Reputation Management

Between iPhone tracking, PSN hacking, Facebook fine print, and elected officials getting caught with their pants down, the ever-apparent privacy concerns that come with engaging social media have perhaps never been more exposed. The public at large is becoming more and more concerned about the guarantees of their digital privacy. Meanwhile companies and corporations are doing everything they can to harness the social networking age to better target their buyers and users. It’s an interesting series of events, with different perspectives and different motives driving a social drama that might come to dominate the history of our time: which pieces of personal information are private, and which aren’t?

If you were one of many who were getting annoyed by the Google Suggest of your name being saddled with “scam”, fear not for the latest Google tweak could be eliminating those “scam” woes.

With many consumers searching for information regarding your company they would generally click on the suggested scam phrase and eventually it would push it up to second or third on the list of suggested terms.

The change in Google Suggest will merely eliminate it from suggesting the term but will not eliminate it from the search engine results page. Individuals can still search “your company scam” and have a page of results pop up involving this phrase.

Yesterday I write about a hotel in Blackpool England that threw guests out after they gave them a bad review online.

So it was brought to my attention that the hotel was responding to the negative reviews on TripAdvisor and I wanted to check out what they were saying. Here is a sample of the hotel’s responses:

Management response from
max256, Manager
Im quite sure this person did not stay at the hotel as it has jus been refurbished and our service and facilities provided are to a very high standard and provide added value for all guests. I think the only stench is the one comming from this persons fictional storys. It is really quite sad that they haveing nothing better…

A hotel in Blackpool England threw a couple out of their hotel after accusing them of leaving a bad review on TripAdvisor.

According to the Blackpool Gazette, the manager of the Golden Beach Hotel asked Adrian Healey and his girlfriend Sherrie Andrews to leave two days into their paid, three-night stay, after storming into their room and accusing them of writing an online review. The manager then called the police to escort the guests off the property.

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.

There is a really interesting strategy being played out on Facebook and Twitter by Sarah Palin that Politico wrote about this weekend. Regardless of what you think of her political views, Palin’s social media strategy is worth looking at.

Think back to earlier this summer when the national health care debate was all about the so-called “death panels.” The conversation started in a large part because of two widely-publicized Palin Facebook posts.

So if someone writes something negative about you on Twitter how should you respond? Should you:

a) Ignore it
b) Contact the person directly and see if you can work something out
c) Sure them for $50,000

I your answer was c then you must work for Chicago’s Horizon Realty!

I came across a post on Podcasting News about how Horizon Realty, a property management company, filed a $50,000 libel lawsuit Monday against a former tenant, Amanda Bonnen, over one of her alleged Twitter posts.

In today’s world, it’s not enough to just have a web site. Or be #1 in Google. You need to have your finger on the pulse – and know what people are saying about you and your brand. Because on today’s internet, what you don’t know CAN hurt you.

Five years ago, you could have lied, cheated and stolen from your customers – and probably still stayed in business. Sure, some of them would tell their friends or other potential customers they might know, but there would always be someone willing to buy. Your customer’s ignorance was your bliss.

American Airlines has been in the news a lot recently because of the cancellation of thousands of flights due to mechanical troubles. What has been interesting is watching how AA have approached this PR nightmare. AA first step in conjunction with its PR agency of record, Weber Shandwick, was to immediately initiate a major crisis-communications plan.

AA Crisis Response

  • Immediately issued a press release to drive passengers to the advisory section on its website for updates
  • Communicated with frontline employees so they were prepared to deal with questions from travelers
  • Proactively and reactively worked with media through its news desk

I recently had the chance to ask search engine optimization expert Aaron Wall about reputation management and how to use different social media tools to “squeeze out” negative references from showing up on the search results page. This was a topic that Aaron had written about in the past and I am grateful to Aaron to take time to answer my questions