Strategically monitoring and managing your online reputation

If you are not aggressively monitoring your own and your organization’s online presence, you are not only missing big-time opportunities, you are also potentially enabling damage toward reputations that might otherwise be avoided.

Here’s why: What is said about you online is more critical now than ever before because with social media it is far easier for anyone to attack you anonymously and even impersonate you without your consent. Anonymous attacks are commonplace on news sites because news media outlets take laissez faire approaches to anonymous reader comments in order to gain more online advertising revenue.

Impersonations are happening all over the Internet and on Twitter in particular to the point that one led to a high-profile lawsuit recently and the emergence of a new feature on Twitter: verified accounts. Examples of fake Twitter accounts: here, here and here. See what happened to U.S. Representative Dean Heller (R-Nev.) this past week. A Reno blogger for months was tweeting as if he were Heller and few knew it was occurring. The fake Heller garnered more than 500 followers. Heller’s communications personnel should have been all over this from the beginning.

Prior to social media, online mock sites were common but far more intensive to execute. A Twitter account takes seconds to create and followers will arrive within moments.

This is why it is important for people, especially those in the public eye, to monitor online content. I add strategic, relevant keywords to Google Alerts and the alerts are sent to me daily. I also use my RSS feed in the same manner. I know within moments or hours when certain terms show up in Twitter, on various websites and I even receive updates written by certain contributors to news sites and blogs.

When something libelous or illegal appears — for the record, criticism or harsh opinions are neither, and if something is true, it is not defamation and therefore perfectly appropriate to be published — or somebody takes your work and uses it for their own purposes without appropriate attribution, you have an option to take action.

This is where take-down notices come in. These are often sent by legal personnel and have a threatening tone, which is why such notices should be vetted by public relations personnel rather than the other way around. I know of a number of experiences where people requested take-downs or sent cease and desist letters that did so with such antagonism, it only exacerbated their problems unnecessarily.

Here is a simple, and to me an obvious, way to avoid escalating the situation – and paying attorney fees.

Last week one of my blog’s posts was swiped and republished on what appeared to be a spam blog, a subaccount of a larger series of blogs under one domain. I quickly did a database search for the site’s owner and sent him the following email. I have added my comments as to why I wrote it the way I did. His response and the outcome are outlined below.

Dear (name of site owner):

I respectfully request that these two posts either be removed from this site or proper credit and link-backs be given to the original source: my blog (http://thegoodthebadthespin.com/2009/06/18/sotomayor-and-sexism-npr-gets-it-right/).

[Two links to the plagiarised content were inserted here.]

Note two points: one, I presented options for a resolution, but I kept them to a minimum. Also, I outlined the problem and the resolution in just one sentence.

It is clear that the writing was taken directly off of my site with only minor (and perhaps automated) rewrites. It clearly states that the material on my site is copyrighted, just like [your own sites] are. While I am happy to have my material appear elsewhere, common etiquette suggests that at the least a link and credit be given to the original source.

I point here to the fact that both of our sites have appropriate copyright information as well as imply the obvious: 1. It’s not that big of a deal to me that my material appears elsewhere, but that 2. I am asking for credit and a link.

[Your site] appears to be an incredibly valuable resource, one that I would be happy to promote in any other instance.

This is one of the most important parts of the email – genuinely validating the site owner’s own work. This appeals, hopefully, to a mutual sense of purpose in what we both do.

I appreciate in advance your immediate attention to this matter.

Nothing gets to me more than messages that ask for something but do not put into the request a time element. Also, this statement is written in an active voice, is firm but does not come across as too demanding.

Respectfully,

Bob Conrad
(775) 636.7959
www.conradcommunications.com

An important point with this notice is not what’s here but what’s not. Nowhere do I make a threat, nowhere do I have an antagonistic or even boastful tone, nor do I attempt to force the person to do anything. My language is generally neutral instead of negative. Instead, I (hopefully) calmly outline the problem and offer choices for solutions.

Now, had I been ignored, or treated poorly in return, there’s plenty of other options to entertain, including playing hardball. That wasn’t necessary because here was the result: The site owner replied within hours (he’s across the globe), acknowledged the site was a spam subaccount and wrote this:

Thanks for being more polite than many!

Contrast this situation to what Tim Ferriss faced with his book, The Four Hour Work Week, and a message sent by, you guessed it, an attorney.

Strategic reputation management requires two things: 1. technical know-how (being on the cutting edge of technology to know where problems can arise), and 2. strategic messaging. Tone, style and choice of words can make a problem better or worse. Too often people without either of these skills enter into zones where they ignorantly act on impulse and with knee jerk reactions.  Such approaches, absent experienced council, almost certainly lead to more trouble.

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