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?

Central to the corporate desire to use your Facebook profile and other deposits of your personal information dispersed across the web is the power of truth. In particular, detailed truth. It’s not enough to wait for the quality-of-service-check emails to get sent back. Companies want to pretty much know everything they can about us. It helps them market to us better, which in turn allows us to continue to be satisfied with the bargains we get and services we use. That’s why Apple doesn’t mind figuring out a way to know where you are whenever you search for things without you knowing about it. They know they aren’t using your information against you, but instead are simply just trying to provide you with better products and service.

Central to public fear is of course the utilization of our private information in ways we consider in opposition to our personal beliefs. It’s not enough for a company or social network to say they won’t “be evil”, they must disclose what parts of our private lives are fair game and what parts aren’t. This is of course done in the manner of the disclosure forms we fill out. But the product or service providers dictate the level of privacy strictly on their own. We often count on watchdog groups and savvy journalists to uncover these violations in privacy ethics.

Surveys were once the ideal way to get this kind of information. Conducted anonymously, when spread across a wide enough of a demographic range they could prove very effective in getting truth willingly from individuals. The problem was of course finding success in getting a truthful sample of the consuming population to participate. This can be fixed, however, by the advent of paid online surveys. Market research companies that incentivize survey taking are more likely to grab hold of a more diverse sample of the public. If companies are able to get accurate samples from such surveys, their obsession with getting a hold of our private information will be reduced in fervor.

That’s because, despite much of our fear, the information these companies are looking for is oftentimes simply general data that doesn’t necessarily paint a vivid picture of “you”. They want to know your age, your geographical location, and other generic details they will pool together to devise large scale advertising campaigns, sales, and enhanced customer service. The tactic is only slightly Orwellian, reflecting more of a desire to perform better marketing techniques than create a personal advertising “master profile” of you as a consumer-at-large.

Surveys mean to create wide suppositions about consumer conduct do not alleviate the corporate compulsion to mine personal information for micro-targeted advertising. Concern should always remain on whether or not drastic action needs to be taken against an entity’s right to attain information that could be used to directly influence a single consumer’s decision making. Until then feel free to lend a company your honest personal opinions. It might contribute to a decreased likelihood of them mining after it.

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.

Reputation Managers everywhere are rejoicing for this tweak by Google which has eliminated many headaches. Google Suggest with “scam” as a result was hurting many companies and brands monetarily.

Unfortunately the headaches only end for searches involving “scam.” Google Suggest will still suggest “ripoff”, “scandal”, “lawsuit”, etc. While still a victory for online reputation management everywhere, there still a long way to go to exclude Google Suggest for other defamatory terms. It shouldn’t be long before Google Suggest will have to take a stand on terms involving accusatory or defamatory words.

What are your thoughts on Google censoring its Suggest results?

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…

Management response from
max256, General Manager
The hotel is vey child friendly with a games rooms just fo children so that parents can relax at the bar while children have their own space in a safe enviroment. The hotel has been newely refurbished and the new contemporary look is proveing very popular with all guests this reflected in many customers e visiting the hotel fequently.

Management response from
max256, Manager
It suprises me how some people can say such things knowing full well its is a complete fabrication. i am quite shocked and dissapointed that certain people can be so negative without any reason or foundation…shocking

Management response from max256, manager
(Management representative)
If it was os bad you should have checked out , all other guests where more then happy . If this guest truly felt so bad no one was forceing them to stay!!!

Amazing responses. Couple of things stick out to me here.

1. If you are responding to comments, run your responses through a spell-checker before posting them. Reading responses that are filled with misspelled words screams low class to me.

2. Don’t belittle your guests. For every guest that leaves a review there are multiples that had a similar experience that said nothing. Accept the feedback and move on.

3. Provide a timely response. While many of management’s responses were the next day, a significant number of them were up to a week after the guest had left a comment. To counter negative responses, speed of your response is vital.

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.

“We had been there a day when they said we couldn’t get back in our rooms because they were re-carpeting, and we didn’t complain. All we asked was if we could have an extra towel,” Adrian Healey told the paper. Then, on our second evening, he banged on the door and told us to get out, accusing us of writing a review on Trip Advisor, and said he would call the police. I was shocked when the police arrived, and we just agreed to leave. We asked for a refund but the hotel refused. I think it is shocking and people need to know about this.”

Blackpool police confirmed that they had been called to the Golden Beach Hotel to remove a man who had not committed a crime.

Now the Healey’s are not the only one who have not been impressed by the Golden Beach Hotel. According to their TripAdvisor page, 59% of its 167 online reviewers “do not recommend” this hotel.

Amazing story! It also shows the importance that hotels and motels are putting on property reviews left on social media sites like TripAdvisor.

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.

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.

The posts were immediately rebuked by Democrats and Palin’s response was very interesting. Instead of holding a press conference or sending out a press release, Palin posted her response on Facebook. The post, simply titled “concerning the ‘death panels,’” went up shortly before midnight on a Wednesday night. By late Thursday morning, a write up of her statement was on the homepage of dozens of national and local newspapers. The post also quickly became one of the most mentioned topics within the political blogosphere.

With 850,000 friends on Facebook and 140,000 Twitter followers Sarah Palin has established herself as of one of the most powerful social media brands in politics. And she is doing it without going through traditional media channels, which is something that a lot of small and medium sized companies are trying to do.

Think about her reaction to the firestorm he “death panels” posts created. Palin did not call a press conference or send out a press release in response, where she could not control the message. Instead she communicated directly with her “customers” through another Facebook post which resulted in the mainstream media going with her message. That is a very interesting tactic. Could this sort of tactic work for a consumer brand?

In short yes. Imagine a company that has had some bad press. Instead of holding a press conference or sending out a press release the company created a video which they put on YouTube, wrote about the issue on their Facebook page (and the video also) and then Tweeted about it. Now the company controls the message that the mainstream media will pick up and use. That is called Reputation Management 2.0 Palin style.

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.

Horizon argues that Bonnen libeled the company with her May 12th tweet, which read in part “Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon Realty thinks it’s okay.”

To compound things, Podcasting News has this quote from Jeffrey Michael of Horizon”

“The statements are obviously false, and it’s our intention to prove that… “We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization.” Michael added that the company has a “good reputation it wants to preserve.”

Horizon Realty is positioning itself as a a “sue first, ask questions later” kind of company. Wow!

The irony of the situation is that Amanda Bonnen had less than 25 twitter followers and practically nobody read her original tweet. But because of Horizon’s actions they show up first for the terms Twitter lawsuit.

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.

Today, however, that is completely different. People still talk. But they talk faster. And they tell more people. They can post something about you on the internet and tell everyone they know INSTANTLY.

And with social media sites like Twitter, not only can they tell everyone they know – but their friends can tell everyone they know. So within minutes, that message can be passed to thousands, even MILLIONS of people.

It has a far greater potential to ruin your business.

Most big brands don’t understand this concept. But now Motrin does. On a Saturday last November, as part of International Baby Wearing Week, they put out a commercial about wearing your baby. With the slogan “we feel your pain”.

Jessica Gottlieb was outraged. She started the conversation – and one of the most viral conversations to date.

By Saturday evening, the Motrin conversation was the most talked about conversation on Twitter. Even The New York Times blogged about it.

It took Motrin nearly two days to respond. They apologized and pulled the ad off their web site. Why didn’t Motrin know sooner? Why couldn’t they have fixed the problem within an hour?

Laura Fitton puts it best: “Maybe you’re not even ready for full-time social media monitoring. That’s your call. But not tuning in while you launch a new tactic borders on gross negligence, in this day and age.”

Not tuning in. It’s negligence. As Gary Vaynerchuk recently described it, “Twitter is word of mouth on steroids.” How can you not be listening?

The solution is simple. Reputation monitoring. It’s just one of many features in EasyTweets.

EasyTweets is an all in one Twitter marketing tool that allows you to promote your brand and keep your finger on the pulse. At the same time.

If Motrin were using EasyTweets, they would have received SMS and e-mail notifications within 15 minutes of Jessica’s first tweet. They could have seen the conversation, and responded quickly. Even on a Saturday. Even when all of their PR folks were out of the office. Even if they were asleep.

And they could have done something about it two days earlier.

EasyTweets allows you to track trends, get summaries of conversations by e-mail, and get SMS notifications when brand mentions exceed your desired threshold. You can keep your finger on the pulse, even when you’re out of the office.

In this day and age, you can’t afford not to. Sign Up For The EasyTweets Plus Plan

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
• Sent update e-mails to Advance members
• Compensated stranded passengers
• Continued to monitor feedback from customers, employees and media to keep stakeholders fully informed

Mike Flanagan, senior VP at Weber and agency lead on the American account in an Adage interview said the goal was to quickly convey two messages to its customers: what the situation was flight cancellations and how “we were getting them back in service,” followed by “letting customers know we would do everything to reaccommodate them.”

“We fly over 100 million passengers a year, and they are all important to us,” he said. “A large percentage of them fly with us exclusively, so the most important goal was to stay in contact and let them know what was going on. And we used every communications channel we have available to us.”

What I found most interesting was this follow-up quote from Flanagan.

“Mr. Flanagan said the airline’s strategy included some new plays, including monitoring blogs, as soon as the crisis started. “That was an important part of our strategy,” he said. “And we felt, in general, that the information was generally correct and balanced enough to where we didn’t have to get involved in the conversation. Some of the remarks were tough to take and on some blogs people were actually defending us.”

Interesting that AA felt the blogosphere was balanced enough that they did not have to enter the conversation. Were they correct?

Heather Hopkins at Hitwise had an interesting post on where people were going after visiting AA.com. And surprisingly consumers were going from AA.com to websites for Email Services, Social Networks and News and Media.

The American Airlines website asked customers who were inconvenienced by the canceled flights to send an email to request compensation. So seeing an increase in traffic of 13% to Email Services makes sense. What stood out to me was the 74% increase in traffic to Social Networking and Forums.

MySpace was the #15 website visited after AA.com last week, up from #30 the week before. Last week 1 in 30 visits to AA.com left to go to a social network. This serves as a good reminder that customers broadcast their experience to friends. How American handled the cancellations and how they continue to handle claims is sure to be broadcast online – and affect their brand.

MySpace is still thought of as a pre-teen and teen social network, but the amount of traffic going to MySpace from AA shows that this is not true. While AA might have been monitoring blogs, I wonder if they were on MySpace, Facebook and the other social networks listening to the conversation there?

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

Q: I read the post you made back in January “Fighting Off Negative Publicity and Affiliates in the SERPs” where you offered a large number of resources that are available. So where does a company start? Let’s assume that negative information about a brand or company has come out and this negative information has started to show up in the SERPS. From all of the options that you identified in your January post, what are the first 3-5 steps that a company should take and why?

Aaron: I think the first step is to have empathy for the person who is writing negatively about you. Is there any truth or logic to what they said? Does it seem like something where contacting them and apologizing might sort out the issue? Don’t contact them unless the apology is sincere. If you think they are a nutcase then no sense contacting them, skip on to the next step.

Do you have an “in the press” section? One of the easiest ways to bury negative information is to feature positive coverage on your site. Pages that were ranking #12 or #15 can jump up to the first page if they are linked to from an authoritative page on your website. And a natural extension of this idea is to hire a PR firm if you can afford to, and create press worthy content that gets mentioned in the press, then link at it from your “in the press” section.

Does your company have any logical reasons to have a subdomain? One for investors or business partners? Free tools, a forum, or perhaps video content? Most brands should own at least one strong subdomain, and more if it makes sense. Currently a search for eBay on Google shows a YouTube video and Wikipedia page on the front page of the search results. Everything else is from Ebay.com.

Q: A company can have information about its brand spread across multiple social media web sites. From an SEO perspective, how do they all relate to each other? If you interlink them all, are you not creating your own network and will this not cause you problems with Google at some point?

Aaron: If you are using 1,000 cheesy social sites to linkfarm across them it might not be the best way to use your time, but many brands are expected to have a Twitter page, a MySpace page, a Facebook page, and a YouTube page. In some cultures and languages there are other sites that are just as popular as the above 4 are. If you say “connect with us” and link to those sites from your official site then many brand fans may subscribe which will lead to lots of internal links from those authoritative sites promoting your brand page and helping it rank well.

Q: Somewhat related, but is there any SEO benefit to owning your brand name and/or company name across a wide variety of social media sites like MySpace, Squidoo, Delicious, etc?

Aaron: In the recently leaked Google quality review document they stated:

“it is not uncommon today for individuals to maintain various types of personal pages on the Web. Homepages, social networking pages, and blogs have become increasingly popular. Some individuals have more than one blog and/or more than one homepage on a social networking site (e.g. myspace, facebook, friendster, mixi). When these pages are maintained by the individual (or an authorized respresentative of the individual), they are all considered to be Vital.”

From that I would say that Google expects to see these pages rank for brand related queries, and it is a great idea to promote your brand on these sites. Some of the more well known sites are probably worth putting more effort into than the smaller sites for 2 reasons

• many of the smaller sites are inundated with spam AND many of the official brands do not exist on them (both of which make Google less likely to want to promote pages from those sites)
• the larger networks have more members, which puts your brand in front of more people.

Thanx again to Aaron for his time and insight on using the SERPs in fighting negative stories about your company or brand.