Reputation Management TSA Style

I came across a fascinating story on Michael Gray’s blog blog about the TSA and how it used its blog to refute a passenger’s story.

Nic, is a 28 year old freelancing writer who has a 16 month old son. On her blog last week, Nic a post called “TSA Agents Took My Son”.

Her post detailed a parent’s worst nightmare; in that she was separated from her child:

My son was taken from me.
Taken.
My son was taken from me by the TSA agents at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson airport yesterday.

Now when you read the post, you can empathize with Nic. No parent wants to see their child taken away from them, especially by a “government official”. Anyone who has flown since 9/11 can tell a story about dealing with the TSA at an airport.

This is usually where the story ends. Expect it doesn’t because the TSA, which has their own blog (who knew!) decided to respond to Nic’s post, complete with video!

From the TSA blog:

TSA works daily to achieve the balance of effective security and passenger convenience. We diligently review claims of improper conduct. But when inaccurate passenger accounts are made either via media outlets or on the blogs, TSA works to resolve them and present both sides of the story. In this case, TSA has made the decision to post the CCTV video of the incident online to allow for transparency.

After watching the video footage, you’ll see the video clearly shows that this individual was never separated from her baby by TSA. You’ll also see that a lot of the other claims are also unfounded.

The TSA followed several rules of success reputation management

• By having a blog already in place, the TSA was able to quickly jump into the conversation that was happening online.
• If there is bad news about your company or brand, you can either remain on the sideline and let others dictate what is said about you, or you can jump into the conversation and share your side of the story, to make the coverage more balanced.

David Wilson

I have been in providing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services to clients for the last 8 years. I believe that SMO is where all the online services are going to converge over the next 18 months.

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