The Basics of Social Media Reputation Management

In the world of online marketing, few things can do more damage to the reputation of a company than word of mouth.  Unlike traditional advertising and managed customer service, word of mouth is difficult to control.  In fact, with the rise of internet news and blogging sites, it can ruin years of work and millions of dollars in advertising almost overnight.

While crown of bad reputation management belongs to Dell Computers, courtesy of Dell Hell, there have been a host of other well-known companies with problems of their own, among them Chrysler, Honda, Kenneth Cole, Taco Bell, and United Airlines.

Dell Computers

• Dell was notorious for horrible customer service, which got progressively worse as the company grew.  When Jeff Jarvis, a well-known blogger posted his own negative experiences, which Dell initially ignored, the phrase ‘Dell Hell’ went viral, branding Dell to this day.

Honda Automotive

• Honda unknowingly had an overzealous manager posting great reviews about their cars, only to be discovered.  The deception reached national media, and despite Honda apologizing, the damage had been done.

Kenneth Cole

• Kenneth Cole made a tweet about the Arab Spring revolutions in Cairo that was intended to be humorous.  It was not well received, with Twitter reporting about 1,500 negative comments an hour on his tweet.  Cole deleted his tweet days later, but the damage had been done.

Progressive Insurance

• Progressive publicly sided with the driver responsible for the death of a woman.  Posts from grieving family were responded to with automated tweets, prompting thousands of customers to switch or avoid the insurance company altogether.

Taco Bell

• Taco Bell taco shells were licked by an employee, who then posted the photo online.  In no time it went viral and was picked up by national media.

United Airlines

• United Airlines broke the $3,500 guitar of musician Dave Carrol, yet refused to acknowledge his complaints or compensate him for his loss.  Following this the musician created a music video, and blogged about the experience.  This prompted thousands of other disgruntled travelers who had similar experiences.

Each of these companies could have more effectively managed their online reputation, minimizing or eliminating brand damage, yet they either failed to observe critical components of online reputation management, or ignored them entirely.  Following each of these cases the companies took steps to get their online reputation back under control, but the damage had been done.

Other companies, such as Target, have learned from the mistakes of their peers, creating vibrant and engaging social media campaigns.  In fact, of all major companies, they have one of the best online reputation management teams, known for interacting with and rewarding customers.  They built this team by following basic guidelines that are applicable to any business.

First, they performed a company-wide audit to identify potential trouble areas that could leave the business vulnerable to mismanagement or customer backlash.  This included the areas of internal communication, website SEO strength, and social media.

Internal Communication

• This is the most critical aspect of reputation management, online or otherwise.  Information needs to be disseminated to employees at least as quickly and accurately as it is spread on social media platforms.  This is for a number of reasons.
  • First, employees need to know what company policies are concerning reputation management.  In particular, what actions are and are not acceptable
  • Second, if customers are contacting the company for information, company representatives need to have at least as much information as the customer.  If they do not, the company will appear disconnected, and customers will lose trust.
  • Third, customers who lose trust will further fuel negative social media, exacerbating any problems.

Website SEO Strength

• This is another critical area, as the site for a company should be at the top of any web search for that company.  If not, then other companies or agencies are poised to spread disinformation, or worse, messages opposite of what the company is attempting to provide.

Social Media

• Social media can be viewed as the root of all evil, or the saving grace of a company.  It all depends on whether the company is proactive or reactive.  In the case of a reactive company, social media will be a nightmare to manage.  This is why it is important to be proactive, as in the example of Target, and build a loyal customer base through social media.  There is no better insurance for potential future reputation management crisis prevention than adoring fans.Also think about a company like Apple.  If someone posts something incorrect or negative about the company, their fanatic customer base will immediately come to Apple’s defense.  When your customers are loyal enough that they are helping defend your reputation, it will be much harder for you have your image tarnished by a negative story.

Now that you’ve taken stock of your communications channels, the next step is to build a strategy that will promote positive brand interactions.  When this is in place, it allows the company to build trust among their fans and social media groups.  By building trust, a company is in a much better position to perform damage control and compartmentalize any critical issues that may arise.  This is accomplished through a combination of monitoring and reporting, maintenance, and follow up.

Monitoring & Reporting

• Knowledge is power, and knowing what your customers and critics are saying about your company is critical to successful reputation management.  Unlike most other areas of a company, reporting from social media is a 24-7 job, and depending on your company, it can go from concerned to critical in a matter of hours.  Because time is so important, being informed will mean the difference between success and failure.  You need to make sure you’re in a position to react to a potential problem quickly, and that means knowing what people are saying about you at all times.

Maintenance

• Social media, much like language, is an ever evolving and dynamic platform.  It requires constant maintenance, updates, and a consistent message throughout.  In order to be properly maintained, the systems at play need to be thoroughly understood.  Much like maintaining an exotic sports car, it requires an intimate understanding of the machine.  Make sure you have a person or team of people that you trust regularly updating and refreshing your social media presence.

Follow Up

• Making sure to follow up on any customer interactions you have is key.  This is no different than a follow up call after a meeting, lessons learned after a major project, or a simple check up on an existing client.  They are all forms of follow up.  Online, however, failing to meet accepted standards of follow up can result in one client complaining to all of your other clients.  Then, any other clients you missed will also complain.  Much better to keep on top of things, and instead receive praise for your excellent follow up and attention to customers.

Now that you’ve audited your communications channels and established an ongoing social media strategy, you can create a crisis management plan.  This simply involves providing instructions for mobilizing your social presence in the event of a negative story getting out, identifying key roles and the staff to occupy those roles in a crisis, and augmenting your plan with online reputation management tools, like Trakur, Google Alerts, TweetBeep, and others.  For more details see the post How to Build an Online Crisis Response Plan.

In principle this is no different than creating a fire evacuation plan for your building, identifying people to monitor and track employees at their rally points, and installing a fire monitoring system.  The only real difference is in how you carry out the plan.

Just remember to identify the problem, immediately respond in a positive manner, demonstrating control and awareness of the problem, while indicating that a solution is being worked on.  From there, those personnel who have been tasked with responding and reporting can begin their part of the work.  A well carried out plan can turn a potential crisis into free exposure, and win new clients, provided that you are prepared and have the right team in place to handle the situation.