I had been meaning to post on this for a while, and recent news provides the opportunity.
Online reputation management is more than a public relations issue. With social media and even mobile media, a company is never far from the public eye. It’s not just the brand that’s at stake either, there are the products, and even the executives that are an extension to a brand.
Besides the press and social media, you also want to keep an eye on the search results for your product or brand names in search results. Brand SEO? If someone were to google the name of your product or brand, are you content with what they might see on page one?
For a simple start plan you can do right away, you can keep an idea on news or buzz on your brand starting with Yahoo Alerts and Google Alerts for quick notification. For online reputation management, social media monitoring or online branding tools can provide other signals that could help you put out a fire before it reaches the media and spreads.
Tools for monitoring social media can include Twitscoop or monitter, or more comprehensive options like trackur or radian6.
The recent oil spill disaster is terrible to say the least. It’s also become an interesting example of how brands might (or might not) participate in the discussion, and precautions they can engage in.
BP has been slow to deal with their online reputation management, and while I’m sure they’re busy (or not…), they made a smart move today.
In order to take some control, BP has started a search marketing campaign and is bidding on phrases like “oil spill” or “gulf disaster” in Google and Yahoo.
In the words of a BP spokesperson:
To Make It Easier for People to Find Out More About Our Efforts in the Gulf and Other Ways to Help
It’s been suggested that BP is spending upwards of $10,000 a day to maintain the top spots.
One strategy that public relations prepares for clients in advance for events that can harm a brand or organization is called crisis management. It’s an action plan that allows for a quick response should a situation occur. Borrowing from this concept, we present the Online Crisis Management Plan.
The first step is to create a team to carry out certain tasks. The team should have each others contact info for both home and work, so if there was any kind of crisis, they can maintain communications regardless of where they are. All team members should also have a access to the plan at all times. Such a plan usually includes senior management. The team should have roles defined of what actions are to be taken, and a designated spokesperson to handle media inquiries. The spokesperson should not be the CEO. The purpose of such as plan is to protect the reputation of the brand.
Should an issue come up that requires attention, prepared statements communicated immediately show your company is aware of the situation and provides the greatest opportunity to control events. Having a news release partially prepared in advance is also recommended so that it can be completed and issued as quickly as possible.
Example:
A ___________________ at ____________________ involving __________________ occurred today at ________________ . The incident is under investigation and more information is forthcoming.
Add additional details and the standard boilerplate below.
To be prepared, its important to have pre-conceived possible events and positions taken on each. Some of these might be human error, unauthorized procedures, quality issues, privacy issues, misuse of confidential information and more. It’s also wise to address what things can be mentioned by employees on other sites.
Other materials for online use that can be prepared in advance could include documents like fact sheets in case the media requests them. Having an online media room on your website, even in the simplest form, can alleviate the burden of putting it together when needed most, and time is of the essence.
You might also consider having incident specific websites ready on standby, to be uploaded at a moments notice. These can prove to be excellent tools to prevent or mitigate damage from your online brand.
You might wonder why you wouldn’t just add a section to your existing website. Its recommended that you take fast action, but also distance yourself in some ways. Should someone search your brand or company name in the future when things have cooled down, some of those links could be displayed below the search results for your company. You wouldn’t want to search your company name and find below your listing a series of negative stories from various media outlets and bloggers. Its easier to deal with if you create a site that is a separate url.
Also, like BP did, create accounts for search marketing to drive search results to your minisite for consumers to find out more.
With a search plan in place, social media mayneed to be addressed at sites like youtube, twitter, facebook, and similar places where you might already engage with customers. A social media risk management plan is essential to online reputation management, and focusses on one aspect.
This is far from comprehensive for any kind of Online Crisis Management Plan, but if it happens to sparks some ideas, motivation or direction to draft your own, our work here is done. Hopefully you’ll never need it.
Last but not least, always tell the truth. The goal is to protect reputation, but part of that includes maintaining credibility.
