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.
Read more... (352 words, 1 image, estimated 1:24 mins reading time)
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. Read more... (358 words, 1 image, estimated 1:26 mins reading time)
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. Read more... (223 words, 1 image, estimated 54 secs reading time)
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. Read more... (514 words, 2 images, estimated 2:03 mins reading time)
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
Read more... (544 words, 1 image, estimated 2:11 mins reading time)
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 Read more... (771 words, 1 image, estimated 3:05 mins reading time)
When I ask a company how they monitor their reputation online the most frequent answer I hear is that we use Google Alerts. Google Alerts are ok, but they don’t give the complete picture about what people are saying about you or your company, and because they are email based, the information is difficult for multiple users within a department or company to use simultaneously.
Aaron Wall blogged recently about how you can use iGoogle or Google Apps to create a web site that allows multiple members of your team to easily track brand mentions on blogs and other active parts of the web. Read more... (162 words, 2 images, estimated 39 secs reading time)
Within an Investor’s Business Daily editorial last week was a great example of how to respond to negative information in blogs about your company. Reputation Management is an area of concern to many corporate executives, unfortunately many of them do not have plans in place to respond when negative news breaks.
Luckily microwave popcorn maker Pop Weaver did have a plan.
Back in September the Lighter Footstep blog wrote an article about the harmful effects of diacetyl, an additive in microwave popcorn that provides a buttery taste, the story started snowballing. The post was quickly picked up by pumphandle.wordpress.com, a blog that fashions itself as a water cooler for public health, and youarewhatyoueat.tv, which covers healthy lifestyles. Read more... (485 words, 1 image, estimated 1:56 mins reading time)
Last week’s reputation management post brought several emails about how to go actually go about implementing a reputation management program. With that in mind here are five steps that you can take to manage your reputation online (and control the search engine rankings also).
Create and manage a profile on all the major social networking sites
You do not need a profile on every social network, just on the more prominent ones. Reprise used 13 social networks and I think that is a good number to start with. Two things to keep in mind when doing this. One is to use the name of your brand/company/product as your profile name. The second is to make sure that the profiles are linked together to create your own reputation network. Read more... (475 words, 1 image, estimated 1:54 mins reading time)
You would have thought that after the public relations disasters that companies like KFC have had that most companies would have a reputation management plan in place, ready to get implemented at the first hint of negative news coverage. Well a new study by BtoB and Eric Mower and Associates shows that that is not quite the case. Fully 57% of companies surveyed said that they do not have any type of plan in place.
Of the 43% of companies that do have a crisis plan in place, over 10% worry about their ability to implement it, and only half have trained spokespersons. Read more... (434 words, 1 image, estimated 1:44 mins reading time)
