Beware of the Viral Internet, it Can Go Wrong!

October 17th, 2008 Alina Posted in Business, Marketing, Reputation Management | No Comments »

Online reputation is hard to build and even harder to keep. The viral Internet can help a company get a lot of business fast, but it can also bring it down through bad word-of-mouth. A recent case showed how things can go wrong in a matter of day and how people can go from not really knowing you and your business to swearing they’ll never do business with you.

So what happened? A probably angry business owner did not think what he was saying through and forgot that most mainstream media also have an online outlet. And as he went against a young men fighting overseas for his country and his pregnant wife, he was up for a major disaster. He cost himself more business than he ever imagined. So what can you do to protect your reputation online and offline, assuming you have invested in building one that needs protecting?

First of all, find out what the real issue is - not caring is never the answer. Before making any statement, try and find out what is going on.

Next, before making a statement, think of what effects it might have - Acting on the spur of the moment is rarely a good idea. Think of how you’d react if you’d hear a similar message from someone else. Or if you’re too angry to think things true, ask yourself what someone you consider a role model of integrity would have to say about it.

Alternatively, think of hiring a professional spokesperson or seek some advice form a good PR or Marketing company. No one knows it all and no one needs to. If you’re good at doing business, you might not be the perfect lobbyist for your brand as well, you might not know anything about accounting either. That is fine, as well as you know when to seek a professional’s advice. If your budget does not allow a permanent deal, just get your PR guy to help you before an interview or when making a specific announcement.

Bare in mind that even if you say all the right things, if you do your best to make sure all your customers are happy and try to do the right thing in what corporate social responsibility is concerned, you might still get some bad publicity. You can’t be all things to all people, you can’t control disgruntled employees and customers with a taste for revenge.

What you need to do in this case is:

• find out what’s being said about you and where (some alerts on your company name and your reps names should help)
• don’t attack the attackers, just have a clear message ready explaining the situation from your point of view
• if needed, also add a disclaimer of sorts on your website
• work even harder on getting people interested on what’s good about your company

We all love it when our clever stories go viral and everyone is talking about us. But bad news travel a lot faster, that something you should always keep in mind when building your marketing plan!