Reputation Management for your Company when it Comes to Social

So let’s say you hire someone fresh and new for your organization’s social media content.  You figure that they’re young and understand the ins and outs of the current social media applications that are popular these days.  But it isn’t just that simple anymore.  Brands have to learn what type of content to post to their audience and what kind of information is relevant to their consumers.

The Importance of an Online Reputation Management System

The world talks about how important it is to reach your customer on a personal level.  How you reach that customer differs in every organization.  It is difficult to pinpoint the perfect strategy because every person on this plant is different from one another.  In the “Old Days”, before social media, companies reached out to customers in cold advertising.  They would put up bill boards, radio ads, television ads and even cold calls. Back in the day, there was not really a way for companies to communicate with their customers effectively.  Some of the ways were automated phone calls to customers, salesmen getting information at the point of the sale and mail/online surveys.  Those surveys had only a small percentage of responses.  The communication channel between customers and corporations was not utilized as well as it is today.  Back then corporations didn't have real time information on customer reactions to products, product launches, customer satisfaction of the company and ways customers spoke about about a company.  Today all what I have said before has changed.  Social media has rocked the marketing world by storm and social media is not going anywhere.  (The image is from Icons by Lokas Software.)

Social Media Policy

Social media is a forever growing and changing environment that has become a part of almost every individual's daily life.  Just think about your daily life, how many times a day do you use social media.  I know personally I am on social media for different reasons at least once a day.  Even though social media is an integral part of life, privacy is still a major concern for all involved.  How do you create privacy in a public arena?  That is the question for the years to come.

(Image by Lunarbunny at en.wikipedia [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], from Wikimedia Commons at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMonitor_padlock.svg)

How do you create privacy in a public arena?

Your Online Reputation & Recruiting

Just last week, the CEO of a to-be-left-nameless international firm expressed frustration at a quarterly town hall meeting that the results of the company-sponsored “engagement survey” (which were overwhelmingly positive) were not consistent with the scores and opinions to be found online (which were not). He specifically cited Glassdoor.com as, frustratingly, reflecting a much different view of the organization than the official corporate survey (Glassdoor is a job search site that also allows current, prospective, and former employees to post reviews of a particular organization). For a company that is trying to recruit competitive talent from Silicon Valley and other highly competitive areas, this represents a potentially serious problem. If prospective employees query the company and find unfavorable reviews, the strength of recruiting efforts suffers.

Social Media: Message, Reputation, and Privacy

In the world of business, social media applications are taking a larger and larger role in the day-to-day function of the organizations that use them.  Ten years ago, the concept of a “social media” specific employee was unheard of; today unpaid internships in this arena are common place.  While the speed and reach of social media outlets are unmatched in the world of advertisements ability to reach demographics there are detractors to the social media market that can adversely affect a business.  There are several concerns that should be addressed by the company when using social media sites, concerns such as what the social media policy should be when using the sites, how to manage the online reputation of the company, how to protect the privacy of the company, the employees, and the visitors to the sites, and other ethical considerations that may arise.

In the blog post, “The Not So Distant Future,” technologies we will be seeing in the next couple of decades were discussed.  However, it is also important to note that because of this perceived technological boom, the “era of innovation,” as Peter Diamandis dubbed it, will likely result in a job culling un-seen like at any other time in our history.  The recent recession of 2008 will seem like pebbles to the boulder that has started its long decent.

“Oxford University researchers predicted that 47% of U.S. jobs are 'at risk' for being automated in the next 20 years – especially in the areas of transportation, logistics, and office and administrative support work.”  

Why Organizations Need a Social Media Policy and Employees Need Training

“A Manpower survey of 34,400 organizations worldwide found that only 20 percent (of those organizations) have a social media policy.  ScanSafe, an online security company that provides a website blocking service to thousands of global corporations, found that 76 percent of its clients block social media sites.  9% of organizations have fired employees for using social media at work.  21% of organizations with more than 1000 employees have disciplined employees for using social media at work.  This shows that there clearly is a need for a social media policy at all organizations.  These statistics show that corporations are more interested in keeping their employees away from social media than allowing them to use social media.  When employees use social media it can be a benefit to the organization if it is used right.” (Lim & Heinrichs, 2011-05-30)

The Not So Distant Future

Over the past 4 weeks I have become interested in the new television series called ‘Cosmos: A space-time Odyssey’ hosted by one of the great ‘intellectuals’ of the modern era Neil deGrasse Tyson.  A show that a takes a shot on scientific storytelling to reveal the grandeur of the universe and re-invent the original series which was hosted by Carl Sagan.  The show itself essentially tries to explain how the universe works to a wider audience not just science buffs.  An interesting tool they use in the show “Ship of the Imagination” goes to far out galaxies and even shrinks down to the size of an atom to show how the universe works with special effects and CGI.  The reason I mention this ship of the universe is because I wondered what the future will be like in our lifetime.  Seeing as how we went from flying in 1903 to landing on the moon in 1969.  It took the human race just 66 years for that to happen.  We are growing at an exponential rate.  Computers are become faster, smaller and cheaper.  Advances in medicine and technology are allowing us to discover and advanced even further.  So with all these advances I wonder how will the future be like for me and my generation who grew up with technology around us.

(Image by Stefan Krause, Germany (Own work) [FAL], via Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ritchyblack )

All Play, No Work

While social media has become a useful tool for current organizations to use as a means of advertisement and consumer research it has its negative side effects as well.  Social media has caused employees’ productivity to decrease as many spend valuable hours on social media sites while they are on the job.  Finding a way to manage and control the amount of time employees spend has become one of the biggest challenges facing the organization today.  Without proper policies or tactics in place, organizations can be wasting their money on employee salaries without getting the full benefit out of their dollars.  While many companies have decided to ban social media websites on company computers, this has actually proven to not be a valid solution.  The purpose of this blog is going to be to explain how organizations can make sure that their employees are spending more time working, than they are surfing social media websites.

One of the Future Social Media Challenges Facing the Organization – Online Reputation

Social media continues to gain presence and relevance in today’s business.  With each passing day, organizations have to identify and stay abreast of social media channels, understand how each fits into their business plan and how to best utilize them to achieve their growth goals.  Social media plays an important role in inbound marketing and growing an online presence.  The various social media outlets allow organizations to interact directly with potential customers as well as nurture existing relationships. 

(The image by Universal Film Manufacturing Company in the Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.  Reputation (1921) - Film Daily Ad May 8 1921.)

SEO and Guest Blogging

On January 20, 2014, Google’s Matt Cutts published a blog post on his personal blog (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/) warning that guest blogging strategies used primarily as a SEO tactic should stop.  As Matt phrased it, “over time it’s become a more and more spammy practice”.  Not a mere warning however, as Google has subsequently tracked down and penalized several guest blogging networks, such as MyBlogGuest.com, for violating Google’s SEO guidelines.  By penalized, I mean individuals and organizations losing page ranking (PR) for their website by not showing up on the first page of search results when using Google’s search engine.

Marketing Activity Metrics: I wish I would have known

What if you realized it too late, that your marketing program was not working?  It had been working great for some time - you were generating leads and sales had continued to increase. You believed all the right tools were in place and you were doing the right things. Then, slowly behind the scenes things began to fall apart and now you have to answer to management why sales are down, leads have dropped and overall awareness of your product/service is practically none existent.