Reputation Management

Managing your organization's reputation is one of the most critical activities today and it's also labor intensive. You have to build the reputation, manage it, and, if anything bad happens, hope your hard work can recover it. This week's articles offer some ideas on how to protect that valuable reputation.

Did Toyota wait too long to address its safety issues? (Item #1)   The more positive your reputation before a crisis, the more likely you are to survive it. (Item #2)   If you don't control your brand online, someone else surely will. (Item #3)  

Who is your organization's Chief Reputation Officer? (Item #4)   It's critical to pay attention to what search engines tell your potential customers, members or clients. (Item #5)   The most important asset you have to protect is your organization's reputation. (Item #6)  

As always, we look forward to hearing your comments & insights regarding business continuity. If you have a topic you'd like us to cover, email me at [email protected].

Bob Mellinger, President
Attainium Corp

1. Et Tu Toyota? Iconic Automaker's Downfall Offers Tough PR Lessons

Reputation Management Rule #1: When something bad-large or small-comes to light relating to your organization, alert the media, put it up on your website, put it out on Twitter and all the other social media; disclose it before an outsider hits you with it. Do not listen to your legal department; do not worry about how it happened, or who is at fault; instantly move to make it right. Do the right thing!
http://bulldogreporter.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=53D88D74A99849C185183B336A3F3B02 &tier=4&id=FFCCC716F42F4C67ACC6F7D58343390F &AudID=213D92F8BE0D4A1BB62EB3DF18FCCC68

2. Establish a positive corporate reputation prior to a crisis

A company is more likely to survive a crisis and thrive in the marketplace if they have positive corporate values and that their best practices are based on demonstrated responsible behavior. Their brand's strength and the confidence of their employees are bound to a company's corporate reputation.
http://www.workplace-mag.com/Establish-a-positive-corporate-reputation-prior-to-a-crisis.html

3. Online Reputation Management Guide

Do you know how to assess, build, track and monitor your online reputation? The results of a negative online reputation may be as subtle as a user clicking on a competitor's search result instead of yours or as damaging as an industry-wide boycott of your products and/or services. In addition, there are potential legal ramifications that could dominate your time and cripple your financial sustainability, as well.
http://outspokenmedia.com/downloads/ORM-Guide.pdf

4. Chief Reputation Officer: Whose Job Is It, Anyway?

Senior executives who are responsible for reputation inside companies today are searching for ways to engage with multiple stakeholders in authentic and credible two-way communications, all the while needing to continuously build the business case/ROI for the things they do. CMOs undoubtedly bring strategic muscle to this game, built on a product- and service-branding model, but they typically did not grow up in the resource-constrained, highly complex world of corporate communications.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/26/reputation-officer-marketing-cmo-network-anthony-johndrow.html

5. Reputation Management Anyone Can Do

Reputation Management is going to play a very large part in the Future of SEO and everyone with a name or brand they care about needs to pay more attention to what the search engines are telling their potential customers. Google validates everything and if joe schmoe says you suck and it ranks in the top ten for your name, well then guess what? You Suck.
http://www.97thfloor.com/blog/reputation-management-anyone-can-do/

6. Protecting the Company Name and Brand

Marketing experts often have told corporate executives that a company's reputation is its most important asset and that it is critical to performance. Without successful management and protection of the corporate reputation, equity in the company can quickly erode in terms of stock price, customers and whether or not a prospective employee will want to work for the company.
http://corporate-marketing-branding.suite101.com/article.cfm/protecting-the-company-name-and-brand