It’s a sad fact that reputation management literature largely deals with the defensive aspects of the issue, such as responding to attacks and crisis management. But how about working ahead and being proactive in establishing solid goodwill between the company or institution you represent and its clients and stakeholders? Goodwill, after all, is capital that can be leveraged towards your objectives and mobilized in times of crisis. One of the keys to this in the 21st century, especially online, is tapping into the Gift Economy. Continue Reading…
Archives For public relations
My work on social media strategy and online reputation these past few years has repeatedly brought me back to one approach that holds great promise for bridging polarities and enabling collaborative problem solving around some of the world’s toughest and most controversial issues. Continue Reading…
Despite the title, I am not sending out this post just to be a shit disturber (though it is a role I have embraced with enthusiasm in the past). What I intend to do here is to provide a much needed reality check on the limits of online reputation management. Most articles on reputation management and digital branding focus on the form and quality of online corporate communications. However, even a seasoned communications professional will secretly admit that the best approaches only go so far when a client’s business practices, or core business itself, are widely viewed as problematic. Continue Reading…
As corporations adopt a peer to peer medium, they slowly learn that the multitudes out there are seeking interactions with other humans or, at the very least, interactions with a human quality to them. This, of course, is awkward for a large company that must speak for all of its employees with a single voice. It would be much more natural, and powerful, if corporate employees, each with their own social accounts, were to actively represent the corporate brand each through their own personal interactions online. Now, hold on there! You might say…This is a control crisis if ever there was one! And indeed there are concerns to address. Continue Reading…
In the previous posts of my Troll fighting series, I described some core damage control techniques for community managers when abusive behavior starts to show up on the sites or social media networks they moderate. These have included the need for solid House Rules as well as defensive tactics such as the Passionless Voice and the Hall of Shame. For those managing spaces where passions flare and it is important to maintain an open and respectful atmosphere, I feel a need to add prescriptions for a written Moderation Protocol. Beyond the House Rules established on most large discussion groups or social networks, the Moderation Protocol explains HOW these rules are to be applied. This is a must if you are delegating the moderation of your spaces to junior staff as missteps in applying rules, such as overzealous moderation or subjective preference of some points of view over others, can lead to damaging spinoff reputation issues for the host of the space.
