- Twitter to lose its reputation as a free speech platform?
- IIPM worried about Google Suggest, why is it so?
- Reputation Management Tip for 2012: Brands need to tap into social media search!
- Facebook Timeline and Reputation Management
- Apple Siri gender bias or glitch?
- Google+ vs Facebook – its not over yet!
- The Ethics of Self Promotion Through Charitable Causes (A Case Study)
- Google scraps sidewiki – will you miss it?
- Facebook, the trust factor
- BlackBerry Blackout- RIM’s Reputation Takes another Hit
Journalists and Reporters
Reputation management – Is your good business getting a bad name
December 23, 2009 | 
Author When you get a spam mail do not delete it and take sometime to read it (do not reply or react). If you notice the content of the mails are mostly promotional about all kinds of business. The majority of spam mails is to do with breast enlargement or about male enhancement. Do not be surprised to know that these mail as they claim comes from bigger companies than you own.
Now that’s a bait!
Some people ignorant of the fact what spam mail are suppose to be tend to reply them. What tempts them to respond is something interesting, well! It’s the big names like MSN, Amazon or Paypal attached to this email.
Now that’s what we call bait – you being skeptical shoot an email to that owner only to know it was spam. Unfortunately the damage is already done, you have authenticated and confirmed your email address, and now the spammer has all sources at his disposal to flood your Inbox.
What is the point.
Well give it a thought! If the spammer thinks that using reputed companies like MSN, Amazon or Paypal is perfectly fine, what makes you think that your business is safe. As we all know burglars are always on the lookout for huge cache, and they en route their plans using smaller companies because they know with smaller companies it is always a win-win situation. If this situation is not handled properly, imagine the kind of damage your business will inherit, you may even close your shop.
How to shield
Now urgency has pounced on you, there is nothing as important, but to shield your reputation before more people gives it a bad name. This not only results in loosing business even your identity too.
Smart move, you want somebody to take responsibility and guard your business and personal reputation.
Reputation managers will then try to capitalize on the already done damage until such time your reputation is secure. This is probably the best option and least you worry about the reputation of your business.
Send out a strong message and let no one think about using your company’s goodwill to fill their own coffers in future.
Posted in Bad Press, Company Reputation, Journalists and Reporters, Reputation Management, Reputation News, Reputation Online, SEO | 
Tags: Bad Press, business reputation, company reputation, negative reviews, reputation management blogs, reputation management news, Spam mail reputation | 
No Comments »
Kids “healthy” snacks – nutrition labels hoodwinking us all!
The BBC reports that a survey conducted by British Heart Foundation found that most mothers were hoodwinked by the nutrition table on products they bought for their children. The online survey done on 1454 parents between ages 16 to 64 and kids aged 15 or below brought out these interesting facts listed below.
Nestle’s Honey Shreddies, which claim to be wholegrain and to “keep your heart healthy and maintain a healthy body”, contain more sugar [13.6g] than a ring doughnut [9.2g] in an average serving.
Kellogg’s Coco Pops cereal and milk bars are labelled as “a source of calcium, iron and six vitamins” and 63% of mothers in the survey thought they were healthy.
“Contains no artificial flavouring or sweeteners or preservatives” was taken as healthy by most parents along with the tag “wholegrain”, while this is not true. It’s all in the wording, this is designed to be misleading within the EU Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation.
We cannot single out Nestle or Kelloggs alone for this, it’s become the norm and when they make these nutrition labels they only say the good part of it all. While the hiding quantity of sugar and fats are usually in the fine print. We need to be informed and be told things in plain terms.
Food and drink industry is monitored all the time but something like this especially when it comes to healthy snacks for kids can be quite a blow to the big names in the industry. Not quite the Christmas gift they were expecting, right?
What can food companies do for brand protection from this bad press? Get information out there about the benefits and even come clean about the not-so-great facts, for a start. Nothing like a few twitter posts and blogs in these times of google real-time search integration, to tackle this crsis. Nestle and Kelloggs, what say?
Rage Against the Machine vs X Factor
Having just listen to Rage Against the Machine, it would be hilarious if they were number one for Christmas, it’s the least Christmas song I’ve ever heard. Somehow though, I think Joe McElderry might just win this close competition. It’s a reminder, gone are the days of TV being the only way people can be influenced. How many decisions will made in the future depending on Facebook polls outcomes?
Social networks are here to stay, knowing how to work them will be key for online marketing in the future.
X factor certainly did very little to protect their contestants from some pretty harsh attacks online, maybe that’s their goal. I’m sure the contestants would prefer not to have such a rough time though.
Posted in Journalists and Reporters, Reputation News | Tags: Rage Against the Machine, xfactor, xmas number 1 | No Comments »
Tiger Woods What Next?
Tiger Woods is really stuck between a hard place and a rock, no matter what he does now people will have a different opinion of the golfing superstar. His reputation has been tested and how he responds over the next few weeks will be critical for hi public image.
Of course the difference between bad press in the newspaper and online is it tends to die away after a while, however on the net it just stays there and quite often attracts more responses and comments. We don’t mind Tiger having an issue at home, actually it’s quite refreshing to know everyone goes through rough patches, but how you deal with it is important.
He should have just been honest from the start and owned up to it all, no one would attack him for that. Don’t try and spin it or hide from it, it just makes people more curious and delve deeper, worst of all people will loose there trust in Tiger.
Now there is talk he won’t be golfing till 2010, not sure that’s the best approach either, he should just pick yourself up and get on with what he’s good at. This will inspire people again and show truly how good a sports player he really is.
Stephen Fry don’t pack in!!!
Stephen Fry is a great example of a celebrity who could easily protect his own reputation on-line with a bit of guidance. Stephen has a massive following of almost 1 million on Twitter which is growing daily. With that many people following it’s easy to use it as a PR machine if done correctly. The issue with the Internet is anything you say is picked up and replicated 100′s if not 1000′s of time, so thought has to be given when you have such a high, dominating presence on the net. Social networks can be your best friend or your worst nightmare depending on how and what you do.
With a little work Stephen Fry could banish pretty much any negative content ever showing in page 1 of Google’s search results and never worry about 3rd party comments. At least Stephen knows people are reading what he is saying unlike most of mortal human beings… Keep up the good work!!!
Be Prepared For Damage Limitation
Celebrity Damage Limitation
Shows like the X Factor always bring it home when things are not preempted, especially when it comes to damage limitation and reputation management online. The contestants are thrown into the light and the public which is fuelled by the press can be very cruel indeed. You only have to see the blogs, social network sites going after contestants like John and Edward and Danyl Johnson.
Any celebrity will attract good and bad reviews, but the difference is when it starts to get nasty. A Celebrity’s name is everything, its their brand, their product and their reputation and therefore protecting it and making sure you have damage limitation both off line and online is crucial.
People perception of a celebrity is everything, especially when it comes to advertisers looking for someone to represent them. The two biggest issues with the Internet are one, because things are written then people assume it to be correct even when it is not (look at wikipedia to see examples of that) and the second reason is because any negative content stays on the Internet 24 / 7. Papers and magazines have a shelf life 1 day to 1 month, however the Internet is different, it’s on all the time. Quite often the advise from the experts in PR and damage limitation is just to ignore negative publications and it will go away. The Internet is completely different, if you ignore negative content it can get momentum and start becoming much more of an issue. How you deal with online negative content is crucial because you also don’t want to deal with it in the wrong way as it can also be like poring fuel on a fire.
We specialise in celebrity damage control and reputation management online, if you want to protect your name or need help with negative results appearing in the search results then please get in touch with us confidentially.
Call: UK +44(0)845 862 1893
Call: USA +1 646 723 3965
Journalists and reporters will dig deeper
Journalists and reporters will dig deeper than your normal websurfer as often they need to dig deep to try and find a story. Journalists are trained to search and find facts, figures, documents or articles they can use and also reference. It’s critical for any celebrity or politician that they understand how any investigative reporter will search as deep as possible.
Journalist’s attitude is there really is not thing as a small story, so if they find anything about a celebrity, it can quickly flare up into something you don’t want people to know. Although there maybe less journalists out there as papers scale down, what has replaced them is the millions of bloggers, and now more than ever they are realising how effective a good blog posting can be to attract traffic.
A reporter can reference a website, article, forum even if the information on the 3rd party site is incorrect. If you can get the 3rd party site to take down or remove the content then you have to ask the newspaper, reporter also to do the same. This can be very time consuming and costly. Also if you are well known celeb the last thing you want is to bring even more limelight to an article if you have to take them to court.
Reporters will go past page 1 and 2 in google search results, often page 10 to 20 is still in the radar, we combat this by filling the search results with positive content. We have a team of 50 staff who are trained in burying negative bad press online. The easiest solution is to take a preemptive approach and before negative content is allowed to move up is flood the internet with positive stories.
What we will do
- Control and set up social network sites
- Publish articles online
- SEO your own website(s)
- Release press releases online
- Monitor the net for any rising issues
Give us a call or email us confidentially:
Call: UK +44(0)845 862 1893 – Mark or Sholto
Call: USA +1 646 723 3965 – Alex
or email: confidential@reputationmanagementfor.com
Trafigura – You can’t beat them!
Once upon a time Trafigura was a small dutch registered oil company with some slightly dodgy business practices – such as dumping toxic waste of the coasts of poor African countries. No big deal to a large extent in so far as most of suspect a lot of chemical and oil companies do something similar. They even commissioned their own report to check whether they did indeed do such a thing in 2006 off the Ivory Coast. Nobody noticed them until they employed some solicitors (the infamous Carter-Ruck of London) and tried to gag the media from reporting on questions in Parliament. Now the cosy and dimly lit world of Trafigura has been blown into the open and their reputation destroyed.
Perhaps they and their solicitors thought that in the hyperconnected world of the Internet it was possible to gag everybody. The fact that it was reported on the House of Commons website was irrelevant if they could gag the Guardian newspaper. Doh!
The end result is a reputation destroyed in approximately two days: who will want to do business with them, or even be seen to do business with them? Once again Twitter and social networks proved that in a battle between business and social networks there is no stopping or controlling news once it is out. (see Daily Telegraph on trend topics on twitter)