Archive for the ‘Social Network Sites’ Category

A while ago Web Faceoff series conducted a survey asking users to vote between Twitter and Facebook as their favourite social networking site. Well the results, Facebook marginally managed (48%) over Twitter (40%). And now here comes something new – Google’s Buzz.

Google had minimal success in the social-networking field compare to Twitter and Facebook. But with this latest tool, Google is looking to give them a run for their money, and are hopeful to catch up with the leaders of the social networking world. They have closely integrated with their Gmail service to target a percentage of that market.

Google is famous for keeping things simple and easy, but with “Buzz” things were not quite upright. The major concern was their feeble approach to privacy.  Secondly, it was about “Auto-suggest” not like Twitter or Facebook where it will  suggest, but Buzz will allow users to follow you automatically.

So is it worth to shift base from Twitter or FaceBook? Another nagging issue was to do with convergence, most of the users didn’t like the idea of having one service for all. They would prefer their email to be here and social networking to be there and did not want to mix it. So it was all about changing human habits.

True to it’s reputation, last weekend google buzz team quickly amended the tool based on users’ feedback.

“It’s been an exciting and challenging week for the Buzz team,” says Buzz/Gmail Product Manager Todd Jackson. We’ve been getting feedback via the Gmail help forums and emails from friends and family, and we’ve also been able to do something new”

Started on a shaky note, Buzz is already showing signs of potential. Will it be able to phase out Facebook? It’s too early to predict, but then anything can happen. How do you rate “Buzz”? Share your views.

Mrs Bercow Twittered  EyeSpyMP “I am not an MP. I just live here. So stop reporting my movements.”  Mrs Bercow who is the wife of the Commons Speaker.

EyeSpyMP reply to Mrs Bercow”You Twitter your movements far more than we do. You love the limelight.”

EyeSpyMP has reported sightings of Mrs Bercow drinking coffee and playing with her daughter.

Mrs Bercow replied “I am going out now. To do school run. I am not an MP. I just live here. So stop reporting my movements. Thank you. “  This is just like pouring petrol on a fire…

Another tweet  “You are not being v. nice. You are clearly a bunch of Tories.”  Hmm not the smartest of responses…

John Bercow the elected Speaker last year, is a frequent Twitter user hopefully he is more selective about what he tweets.

If you are or have a partner are in the public eye, it’s always a good idea to have two accounts, a public profile and a private one for family and friends.  This goes for photos and any other personal matters you don’t want appearing on the net or in newspaper articles.

Also do not fire fight in public view, you can make things much worse, if you find negative things about you, try and resolve it out of the public eye and especially avoid using tools like Facebook or Twitter.  In public view no one ever wants to back down.

A good book to read is “How To Win Friends and Influence People”.

Social networking sites are wielding more power than ever now, people are having a say in  nothing less than corporate decision making. A Facebook campaign has forced the makers of Pears transparent soap to scrap plans to change the 221-year-old formula. Never have people had so much power over businesses, brands and even celebrities.

In an attempt to re-invent the brand, the manufacturers decided to add a host of new ingredients which got the public up-in-arms on Facebook. Campaign ensued with people saying that they hated the new smell after finding that only the new soaps were available in the stores. Once the old soap vanished people missed the old herbal smell of Pears and gave a big thumbs down for the new.

This is a classic example of quick review or feedback and a change in corporate decision. People are conditioned to certain smells and flavours and sometimes a change is just not appreciated. The soap-makers should have introduced new soaps along with the classic ones that consumers have always appreciated. Anyway Pears have bowed to the wishes of the masses and gone into quick brand protection mode – reputation management overdrive even!

Are you still on the fence about social networking sites? Time to join and make the best of its power is what we say here at Reputation Management For.com.

When searching for ‘Tiger Woods’ on Google it didn’t bring up his official website, but something rather spicy to be precise.

Woods reputation has taken a beating no doubt, and now his announcement about indefinite leave from golf will further make matter worse. Companies and products that Woods endorse are caught sitting ducks. A rough estimates shows an already loss to incur is around $12 billion.

The positive reputation he has worked years to attain now shows above his official website.  Being a celebrity your reputation is always at the crossroads and anything can hit you.  Strangely in Mr. Woods’s case it was a (mysterious) accident.

It may be noted that before the accident Tiger Woods enjoyed 85% positive sentiments on social media. Interestingly a week post-accident it did not plunged to a very low either as a sudden impact.  This was the ideal time to capitalize and minimize the damage, if only Mr. Woods had believed in Reputation Management.

With no proper damage control plan in place it was all expected. Surprisingly the reaction from the Woods clubhouse has been too slow and hazy. Tiger should realize that ‘No press is tantamount to Bad press‘ and he took his own time to clear the air. Meanwhile internet and the social media websites were flooded with more negative comments thus creating its own crisis. Negative comments later jumped to 40% from 15%, while the positive sentiment was at an all time low of 14%.

This whole affair will cost the golfer $100 million a year in endorsement income. Too late for the Tiger to be out of the woods if only he knew- “It takes hundreds of good golf shots to gain confidence, but only one bad one to lose it” -  Jack Nicklaus .

Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for External Affairs is no stranger to social networking and is the highest followed person in India on Twitter. Tharoor in fact popularised Twitter in India to a great extent with his now controversial Tweets and was even named “Twitteroor” for his political gaffes as far as his political party’s stances were concerned.

The minister is intellectual, tech-savvy and popular with the masses and has 537,478 followers on Twitter when this post was written. The problem with Tharoor is that his Tweets are a source of both admiration and political uproar at the same time. Even as he endears himself to the youngsters, the geriatric members of his often sycophantic Congress party look at him as an up-start of sorts.

That Tharoor was in the initial stages a close rival to the UN Secretary-General post of Ban Ki Moon and that he has numerous books to his name all accord him a celebrity status. What I like about him the most is his constant attempts at making his countrymen laugh at themselves. Here he is back in the news for tweeting against his own government’s tightening of tourist visas to India. This is what he tweeted -

Dilemma of our age: tough visa restrictions in hope of btr (better) security or openness & (and) liberality to encourage tourism & goodwill? I prefer latter.

When asked about the economy class of Air India he famously tweeted -

“absolutely, in cattle class out of solidarity with all our holy cows!”

The slang was lost on most people in India and when he added the holy cows all hell broke loose.

That he has huge plans for his country and is not afraid to speak his mind and even against his own government makes him stand apart. But then these days how the mighty fall ( Tiger Woods) and before you know it, courting controversy can finally catch up. The minister sure needs some expert reputation management for continuing his work well and to be in the good books of the old war horses in the Congress party.

Being a busy man he needs the services of an army of experts to help him with online reputation management and being a celebrity and a politician the need only magnifies manifold.

Nestle – as if the controversy was not enough for their Honey Shreddies, here comes another blow from FDA over their Juicy Juice drink BOOST.  The company claims it is a complete Nutritional Drink.  FDA says – ‘Nestle is promoting the drink as a medical food and that it treats “failure to thrive” and helps children in chronic illness.

Well about Nestle “Their actions are so loud, one cannot hear what they say“. Nestle seems to oversee the fact that consumers aren’t fools, this age when the world is just a click away it will not take much time for your reputation to go for a ride in matter of minutes. In the recent case we have seen how Twitter and Facebook were flooded with articles and calls to boycott them.

While we know that Nestle is always in controversy, what surprises me is they have no action in place to counter it and are always wondering what hit them.

Strangely they say one thing and go on doing something else. Nestle responses are always generic – send them an e-mail only to get a reply ‘the mail is forwarded to the Switzerland, Headquarters. Their handling of a situation is poorly managed – they bask on PR, which is just an aspect of the approach and not a substitute of Reputation management.

Buying time will only make matter worse; the consumer has the power of Internet. Nestle should let it be known that they are transparent. You cannot hide things from consumer; the skeletons will be out and the rest internet will ensure that you don’t stay in single piece.

Better late than never Nestles should do some brainstorming. Internet and plenty of social media out there it’s a classic example of “word to mouth” for your reputation.

2010 is going to be an interesting year for SEO, Reputation Management and Online PR, there could not of been a better example of how the communication world is changing, with this years Christmas number 1. TV vs Facebook;  X Factor vs  Rage Against The Machine.  2010 will see a real shift towards groups of people on social sites really making a difference and having access to many tools to shout out even louder.  Tools like Facebook, Twitter to name a few are only part of it, with the introduction of Google’s sidewiki which allows people, customers, competition to write remarks about a website without any control.  There is no opt out of sidewiki, customers will love it, businesses who have a bad track record of customer service will hate it.

Many companies will need to allow for Reputation Management to be in their marketing budget for 2010, but this is not a negative, far from it.  In the last 5 years there has been a massive shift from traditional advertising to online advertising because, if done correctly the returns on investment can be far greater than traditional advertising.  Plus if you focus some of your efforts on organic SEO and RM you will see them as an investment rather than just a cost.  Compare that to a TV advert, once you’ve spent you budget the advert is gone, unless someone has recorded off the TV, but even then most people just fast forward through the adverts.

How Reputation Management Works

So you’ve decided you want to focus your efforts on improving your position online and spent a wee fortune on SEO, what happens next?

The customer finds your site and now knows your company name, it is at this point that Reputation Management and Online PR play their roll, because if the customer has not bookmarked your website they will put your company name in instead.  It only then takes one negative comment on a forum to start effecting your sales and the reason for this, if that negative comment appears on the first page of the search results and starts to attract more negative comments it doesn’t take long for it to rise up the search results and ultimately be sitting directly below your own site.   Having a negative result directly below your own company website can attract up to 70% of your potential customers to click on it first rather than click on your site.  Pushing the negative forum down the SERP’s is where RM and SEO come into play.

If personalised search results are here to stay, then click through rates could be one of the determining factors for which site will show for your company name.  Maybe PPC campaigns will help with CTR and make certain sites perform better, but the jury is still out on this.

If 2010 for your business is about converting more of the right customers then reputation management has to be up there in the marketing budget.  There is no point spending 1000’s on advertising only to loose all those potential sales because of negative things being said about your business.  So here is our top tips for 2010.

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?

Google’s real time search integration into searches is for the time being giving its 6 minutes of fame to anyone who is active on Twitter. Go out there blog about anything topical and before you know BAM you’re in the first five on Google news searches.

The good thing about this is that you can really get a lot of people reading what you want them to read. So if you’re a Tiger Woods you should be out there with expert reputation management guys telling the world that you messed up big time, that you’re seeing a top shrink to handle your “addiction” and that you plan to be back on top of the game in 2010.

The bad thing about this real-time search integration that Google has begun is that, if you have a disgruntled customer, employee, spouse, agent, patient or fan you could be in a blitz of bad press within minutes. Scary? Definitely!

The call for reputation management has just turned into a shout. You need to have daily PR out there as defenders with positive news and content. It’s a minefield out there, more so now.