Online Reputation Management: Where the Web Meets the Road

Terry Boothman

Originally published in the Rochester Business Journal, 2009

“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” -- Mark Twain.

What might Twain have said if he knew that one day that lie could navigate the world in less time than it took to light his cigar?

Twenty of its employees become disgruntled over Acme Company’s refusal to grant them performance bonuses. They bash their employer in a series of anonymous blogs and, to twist the knife even further, set up a dedicated website, www.acme-is-cheap.com. They are vocal and creative enough that the imbroglio is picked up by the news forums and a few social media sites. Then it gets worse: the search engines pick up the posts. Acme is pained to learn that a Google search on their corporate name brings up not only www.acme-is-cheap.com but also nine other listings linked to the offensive pages. The negative listings come up over their own corporate messages. Suddenly, it seems as though the bad news is everywhere—and, in a real way, it is.

While the names in this scenario were changed, the case is real, drawn from one of our accounts. In fact, the actual problem was much worse. Businesses are rapidly discovering that the viral in “viral marketing” can be applied with a vengeance in reputation trashing. It has been observed that, if your business has a high enough profile, someone is talking about you at almost any time. A single web posting works its way into those pesky search engines at light speed, and anyone, anywhere, can find it. Enter “Bill Gates reputation” in Google, and the top listing includes, “. . .Gates' reputation was further sullied by a series of major antitrust actions brought both by the U.S. ...” Not that Gates is worried, but imagine the search was on your name.

A reputation can be assailed for any of number of reasons: a former partner is unhappy about a deal gone bad, an terminated employee bears a grudge, a business wants to deflate its competition’s standings, a consumer is unhappy about a purchase, a patient wants to publicize a gripe against a doctor, a political activist wants to bring down the opposing party’s nominee. The list of real examples is lengthy, and there are as many motives as there are means. Those ”means” include not only blog postings, but also actions as cynical as false reviews of a company’s products or a malicious gossip campaign.

Both the upside and downside of the Web is that everyone has equal access. That’s good news for the average user, but when someone acts anonymously to vent anger or frustration, or out of a selfish commercial motive, the damage is hard to contain. An offending Web post may be false, but businesses can’t devote the time or money to argue their case. Defense of a claim can merely inflame the issue. Most businesses simply want the problem to go away as quickly as possible.

In an effort to curtail the damage, the first recourse is the corporate lawyer. Your counsel or a good cyberlaw firm can issue cease and desist orders, or, if there’s a real legal issue like trademark violation or libel, pursue litigation. But legal remedies may not apply to cases where the law is fuzzy or the issue is not really a legal one. (Is it illegal to use your competitor’s name in a string of invisible HTML code?) And, all too often, you simply can’t identify the source of the offensive postings. The Internet, for better or worse, does preserve anonymity.

It all depends on the company, the circumstances, the stakes. But consider that “reputation” is becoming
something of a commodity. Enterprises such as eBay, Amazon, and Shopping.com rely heavily on “CGM,” consumer generated media, those little reviews that appear below the product listings. Political and editorial blogs are commanding respect, and in order to stay current, the search engines have become sensitive to news outlets. In the online world, we rely on each other, and, like it or not, we tend to trust the last thing we read.

As has been said about the Net, unbridled access to information comes with a cost: the decline of critical thinking. Adept online players will have to assess the risk of leaving things to chance versus the cost of a calculated approach. For those who take it seriously, reputation management may become a standard part of the business plan. To quote Warren Buffet, "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently."

Terry Boothman is Director of Online Brand and Reputation Management at
www.onlinereputationmanager.com

Comments to terry@onlinereputationmanager.com