Social Media has been an excellent vehicle for businesses to promote their brands and products for years, and with a theoretical audience of over one billion users it’s a trend that’s set to continue for the foreseeable future. From that, it’s of little wonder that slowly people are starting to realise the potential for charities to make their mark on this global audience for the betterment of their respective causes. But what happens though when lines get crossed and businesses and charities start working together, and it becomes difficult to see exactly who’s getting the better deal?

Let me start out by saying that I am in no way against charities, or generally disagree with what charities are trying to do simply on matter of principle. I’m a big fan of some charities and I believe supporting a cause comes down to an individual’s ability to connect or relate to an issue, rather than being fundamentally for or against charities in general. Social Media has been instrumental in raising awareness for good causes who would otherwise not have the resources or the voice to speak out and be heard by so many people at once. In extreme circumstances Social Media has even proven invaluable to relief efforts in the face of natural disasters and has paved the way for charitable donations on a scale we’ve never seen before.

It’s nothing new for companies or businesses to be associated with specific charities. Some of the best results charities have seen have been due to working together with big brand names and there’s an argument for a charity that “any publicity is good publicity”. How far though is that argument being pushed by businesses today, and where does the line get drawn between that which is in the best interests of the charity, and the best wishes of the firm ‘promoting’ the charity?

I came across an interesting Tweet yesterday (or, more specifically, a ‘Re-Tweet’) from a celebrity whom I shall not name, which read:

DPGplc DPG plc [rt] by [name_removed]
@[name_removed] We’ll donate £5 to SANDS (Still & Neo-Natal Death Society) for every celebrity RT of this post. #CIPD11

My first impression of that Tweet was that it seemed a little lacklustre and insincere. I’m naturally a cynic and am sceptical about… well, most things really, so that reaction wasn’t exactly uncommon. But then I took a closer look and started looking at it objectively. The concept was simple enough; the company “DPG plc” (Development Processes Group) were sending Tweets to every celebrity/high profile user they could find, claiming that every time one of them Retweeted their post, they would donate £5 to charity. For the purposes of this article I shall ignore the fact that this was blatantly spam and say that on the surface, this seemed simple enough. A business is for all intents and purposes pledging money to a charitable cause.

Three things bugged me about the post right away. To begin with, it was making no effort to explain anything about the charity and, more importantly, it gave no obvious way of obtaining more information. If you want to try and raise awareness of an issue, you want people to care so ‘context’ is pretty important (despite the 140 character limit being fairly inhibitive at times). Furthermore, once you’ve got somebody’s interest/attention you want them to be able to easily access further information. Twitter has a built-in feature that automatically shortens links, so the (approx) 20 remaining characters from these posts were more than enough to contain a link to SANDS, the charity in question. Further investigating also showed that there was also no mention of the charity anywhere on DPG’s Twitter account or their own website (which doesn’t get a link).

The second thing that annoyed me was the fact that the post specified that DPG were only willing to make any contributions upon celebrity endorsement. I can see the logic behind this argument from a marketing perspective – celebrities are deemed more influential than Joe Twitter and thus upon a Tweet by a celebrity the message is theoretically reaching a larger audience. However, given that the post specifically stated that they are only going make a donation upon a ‘celebrity retweet’ implies a desire to specifically be associated with fame, rather than being concerned with raising awareness. If they wanted to do the best job they could, they’d want everyone to be Retweeting and learning about the charity and volunteering help. One way of interpreting this would be to conclude that DPG are more interested in making people aware of their gesture than they are in helping SANDS.

Onto my final and biggest gripe: the ‘hashtag’. That bit at the end of the Tweet which reads “#CIPD11″. For those who aren’t particularly familiar with Twitter, a hashtag is a way of linking Tweets to create discussions between users who aren’t necessarily following each other. A ‘topic indicator’, if you like. You can click on a hashtag and see every recent post which has it included, and wanting to know what #CIPD11 is and how it related to the charity; I clicked it. Turns out that the hashtag is actually nothing to do with SANDS or any other charity, it’s The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s Annual Conference and Exhibition. In other words, a big networking event to discuss ‘Human Resources’. And no, before you ask, there is no connection between CIPD11 and the Still & Neo-Natal Death Society. None on the website dedicated to this conference, nor on any other websites discussing this conference. Nor does CIPD11 appear anywhere on the website of the charity, either.

I also want to make it clear that this is not a DPG scam, as one of the trustees from the charity was keen to defend these Tweets when I questioned DPG’s methods:

TravisCerys Peter Brady
@kenhalfpenny @dpgplc I am a trustee of said charity it is a marketing concept that @DPGplc are prepared to pay £5K to us for these RTs

Peter Brady, founder of the Jude Brady Foundation raises a good point when it comes to discussing the ‘ethics’ dilemma as mentioned in the title of this article, and we’ll get to that in a bit. I’d like to note at this stage that nobody that I spoke to from SANDS or DPG knew anything about the arrangement, but then it’s not entirely uncommon for financial matters not to be common knowledge amongst all members of a company so they couldn’t really be scrutinized for that. But, it was a little disappointing that nobody was available to talk to, whether it be SANDS, DPG or even Peter Brady himself to clarify the details of the agreement.

The details strike me as particularly peculiar as well. For instance, how are they monitoring exactly how many celebrities are retweeting their posts? What are they using as the basis to define a ‘celebrity’? People in the industry will know of ‘Listening Tools’ which are used to monitor various aspects of user conduct on Social Media, and to turn around and say “We’re using listening tools” and hope that there’ll be enough people without the knowledge of how this works to save having to justify it any further. Because, to be clear, they wouldn’t have to monitor how many times a single post is retweeted, as their is no “one Tweet” to count. DPG have issued numerous different Tweets, each targeting a different ‘celebrity’. In order for their “£5 per celebrity retweet” to come true, they’d actually have to differentiate between a retweet from a celebrity, and a retweet from somebody who doesn’t enjoy quite the same social status (by whatever standards DPG are using as definition). Could it be that  £5,000 (total) is a figure that DPG has already agreed to donate and the celebrity retweets are all about publicity? Is the £5,000 Peter mentioned in his response just an “upper limit”, and if only 10 celebrities retweet their comments, does this mean the charity will only get £50? Who knows. The only 3 people who have heard of this deal apparently are all unavailable, the entire day. “Okay”. Like I said, I’m a sceptic.

TravisCerys Peter Brady
@kenhalfpenny @dpgplc and just for the record think of how much the profile of our charity is being raised too it's nothing but good for us

So regardless of how genuine DPG might be in their offer, or how they’re going about conducting themselves, Peter Brady does have a point. If, through whatever means, a charity is receiving just a little bit more attention on the back of somebody else’s marketing, is that a bad thing? Is there a a definitive rule which states that companies should be allowed to conduct themselves in whatever manner they choose so long as a) they’re not hurting anyone and b) charities benefit from it in the long run. But then, how does one measure exactly just how much benefit to a charity there can be by simply name dropping them as part of what is, in all reality, a marketing campaign designed to raise awareness of DPG plc and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s conference event.

How tolerant are you willing to be of marketing practices which are clearly using not just the concept of charity, but specific charities, in order to promote their own reputation? Do ridiculously misleading marketing campaigns actually help a company’s reputation, and is DPG likely to gain anything from this? Where should the line be drawn – if at all – between a company and charity forming a mutually beneficial partnership, if the company is gaining more from the relationship. If a company is gaining proportionately more from the relationship – is it even still charity? Ultimately it’s not for me to say one way or another.

When Peter Brady isn’t raising money for a worthy cause (and yes, SANDS is a worthy cause) he works for a company called Mutual Media whose industry is set in marketing, design and print. One of Mutual Media’s clients? DPG plc. I’m not suggesting foul play, far from it. I think what’s happened here is Peter Brady has approached one or more of his clients to ask them if they’d be willing to support a charity for which he is a trustee. I think DPG plc has seized an opportunity to promote themselves, their brand and their trade on the back of this. A lot of companies have found ways to make ‘x’ amount of their financial margin tax-deductible by writing off figures as charitable donations. I think DPG plc HAS the money spare to give to charity, but rather than just do what’s right and GIVE THEM THE MONEY OUTRIGHT, they’ve chosen to make a scene and say “look at us, look at what we’re doing, aren’t we simply the coolest?”. I don’t think any credit should be given to a gesture that’s clearly not been made with the charity’s best interests in mind, and advertising an HR conference under the pretence of charity awareness is utterly morally bankrupt.

The most concerning thing though, I think, of all of this is; if companies are allowed to abuse charities for the sake of self promotion, will this lead to people becoming indifferent to genuine charitable efforts and campaigns? If people are left with the impression that Social Media is being abused by businesses looking to exploit charities, will that in fact lower the number of people willing to contribute to a good cause?

You tell me.

Respond here, or reply to us on Twitter (I’m not pretending to be doing this for charity) at @reputationmgmnt to continue the discussion.

Thanks for reading.

Professional Recruitment Consultants worth their salt go through rigorous Candidate preparation throughout any placement process. This includes advising the Candidate on interview techniques, coaching on environment specifics, and how to handle ‘the counter-offer’. The counter-offer can see deals worth thousands of pounds fall through in an instant and ultimately there’s little that can be done after a Candidate’s mind is made up.

External factors in Recruitment will regularly work against you and seeds of doubt, once planted, can sprout into insurmountable objections. And while you have absolutely no control over the relationship between a Candidate and their current employers, everything the Client sees and hears about and from a Candidate has to be your responsibility. Which begs the question; have you Google’d your Candidate lately? Your Client? Have you Google’d yourselves? As it turns out, the internet can end up costing you money too. And we don’t just mean your line rental.

For example:

a/ Public Indescretion
A Financial Controller is, after a long and gruelling recruitment process, offered a job. Great. They then proceed to hand in their notice with their current employer, only to find out at the last minute their prospective new employer has rescinds their offer due to an indiscretion from a drunken night out posted on a public Facebook wall. Game over.

b/ Misinformation
Misinformation about the Client is posted on-line from disgruntled ex-employees or poor quality competitors with similar business model. This impacts on a ‘Volume Recruiter’ as negative content reduces recruitment retention by 40%. Often malicious fiction and hearsay becomes accepted as the truth in the eyes of potential applicants. Upon discovery of this misinformation, proposed placements fall through as Candidate interest/confidence is lost.

c/ Review Sites
Having ignored the power that review sites have on perception, the internet displays predominantly negative content/comments about a Recruiter/Recruitment Agency. As with most companies, they don’t promote the positive reviews and stories from the majority of their satisfied customers; instead a few unhappy customers dominate the review sites. They focus on the negatives, from sales technique to problems with products and after-sales, and as a result Candidates and Clients go to your competitors in pursuit of a more reputable agency.

“Okay so I have an issue there are negative comments on-line?”

Try these simple steps:

1. Where possible, talk to the person off-line or via private message and resolve the issue amicably.
2. If the person has a genuine issue, don’t engage in conversation. Adding activity to the page will pushes the forum up higher the search engine rankings. If input is absolutely required, a short “Our company takes all complaints seriously and we will try to help where we can, so please contact us at [contact@company.com]” statement is the most you should contribute.
3. Check the rules of the forum/review site that the person has posted to, many of the sites will remove posts that are threatening, defamatory or libellous.
4. If still unsuccessful, don’t ignore the problem. It is easier to push down negative comments if they are recent; if the page is left for more than a few months like a stain they become harder to remove. And when left alone, they can gain a life of their own if others start to add their own comments.

Protecting your reputation:

Recruitment is about delivering results and Candidate & Client trust is a critical part of a successful placement. Investing in on-line branding is becoming more critical as many professions including Doctors, Lawyers and top sports figures are now more frequently targeted for negative attention.

If you have a distinctive name you are more at risk of being singled out on-line which can be both positive and negative. You don’t have to turn into a social networking addict, just produce a few well written social networking pages so people can find you on-line and make more balanced judgements about you or your business. Link this with an SEO campaign and it will be enough to protect your brand and be ready to deal with any unforeseeable circumstances.

The lawsuit filed against Ernst & Young for their auditing of Lehman Brothers and their acceptance of the now notorious “Repo 105″ manoeuvre that Lehman used to hide their leverage in their quarterly filing and thereby mislead investors as to the true state of their finances has revealed that some of  E&Y’s auditors were concerned and brought up the issue of “reputational risk”.

Reputational risk is growing more fashionable as a concept among strategy thinkers but rarely has much traction among the board or within the C-Suite where a fight between quick profit and long term reputation is usually a round one knockout to profit. Reputational risk is a function that considers the risk of reputation damage as one of the criteria in decision making. The question goes: “what will people think about us or our products if we make this decision, it might be profitable but long term will we lose out as our reputation suffers for being dishonest, etc.”

Strategists tend to worry about the long term rather than the immediate and of the long terms pattern to discern, reputation is one of the most important. Repo 105 was the method used by Lehman Bros to avert the short term reputational risk of seeming too leveraged (ie having too much debt) which might have led to confidence problems in the market. Whilst Ernst and Young  felt that the practice did not breach GAAP rules, it was interesting that no US law firm agreed with them and in the end of the day, Lehman had to find a UK based law firm to sanction the practice.

Financial services companies do worry a lot about reputation but they tend to do so over the short term and within their financial constituency. Despite the crash of 2008, it is still clear that reputational risk still plays a small part in their decision matrix. Witness the witlessness of the foreclosure process which they saw as mechanical and did not consider the potential for reputation fallout. Goldman Sachs likewise have moved their reputation from being highly client-centric to being highly Goldman orientated. As one author put it succinctly, their clients are no more than counter-parties in the deal.

The problem with reputation managers is that they rarely can put their money where their mouth is. The deal is here and the reputation fallout is a long way away; certainly beyond the next bonus round. Investors put a lot more store by reputation as it is a good measure of future prospects and is a true measure of what the market thinks. The share prices of companies like Google and Apple relfect the high reputation of those companies. By a similar measure the fall of Yahoo’s stock price reflects a reputation worry in the market. A worry that asks where are they going, what do they stand for and why should I invest?

1.3 million people have enjoyed Brian Maupin’s humorous attack on ignorant iPhone consumers and the equally amusing response. Everybody has laughed at the knowing humour except for some humourless corporate wonks at Best Buy who in spite of a total lack of connection between Best Buy and the video have suspended mobile salesman Brian Maupin on the basis that his video disparaged a brand they carried (iPhone/Apple) as well as the store itself and were fearful of stockholders & customers being turned off to Best Buy Mobile, as reported by Maupin.

In summary: individual makes funny comedic video about iphone buyers set in a magic roundabout setting without any branding or references to stores. BestBuy corporate HR department announce that it is about BestBuy and suspend employee.

Outcome: BestBuy corporate wonk sets up BestBuy brand to widespread derision for being humourless and painfully stupid. Incredibly, they have now made this a negative story about BestBuy, they have attacked a funny video and cut across the US freedom of speech rights. Arguably, what should happen is that they should have said nothing, or laughed it off. Why don’t they sack the corporate type responsible for this mess either because he has made BestBuy a laughing stock or, and why not, for being incredibly stupid.

If you have ever done cold calling you will know what a tough and sometimes numbing activity it is. As every sales professional will tell you, it’s about doing the numbers. In other words, if you make enough calls you will makes your sales. After a while you prize one thing above all others in the people you call: honesty. If the person you call is honest with you, then you can be honest with them and it’ll just take a couple of minutes to assess whether there is a deal to be done. This is important as wasting time means not making the number of calls you need.

What is the normal situation? Dishonesty. They don’t tell you they are not interested, they don’t tell you what they need and they don’t explain the decision process. So, you witter on while they read emails until they ask you to send them some more information on email as though it is quicker for them to read the information rather than hear it from you.

What does all that tell us about the company they work for? Well, it suggests that the company is comfortable with dishonesty and to a certain extent, with a lack of professionalism. But does the company know this or care? Almost certainly not.  I have a reason to think like this:  I have noticed that the really great companies treat everybody the same whether they are customers or sales callers. They do not distinguish between different people or situations.

On the other hand, companies that treat sales callers badly and dishonestly often have a bit of a reputation for doing the same to their customers.

Great service is great service to whomsoever. So remember that the next time you forget that the guy making that sales call is potentially a customer and definately a human, you are doing yourself and your company no favours.

What would you do if a customer was standing outside your business front door shouting negative things?

There are certain types of industries that seem more prone to getting negative comments and competitors playing dirty tricks and trying to trash their company’s reputation.  Here are some of the main industries our clients come from recently:

• Recruitment and HR
• Construction and building
• Celebrities
• Travel agents / hotels and other accommodation types
• Dating websites

I used to hear business owners talk about the Internet and not really understand it, back then companies just missed out on another great sales channel.  Today, however, I have to say when I hear a business owner having the same attitude I have to hold back from calling them crazy and telling them they will be out of business in 5 years.

Why do I feel so passionate about this, well in the past when you played ignorant to the Internet you were just loosing possible sales, but now people and competitors could be killing your business by trashing your reputation online.  Never has it been more important to take SEO and Online PR more serious, as a business owner you may not use the Internet much, but I am sure as hell your customers do.  You may not only be missing sales but loosing them when customers Google your company and see negative feedback and unhappy customer experiences.

If you had someone standing outside your business’s front door saying “your company was a scam, sold terrible products, had terrible customer services” then what would you do?  I am sure you would do something rather than ignore them, well the same thing could be happening online right now.

Every company now needs to take reputation management serious and not wait until negative comments and results appear on the first page of the search engines.  Businesses need a to have in place a proper procedure for complaints and feedback.  Monitoring or having a company like Reputation Management For defending your reputation online could prove invaluable.

Just how good it is when an Organization says that ‘Employees are their assets’, well let’s keep this debate aside for now. But here we are going to highlight how employees’ reputation creates a huge impact on those who look at you from the other side and just how critical it is for the reputation of your company..

Your employees’ carries the attitude and brand of your company. Have you ever noticed when visiting any office and waiting at the front office. I think this is the best place to analyze how true the employees carry the brand. You can feel the elements of the company culture and values coming through in the way people speak to each other and how they greet you. After all, employees are the caretakers of a company’s brand.

Employees and corporate reputation goes hand in hand. Though company reputation is vital, but employees are also the key factor that link to manage it. This generates positive performance and ultimately cements a place for you in this competitive era. So how to keep a positive reputation of your organization is about recognizing the significant role employees’ play in the overall positioning of corporate reputation.

However, to encourage employees to ‘live the brand’ are not much practiced. It is further suggested that to highlight your brand through your employees there has to be solid strategies in place. So when employees are trained to do their part perfectly the battle is half won. Let the employees know what actions are effective in return that successfully portray your strong brand.

In my opinion a brief training exercise and the know-how of the company and its regulation will go a long way in shaping employee reputation. Apprise them of the various vulnerability that could sabotage their reputation; for example ‘A tech savvy employee when comes across some website that has negative thing about the organization, what he should be doing? Persuade them to take advantage of the situation and come up with better solution to counter that after all it’s reputation at stake.

The 12-day strike called by Unite union looms large this holiday season putting hundreds of thousands of people and their travel plans in jeopardy. As British Airways fears the backlash, forums are swamped by passengers venting their anger against the insensitive approach of more than 13000 cabin crew who have voted for the strike.

The strike is planned in protest to the proposed pay and job cuts that BA has planned to ease its pension deficit of £3.7 billion which is likely to more than double to £8 billion this year. Unite union’s 13000 cabin crew are expected to join the strike even though they are paid double that of other airlines like Virgin.

In a bid to get the union to call off the strike and save its reputation, British Airways have resorted to legal action. “The airline called on Unite to call off the industrial action by 2pm today. The union has not done so and BA is now seeking an injunction to prevent the strike from going ahead,” the flag carrier’s chief executive Willie Walsh said in a statement last night. The legal action is taken on the grounds that there were irregularities in the strike ballot.

The papers are full of articles citing passenger anger at the strike which is to begin on December 22nd to Jan 2nd 2010.  Would you plan your holiday booking with British Airways after this fiasco? Chances are you will not, if this issue does not resolve well.

It would almost be impossible to recover from this bad reputation for BA. The service industry is constantly dogged by bad reviews, bad press, and negative forums and an internal crisis like this will be nothing short of a disaster for BA’s reputation.

Damage limitation is what is being resorted to and BA plans last-ditch talks to solve the issue.

A lot of businesses sit in a tricky space when it comes to their brand reputation, and no where is it more vulnerable than in the online space. Now that this area has become the mainstream for brand engagement, promotion and peer to peer advocacy it really presents a difficult issue, especially if you have a brand that serves tow distinct audiences slightly differently.

Take Totaljobs.com for example, as the most highly visited commercial recruitment and career site across the UK, we serve an audience of over 2.5 million users each month, and we engage with them at an often difficult and stressful time of their lives, as they are job seeking, so our brand needs to be helpful, empowering and provide a ease with which to cut through the confusion of finding a new job. This done well, with supportive advice like our CareerDoctor service ( http://blog.totaljobs.com/), and a secure environment in which personal and professional details can be stored and searched and market leading jobseeker tools (Instant Job match, Location Proximity Search, Suggested Synonym Matching), can give the support and confidence for our users to find their next job, and as we all know happy people are our best advocates.

We also serve a huge audience of recruiters, of all sizes, and their needs are for a brand and service that can provide highly targetable, responsive groups of job seekers using simple recruiter tools such as Keyshots (targeting the latest 500 people to register to Totaljobs within the set criteria of location and job role the recruiter sets) through to live interactive chat forums such as GradU8.com. Again, this done well leads to enhanced brand value across a powerful set of voices in our market.

But what about the people who can’t find what they are looking for, or don’t feel the user experience or service they receive is valuable? Naturally, when serving such a wide and deep audience with two distinct needs, there will be people who feel this, and online provides them with plenty of opportunity to voice their displeasure, either publicly or privately. So, as a brand, what do we do in this situation? To be honest, it’s more about what you don’t do.

Getting involved in a public spat on or offline is never going to end well for a large brand, but at the same time you have to know what is being said, by whom, online. Once a rumour, a venting of dissatisfaction or damaging information gets out to the masses and goes viral it is next to impossible to stop. Having control over the message is key and to have control over the message you must be able to see everything that is happening in real time. Tools such as Google Alerts can see everything that is being said about our company on social websites like Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter to major news organizations such as BBC, Guardian and Sky News. The only way to have control is to be honest and transparent engage with the unsatisfied, but not in an ell encompassing public arena, you must have the channels for them to engage, question and seek clarity and advice, but you have to control the message in terms of forum and tone.

So, in ending, the internet has now become a very powerful and complex place that if managed right can be a great asset to a company such as Totaljobs.com, but if you do not have someone monitoring and being able to act with strategic actions then it can be a very dangerous place for you and your company. As newspapers decline and bloggers take over it may even become more vital to high profile individuals and companies. The question may well be how much people value their online brand? The answer right now? Probably more than the amount of resources they are willing to apply to managing it.

John Salt
Website Director

By Nicola Ford, Head of Editorial, Trinity Mirror Digital Recruitment (TMDR)

Consumer blogs, discussion forums and feedback ratings are just some of the opportunities the internet offers to consumers who want their voices to be heard. With as little as a 30-second registration process, disgruntled consumers can now have a serious impact on the reputations of previously almost impermeable corporate giants.

Online reputation management (ORM) is the process of protecting a brand, product or business across the internet – both limiting damage following negative press or public response, and also reinforcing and promoting existing corporate values.

The proliferation of user-generated content online means all organisations both private and public need to take ORM very seriously. And it’s big business, in 2008 the UK ORM industry was worth £60million (source: Online Reputation and Buzz Monitoring Buyer’s Guide 2008, e-consultancy) – and as the internet continues to expand exponentially, so will the number of companies that need ORM.

Moreover, as companies continue to downsize to survive the recession, reputation management is increasingly important. If you don’t treat your exiting employees well, they might try to damage your reputation online, and your remaining employees might leave once the economy picks up. Companies need to safeguard their reputations for the future so they attract the best candidates to work for them.

But it’s not just organisations that need to worry about online reputation. With, on average, 80% of employers checking people online before interviewing them using social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn, candidates need to make sure their online ‘brand’ positions them correctly.

Most people take a reactive approach to their online brands only removing content they don’t want people to see. And although this is definitely part of it, it’s those people who are proactively building their online brands that will reap the biggest rewards – one of which is recruitment.

It’s estimated that 70% of all job opportunities are never advertised – in today’s tough market, jobseekers need to tap into this hidden job market and online networking is a great way of doing this. It’s not just making sure your LinkedIn profile is up to date – it’s about positioning yourself as a credible player in a particular field. There are a variety of methods to build up your online following: blogging, participating in discussion forums, Tweeting and so on.

A successful personal online brand does take time and effort to establish itself but the benefits can be great. By establishing a great online reputation for yourself, you should attract companies, professional contacts and friends with great reputations in return. And if that’s not enough to convince you, think of the alternative – competing with the majority of people for the 30% of job opportunities that are in the public domain…

And fortunately, there’s help available to make sure your online brand positions you as the sort of employee companies want to recruit. Services like Workthing which provides you with all the tools and advice you need to take a proactive approach to managing your reputation online.