How do you protect your reputation online?

Larry Borsato — Thu, 29 May 2008 08:16:19 -0700

A large insurance company in my town is looking for a Manager of Social Media. The job summary caught my attention:

Reporting to the Director of Electronic Communications, the Manager of Social Media will lead the Company's social media efforts from a communications and reputation management perspective. Candidate will focus on building and protecting Sun Life Financial's reputation online.

A scant few years ago, reputation management would have been as simple as sending a press release out to major media outlets. Problem solved.

With the democratization of the web, average folks can use blogs, wikis, and forums to make their thoughts known, while Google captures them for all eternity. And a major problem is created for your company.

So how exactly is the Manager of Social Media supposed to do his or her job? Actually, there are several methods.

There is, of course, using denial when an issue blows up. For example, Comcast once insisted it did not block Internet traffic. This had better be true though, because people will check, and it may then be followed by the contrite "oops".

There is also the anonymous comment approach. When I noted that my ISP, Rogers Communications, was caught inserting content into third-party web pages, I received the following anonymous comment (from a Rogers corporate IP address):

It was just a pilot program to test a notification system. Relax!

Of course that didn't do much to improve its reputation, though the company eventually issued a statement that it was testing a method of communicating with customers. Strangely, its sales and billing departments have no problem communicating with me already.

Some companies have resorted to negative search engine optimization (negative SEO). A site with a negative review can be made to look like a link spammer, causing Google to lower its ranking, a technique referred to as "Google bowling".

Reputation Defender, a reputation management company, prefers the technique of creating and optimizing positive content about its clients, in the hope of pushing negative results further down in rank so they are not as noticeable. It refers to this as "Google insulation".

There is the tried and true method of using ad hominem attacks, calling into question the reputation of the critic. Or you could just buy the commenter’s silence.

And as a last resort, a DMCA takedown notice can be sent to the ISP hosting the negative comments, though news of this kind of action tends to incite further negative comments.

When it comes to defending your reputation, online or otherwise, there are two simple guidelines I like to follow. I'll call them Borsato's Axiom and Borsato's Corollary.

Borsato's Axiom: Don’t do anything dumb.

Borsato's Corollary: When you do something dumb, and you will, admit it quickly, take responsibility, and fix it as best you can.

After all, there are a lot of people watching on the Internet, and negative news spreads fast. But people appreciate honest companies, and if I've noticed anything it’s that positive news from those companies can spread just as quickly.

Larry Borsato has been a software developer, marketer, consultant, public speaker, and entrepreneur, among other things. For more of his unpredictable, yet often entertaining thoughts you can read his blog at larryborsato.com.