Every day, it seems, another major American brand experiences a crisis. Despite a large and experienced industry of experts that fix them, they don’t seem to be going away. Last fall the CEO of Microsoft became one of many corporate leaders to unwittingly create one.
Why are so many CEOs stumbling in the diversity department? The problem often starts internally. Statements and actions by CEOs and other leaders portray them as out of touch with the people their companies target as consumers. Outrage ignites online, goes viral, and then lands on prime-time news. CEOs and boards are surprised over the impact of their actions or statements. They are often puzzled as to why a backlash occurred at all.
If you are a CEO, there are several steps you can take to ensure you don’t become the next target of online backlash. The first is to understand why these crises are happening so often and what they share in common.
My recent Forbes.com piece, The Most Successful CEOs Embrace Customer Diversity, sheds light on the problem. How else can CEOs incorporate a more well-balanced blend of diversity within their corporate cultures? Conduct a search for #diversity and you will find plenty of suggestions.
Pharmaceutical giant Sanofi has been in the news recently. It is investigating whether its international affiliates may have made improper payments to doctors. But thanks to some excellent crisis management, headlines are focusing on how Sanofi is handling the issue instead of on possible wrongdoings.
I contributed to this piece, published today on The Wall Street Journal’s website, that examines Sanofi’s response in more detail. Other major pharmas, including Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline, have faced similar issues. Sanofi, however, has distinguished itself with a proactive approach to reputation management.
These situations serve not only as examples of how crises unfold in the Internet age. They also illustrate a type of problem that can be difficult to avoid in a global economy: in other countries, payments we would consider bribes are seen as simply a cost of doing business. International industry has not found a way to resolve those cultural dissonances…but Sanofi has demonstrated one way to manage the crises they produce.
The explosive growth of the Internet has dramatically changed the demands of reputation management. The manipulation of search engine results—what used to be considered the central activity of ORM firms—has lost its utility as search engine algorithms have grown more sophisticated.
The National Cybersecurity Institute Journal has published my new paper addressing this topic. “The New Demands of Online Reputation Management” provides an overview of the leading online reputational threats faced by companies in the United States, as well as an explanation how such events unfold, the motivations behind them, and how they can be protected against and resolved.
A few weeks ago I attended the S.H.E. Summit, one of a growing number of women’s empowerment conferences recently highlighted by the New York Times. A variety of factors have fueled this trend, but one major catalyst is the increasing influence of hashtag activism, especially in the corporate world.
A 2011 Guardian article about Occupy Wall Street was the first to use the term “hashtag activism,” but writer Eric Augenbraun’s wariness about “breathless claims about the birth of a new form of technology-based social movement” is still shared by many today.
Speaking at S.H.E., MSNBC host Krystal Ball challenged those reservations. She highlighted numerous examples of how social media activism has had a real impact on women’s issues, including a successful campaign to get an offensive plastic surgery simulation app removed from the iTunes store, a project that has crowdsourced sexual violence data in Syria, and the online outrage that forced Lululemon to replace its CEO. “Even when it’s just sparking a conversation through a hashtag, I think that’s important,” Ball said when talking about #YesAllWomen. And hashtags have certainly sparked quite a few conversations recently.
Hashtag Power
While introducing Ball, S.H.E.’s Margaret O’Brien White’s quoted a recent Forbes piece by Susan McPherson, “Empowering Women and Girls, One Hashtag at a Time,” which compiles a wide range of noteworthy campaigns. “This is truly the breakout year for driving awareness on women and girls’ issues through hashtag activism,” McPherson writes. Millennials and the LGBT community have already made waves in this arena, but women form a majority on social media, and the collective power they can wield is becoming increasingly clear.
As the Lululemon and other crises have shown, that power can effect a change at the highest levels of corporate leadership. “Leadership is about feeling that you are the owner of your own experience and future,” McKinsey & Company’s Joanna Barsh remarked in another S.H.E. Summit talk. As more and more women realize that fostering this sense of ownership on social media moves them toward similar empowerment in the real world, the momentum is only going to pick up.
How Corporate Leaders Can Navigate this Growing Movement
How can corporate leaders navigate this growing movement? Follow the conversations I’ve referenced here as they continue to develop, including #hashtags on Twitter. Stay aware of the key issues concerning women, especially those regarding employment opportunities, the lack of women on boards and the glass ceiling that continues to face many. 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.
CEO Mary Barra has not been able to stop GM’s crisis. But her 2.0 crisis communications skills are an asset to GM. They can be judged by the transparency and skill with which she handled the recall catastrophe on the Internet.
Barra’s communications strategy incorporates multiple digital media platforms. She has used these channels to respond to the crisis with a strong and genuine message. In addition to harnessing social media like Facebook and Twitter to connect directly with customers, she has also addressed the recalls in a series of videos, a USA TODAY editorial, and even her commencement speech at the University of Michigan earlier this month. CEOs can learn much from studying her playbook.
Felony extortion charges were recently filed in Dallas against a man who purported to provide online reputation management (ORM) services, but threatened to undermine a client’s reputation as a way of demanding payment. It isn’t the first such incident. The episode highlights the unregulated nature of this industry, and some of its dangers. While protecting and managing one’s online reputation is becoming increasingly vital for businesses and individuals, it’s necessary to proceed with caution and discretion when seeking help. Read more
Some companies offer to remove explicit photos or phony reviews from websites like Google Places, Yelp and Angie’s List—a promise that is often impossible to keep. Even Yelp itself has faced (unverified) accusations that it “filters out positive reviews and allows negative ones through, particularly if the restaurant in question has refused to purchase advertising,” according to Eater.com.
How to Avoid Such Practices
How to avoid such deceptive practices? Be sure to focus on trusted and verified sources when researching a firm with a specialization in online reputation management. We offer helpful advice in, How to Hire the Right Online Reputation Management Firm.
I encourage consumers to check the provider’s online information to see if they address your specific goals and are experienced in servicing your sector. Evaluate whether they specialize in a niche – including your area – or are generalists. Understand what ORM is and whether the goals you want addressed are possible – or can be guaranteed. If not, make sure you know what to expect.
Be Wary of Guarantees to Remove Content
“If an ORM company contacts you directly offering to delete or eliminate a bad review or demote the review for $X dollars, don’t take them up on the offer,” advises interactive media agency Small Screen Producer. It is very unlikely they can make such content simply disappear. Instead, ORM firms focus on reducing the impact that negative or misleading information from third parties will have on your online image. Such strategies can include moving down unwanted content onto lower pages. But it can return to prominence within weeks if continuous maintence is not applied.
In a world of waning industries, online reputation management is booming. So are consumer misunderstandings about what the practice entails and what results you can expect.
Vice-President Joe Biden has joined Instagram, the photo and video sharing service with over 100 million users. His first photo, shown below, won high praise from the media.
Now, 24 hours later, he has over 50,000 followers. In addition to sharing his photographs, they are amplifying his presence by discussing him online (and off). Sample comments posted on his Instagram page include:
the vice-president’s first picture is epic
Love the Ray-Ban aviators, sir!
Cool VP
Biden’s stepped-up social media presence indicates the first of many strategic moves to come from the Democratic Party as they prepare for 2016.
“Twitter is an opportunity. Facebook is an opportunity. To say what you feel. To try to pick people up. To try to be positive. To try to add something to society. To let people see you transparently. You cannot be defined if you’re on social media by someone else. You will define who you are, and if you’re negative, that’s your fault. But here is who you are. If you are negative, it will come through. Five years of being on twitter and facebook, are you gonna lie for five years? You are who you are. But we’re trying to tell those kids, you build your brand or you break your brand down. You are who you are through social media.”
A Master at Online Reputation Management
With NCAA violations blemishing his past success at UMass and Memphis, and critics accusing him of exploiting the NBA’s “one-and-done” rule to win his first national title in 2012 and lead the Wildcats to this year’s final, Calipari has certainly had his share of controversy. Through that, it’s been clear that he is shrewd and effective at managing his online reputation.
Since joining Twitter in 2009 (right around when he took over at Kentucky), Calipari has averaged 4.6 tweets per day, according to his account’s statistics on Socialbakers. “I give out information, I’m transparent to our fans,” he explained on ESPN Radio’s Mike and Mike. “I tell them how I’m feeling.” He gets help from CoachCal.com editor Eric Lindsey, who “oversees Coach Calipari’s social media platforms.”
Adept at Using Social Media to Build His Brand
Such candor has helped earn Calipari praise as “NCAA’s last honest man,” but it’s not the only aspect of online reputation management that he’s been adept at harnessing. He also recognizes how celebrity can bolster his brand and recruiting power, as he demonstrated while attending his friend Jay-Z’s concert at Barclay’s Center in 2012. “Calipari didn’t hesitate when it came to letting his 1.2 million Twitter followers know about his backstage pass to the concert, tweeting out this picture of himself in front of the stage,” Rob Dauster observed in a Sports Illustrated piece.
Even Calipari’s comments about social media above seem to be part of “selling his program,” as Dauster points out in a recent NBC Sports article. Calipari understands that the premier young players that are key to Kentucky’s success view social media not as a “waste of time,” as Pitino argued, but as a normal part of everyday life—and something they’ll need to know when they make it to the NBA.
