past.”
You may not realize it, but computer “bots” continually scan the Internet and collect your personal information…including information you don’t even realize is online. Like your address and phone number. It is scoured from such public records as online telephone directories, driver license bureaus and the local courthouses that maintain legal records of property ownership. That has an impact on your physical security as well as your privacy…especially if you are a high-profile CEO.
Losing Control Over your Public Image
Maintaining a low profile in business or in their personal lives is a longstanding tactic used by individuals with high professional positions. Minimizing the visibility that results from too many media interviews or too frequent a presence on social media prevents overexposure and can add longevity to careers. Many celebrities and industry professionals in all sectors have maintained their standing for decades because they — and their managers — have carefully ensured they never become overexposed.
Unfortunately, in the Internet culture, such tactics also means that there can be little online about them that they or their representatives have placed online and have control over. This means that whatever else is said about them online rises to the top of searches and stays there. When you are responsible for the majority of the factual information about you or your organization that appears on the first two pages of a Google search, you ensure that no matter what else is said, it is counterbalanced. When you don’t do that, you have lost control over your public image. It is far harder and more time-consuming to regain it than to establish it in the first place. As a specialist in online reputation management for “influencers,” including advising Forbes and Fortune 500 clients, many of the issues we have resolved for our clients result from exactly that situation.
If You Don’t Tell Your Story, Someone Else Will
Bottom line: telling your story is a vital aspect of managing the reputation of an individual or an organization online and off.
If you don’t tell your story, someone else will. Effective online reputation management entails “telling your story” online in an authentic way, then making sure that story appears in appropriate online platforms. Your story may be as short as you want it to be. If and when someone attempts to establish a different story, yours will provide a more factual and credible reference. If you are a high-visibility individual and your story has already been told, there are many ways to add a fresh page to it – or a new chapter.
Celebrities have a range of options to do so. With TMZ paying a reported $5,000 for tips and paparazzi following many 24/7, they face continuous privacy challenges online and off. That is a great motivator.
Google has just launched an attack on “fake news and problematic content,” including “rumors, urban myths, slurs or derogatory topics.” That is good news for anyone (and any organization) plagued by such issues. It is bad news for low-quality content, fake links and other tactics used to trick Google into suppressing as well as raising online content.
We like it. Now you, the consumer, can flag false, biased, offensive and inaccurate content that Google brings up on search suggestions. You can also include a note that explains why Google should remove it. Equally beneficial, the Internet can potentially become a fairer playing field.
Last week Danny Sullivan, a leading search engine expert, wrote the defining explanation of what this means. These are excerpts from his article on Search Engine Land :
Google knows it has a search quality problem. It’s been plagued since November with concerns about fake news, disturbing answers and offensive search suggestions appearing at the top of its results. “Project Owl” is an effort by the company to address these issues, with three specific actions being announced today.
In particular, Google is launching:
a new feedback form for search suggestions, plus formal policies about why suggestions might be removed.
a new feedback form for “Featured Snippets” answers.
a new emphasis on authoritative content to improve search quality.
“Problematic searches” is a term I’ve been giving to a situations where Google is coping with the consequences of the “post-truth” world. People are increasingly producing content that reaffirms a particular world view or opinion regardless of actual facts. In addition, people are searching in enough volume for rumors, urban myths, slurs or derogatory topics that they’re influencing the search suggestions that Google offers in offensive and possibly dangerous ways.
“These are problematic searches, because they don’t fall in the clear-cut areas where Google has typically taken action. Google has long dealt with search spam, where people try to manipulate its results outside acceptable practices for monetary gain. It has had to deal with piracy. It’s had to deal with poor-quality content showing up for popular searches.
“Problematic searches aren’t any of those issues. Instead, they involve fake news, where people completely make things up. They involve heavily-biased content. They involve rumors, conspiracies and myths. They can include shocking or offensive information. They pose an entirely new quality problem for Google, hence my dubbing them “problematic searches.”
According to Variety, “As soon as the New York Times story about Bill O’Reilly’s sexual harassment settlements hit on April 1, Color of Change began to mobilize.
The nonprofit African-American civil rights group sent an email blast to its 1.2 million members, calling on them to help ramp up a campaign to pressure advertisers to pull money out of Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor.”
The campaign was remarkably effective, hastening the withdrawals of more than 60 major advertisers from the top-rated hour in cable news.”
Clearly, social media is now the most powerful tool for activist groups to use on organizations whose behavior, they believe, merit boycotts.
In 2014 we experienced the power of hashtag activism: the response by activist group UltraViolet to the way the National Football League handled the Ray Rice domestic abuse scandal. In their criticism of the NFL’s actions, UltraViolet employed a telling combination of the online and off. During a recent game they hired an airplane to fly a banner over the stadium printed with the hashtag “#GoodellMustGo.”
With that banner, UltraViolet was able to very succinctly (and inexpensively) direct a tremendous number of viewers to an online community. They paired that effort with an online petition demanding that the NFL change its policies. Over 50,000 people signed it. And it worked.
As the Lululemon and other crises have shown, hashtag journalism can effect a change at the highest levels of corporate leadership.
How Corporate Leaders Can Navigate this Growing Movement
How can corporate leaders navigate this growing movement? Follow the conversations on social media as they continue to develop, including #hashtags on Twitter. Stay aware of the key issues concerning women. Those include employment opportunities, low minimum wages, the lack of women on boards and the glass ceiling so many face. If you’re a CEO, tuning in to these and related concerns will help you avoid becoming the focus of the next wave of hashtag protests (and nightly newscasts). It will also help ensure you avoid the type of online reputation crisis that can impact your brand as well as your company’s stock valuation.
In a statement circulated to the media, AAID President Dan Shefet stated:
“Benefitting from concrete experience with the implementation of the Right to Be Forgotten in Europe after almost 3 years – pursuant to the landmark judgment of 13 May 2014 of the European Court of Justice which consecrated the Right to Be Forgotten as embodied in the Directive 1995/46, replaced by the General Data Protection Regulation (Art. 17) – we have seen that the Right to Be Forgotten has allowed thousands of victims throughout the European Union to reclaim their dignity and their right to live a normal life unaffected by online exclusion from society.
Our European experience is very encouraging and we strongly endorse your initiative to allow New York State residents to avail themselves of the same protection.
We also support the proposed adaptation of the Statute of Limitations since defamation is of a continuous nature on the internet.”
Reputation Communications publishes You(Online) to help educate CEOs, C-Suite executives, rising stars and high net worth individuals about online reputation management.
Reputation Reboot addresses real-life online reputation management (ORM) challenges faced by CEOs, executives, VIPs and their organizations. Unless they are public figures, their names and related descriptions of all individuals and companies discussed are changed to protect their privacy. For a quick look at the types of situations facing many professionals, scroll down and check out the headlines.
Online reputation management enables you to take more ownership over what appears about you on the Internet.
Without it, the world controls how you look online.
Here are ten examples of the ways online reputation management is used by individuals, companies and organizations.
To ensure up-to-date and accurate information dominates search results for an organization or individual’s name.
To ensure that factual, credible reference material is readily available online.
That reduces the chance that fraudulent information will impact a brand.
To remove unwanted or inappropriate information, photographs or other content from the first few pages of Google search results.
To monitor social media and online forums for red flags signaling potential on- and offline threats against high-profile individuals and their organizations.
To create a strong online presence about a topic.
That presence acts as a barrier against potential distortions from third-party content, including anonymous and defamatory material. Without it, such items can go straight to the top of searches – and stay.
To ensure that your story is told by you and not by former partners or other potentially biased parties.
To establish a reputation within your area of expertise on multiple online platforms.
To create an online legacy for a VIP who is preparing for retirement or to exit an organization.
