This actually came up twice in the past 24 hours at New Media Nouveaux and again online via an internal friend’s post at Pownce. Personally, trying to bury the news or negative posts by following up with a flurry of “good” news , posts or other BS is a mistake. Online brand management doesn’t really work like that.
In the words of my more technical friend Technosailor, “Burying stories ignores the concept of metadata and that info on the net never goes away.” Further, even if you get away with it, the past will eventually catch up with you. Burying news is dirty, and once a community figures out a co/person is dirty, it’s over (think Halliburton).
Instead of burying news, companies and individuals should address issues very publicly and make amends. Online management is about transparency and honesty, including making mistakes and listening to the feedback, and then addressing those mistakes. Then use good news to rebuild trust.
People underestimate the good will people extend to companies or folks who make mistakes, admit them, and clean up their errors in a prompt, discreet fashion. This is a basic tenant of crisis PR (Tylenol, folks).
If companies/people are going to be very active online, they should just operate out of crisis PR principles all of the time instead of trying to control their image so much. Every time a company tries to control the message it blows up in their face. Nikon, Coke, jetBlue, Whole Foods, on and on. Control is a 20th century mass communications theory that’s out-dated. Transparency, participation and sharing valuable information is the 21st century model for PR, social media and marketing.
What do you and friends Eric, Ike, Kevin and Rich think? Going dark for the next 36 hours, so if anyone comments, please bear with the approval cycle.
Rich responded with a post: http://copywriteink.blogspot.com/2007/07/questioning-perception-geoff-livingston.html
We had 140 comments, and word press deleted them all when I tried to moderate. Sorry if anyone else commented, and Please repost.
This is an example of the disruption of technology.
You can’t just worry about “massaging perceptions,” because people don’t carry their data in their heads – they GoogleAskYahoo for it. Therefore, you have to have an answer for the allegations that you’ve somehow violated the promises you’re made to the public.
I’ve recommended answering such charges, but on space you control. Answering a critic on their blog or forum gives them the power to delete – or even worse, edit! The trick is to make sure *your* page shows up first. That entails copying verbatim the negative commentary to your site, and answering it there. A comprehensive section that has ALL of your criticism will shoot to the top of the pagerank – only in this case, you have the chance to answer.
Old school Reputation Managers shudder the thought, but it’s the only way to put your truthful answers into the mix. It also says a LOT about your transparency and honesty. Few have taken that leap of faith, because they hold to the notion we’re still playing the old game.
(My post on this is halfway written – but I need to formulate a few more elements…)
Take the hit and face the music. You wind up recovering much more quickly if you are honest.
Ike also makes some good points. In fact, people trying to pull this need to realize their brand is their search results. They can also do negative keyword buys to drive the conversation to their side of the story if the results are not bringing them to the top.
Resuming our Pownce converation: I think our discussion there wasn’t really a disagreement — I don’t think you should “bury” anything, either. You should always deal with problems standing straight, and facing forward.
But back to MY point, you should certainly make an effort to put positive information about yourself on the Internet — there’s no downside, as long as you’re not revealing overly personal details.
If you don’t publish information on yourself, then the only information out there is going to be out of your direct control. Establish a positive “brand presence” — but no, don’t hide any bodies, that’s just asking for more trouble.
Common mistakes: get defensive; argue about minutae, instead of taking the high road; make an apology, followed by “but”; spend way too much energy trying to appease the trolls.