Companies are mulling over the pros and cons of social media marketing – the top dollar invested in Facebook and Twitter to be precise. As an active tweeter I’d be the first to admit that paid tweets and tie-ups with NBC for Olympic tweets etc, sure seems a cop-out in Twitter’s free open platform format objective. However, let’s discard my indignant views aside for a moment and look upon the situation from a company’s point of view; and yes there’s more incensed thoughts there…

You pay to get ‘paid tweets’ – top billing, and yet there’s no end to the negative comments and trolls. And as for the actual revenue gained from these promoted tweets or Facebook Ads its anybody’s guess; in fact, its as mysterious as how Joseph Gorden-Lewitt’s character “just knows” Bruce Wayne is Batman in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’. Twitter has marginally overtaken Facebook as the marketing channel to be in, in the wake of Facebook going public and the haziness as to how much the ads work for companies. It does not help that Facebook, as recently revealed, has more than 80 million fake users!!

For companies with invstment in social media marketing, this is a time for introspection; however, marketing woes aside let’s not forget the fact that being active on social media continues to be advantageous. The reputation management angle and the power that social media has in connecting with the consumers is remarkable! The search engine benefits of owning such a space is tremendous and it simply works well. In fact, social media can be very effective in handling a PR crisis, as this article would illustrate, if handled cleverly.

So, there you go… social media marketing may not be a good idea for companies now, however keep up with the tweets and Facebook posts and own the space, and use it to your corporate advantage and reputation management benefits.

Google algorithm and the auto-complete function has landed the search engine giant back in court again. This time it is a man from Japan who alleges that he lost his job with the auto complete bringing up criminal acts when his name is typed into the search box. The man demands that the defaming words be removed and that he gets compensated for all the embarrassment he has had to go through.

Clearly a case of  reputation damage and though the court has ruled that the offending words be removed Google has towed the ‘not subject to Japanese law’ line. However, the present case is about compensation and yet again Google defence points out that such cases are rare and the algorithm decides things on what is already available online.

A man from Italy won a case against Google for similar reasons and so did a Frenchman who had to deal with words like ‘rapist’ being suggested with his name. Google does screen for pornography, profanity etc, so can easily oblige if  a court sees it as having caused reputation damage to a plaintiff.

However, with Google claiming to have more and more requests from governments to remove content all this could well eat into the brand losing its sheen of being impartial based on its algorithm, which gets tweaked every so often to weed out spam and information of low value among other things. So will Google pay up??

New online web design company Appco Group Services, launched last week to help companies improve their presence online.  They offer full online solutions from web design to marketing including SEO.  Design and content are so important today, so getting the right advice is critical.

To find out more about what they off visit http://www.appcogroupservices.co.uk/

It is a general notion that whatever ranks on Google is true and can be trusted; imagine someone running a hotel and receiving nothing but BAD reviews on a popular and trusted travel-website like ‘TripAdvisor that ranks high on Google.

If a hotel is trashed in reviews by a couple of users on TripAdvisor, then it is more than enough to bring its reputation down.

It won’t be easy to remove or block all negative comments about hotels, but one can always push them down by bringing good content up thereby making it rank on the first-pages of Google.

Top tips for Hotel Reputation Management:

• Monitor social-networking sites, and other online media to check what people talk in general about your business
• Respond to user comments, suggestions, feedback, complaints, and reviews, without fail
• Regular communication and more of interaction with web-users on a daily basis helps, and can help one tap new business opportunities from nowhere
• Actively communicate and interact with people/online users on some of these popular sites: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
• Submit relevant theme-based audio-video, and textual files more, to keep the users engaged
• Creating/joining different online communities and groups, for chat and discussion forums always help, to know minds of people
• Update your website daily/often with new stories about the business, post blogs, news articles about events and conferences etc. to keep the users well-informed about the company
• Holiday deals, discounts and offers, contests and giveaways can help in keeping the online users grooved to the business
• Incorporate reputation management in the ERP system to automate the business activities, and to streamline the process
• One can even seek experts and consultants for business reputation management strategies

Finally, outsourcing online reputation management to Reputation Management Companies can be a better choice for the service industry as a whole!

Researches prove that the right response to positive comments or negative complaints from customers can bring one’s lost good reputation back, online.

This new finding communicates a message to all those who strive hard to maintain a good reputation online. Brands/companies/celebrities, while having a good exposure to major social media channels always need to make use of this utility to communicate with their potential customers/clients/fans, which in reality they fail. It is surprising to find that most of the customers/fans/clients want the brands/companies/celebrities to have their attention. Customers/fans/clients make a positive feedback or pass a negative comment through major social media channels like twitter or Facebook, they expect a reply. Feedback is rated as something they would love you to do.

The reality is that, in this digital space, people are not afraid of saying anything that they think about you. Most people use social media as a last resort to complain about something they didn’t like. Many of them think it as the only way to get immediate response to their complaints. Facebook is the highly preferred social medium for many people when compared to Twitter. Opinions alter vice versa. Those who go for Facebook have genuine reasons as this channel will help them to share or vent their views across their family and friends circles.

The message for a brand/company/celebrity is clear- the right response at the right time regarding both positive feedback and negative comments will work magic towards your good reputation online!

Coincidence: Joanna Newsom’s Kingfisher song so apt to our subject:

 Whose is the hand that I will hold?
Whose is the face I will see?
Whose is the name that I will call?

India’s Kingfisher Airlines’ bailout saga highlights the sorry state of Indian Businesses and its crony-centric policies. This shows the poor corporate administration, poor regularization, banking inexperience and absolute lack of accountability. Kingfisher Airlines is owned by Vijay Mallya-the self-styled ‘The King of Good Times’ now has his airline flying into bad times.  He also owns United Breweries (UB) a conglomerate, which records annual sales of more than $4 billion a year. The flamboyant Mallya is known for his larger than lifestyle playboy image and he is not ashamed of flaunting it. Many Indians aspire to be like him as he symbolizes the ‘New India’.

So what exactly went wrong with Kingfisher? A general feeling is that he failed to read the bottom line and his irresponsibility cost him the credibility of his airline business itself. With handful of aircraft, Kingfisher went on an aircraft buying spree which was followed by towering fuel costs and price war, which they could not handle.

So can Kingfisher and Vijay Mallya seek a bailout? Are they asking the government to infuse cash so they can fly? Mallya says he wants to keep the airline going and may not ask for any bailout from the government, but he has also not clarified whether he will put in his own considerable funds. Media reports ‘the airline wants more than what it got last year’. To accommodate this demand banks will have to reconstitute’ its debt, which is estimated to be around Rs 7k crore.

The government on its part has cleared its stance and issued a statement ‘Kingfisher Airlines is privately held entity and “cannot” expect any assistance. It will be up to India’s banks to decide whether to rescue IT. “Government is not going to interfere in it,” Banks have to decide on the basis of Kingfisher’s business plan. If they are satisfied with the business plan, they can lend money.”

Talking about Banks deciding on bailout, State Bank of India (SBI) has suddenly jumped into the fray in a bid to save the billionaire’s debt ridden Kingfisher Airlines and its reputation. There is distinctly no economic principle for the State Bank of India to dish out another thousand crore INR package to help them fly. The 19-bank pool, of which the SBI is a part, already raised serious apprehensions about offering further credit to the ailing airline company, since their earlier loans have now been registered as non-performing assets.  The share of SBI has also dropped by over 8 percent on Wednesday.

My question is, in a country where half of the population lives in poverty, is it not strange that SBI is using taxpayer’s money to bail out the ailing Kingfisher Airlines. Is the govt ignorant or feigning ignoranceI? Why are they not forcing Mallya to repay the money that he owes to banks?

If there’s one thing women trust, it’s that the sun will rise in the East, you have to pay taxes, and that birth control pills will keep you away from unwanted worries.

Pfizer, the major birth control pill makers seem to have shaken that trust. The company had to recall million packs of these pills, which were wrongly packed. The company announced this flaw, before any woman could possibly become pregnant.

The blister pack contains 21 active hormone containing pills and 7 inactive pills. So there is a schedule the women have to follow to keep them away from unwanted pregnancy. But later in the course Pfizer realized how they packed some of those inactive pills in one batch.

Pfizer, in a press release, later announced that if victims of the wrongly packed pills can use their non- hormonal contraceptive immediately, it would help them prevent getting pregnant.

Now this is where the company makes a disastrous PR, and that follows a series of serious questions.

Pfizer fails to realize that it’s not easy for everyone to remember which pill has to be taken on a day.  Secondly, if anybody who misses the news will be surprised to see it happening to them in spite of following a strict schedule.

How the company intend to deal with a woman who ends up becoming pregnant because of the botched up pills? Is Pfizer ready to bill the cost of the pregnancy, and bear the cost if the patient has to take other alternative birth control measures?

Pfizer needs to understand that customer’s real concern does not suffice with one technical press release.  If Pfizer’s botched up pill causes 20 unexpected pregnancies, the company will be forced to pay these 20 innocent victims. In fact, how Pfizer would be so sure about people who took the correct pills and who are the victims of wrong packet.

However, this recall has put the company in a vulnerable situation taking it up to cases where – if a couple of women become pregnant even by taking pills – Pfizer will have to face the wrath, besides loss of reputation.

Twitter is in a Catch 22 situation; it is stuck between local country laws and the freedom of speech of the Internet users and has opened its doors to censorship.

To abide with the law of the land in different countries, the microblogging site has decided it MAY ‘reactively withhold’ offensive tweets on a country-by-country basis. Well, so much for being the free-speech platform that it was all this time!  Twitter has even cited reference of ‘pro-Nazi’ contents for users in Germany and France, to substantiate its move in its blog.

In a world comprised of different people with different ideas, this move from Twitter has been welcomed by few though the large chunk of Twiterati is wary and complaining. 

About ‘country-wise’ tweet removals, the social networking service provider has not acted on anything ‘offensive’ yet, though has assured that it will intimate the user whenever it does the same and do so in a transparent manner. As for the removed contents (of country-specific users) – it will be available for ALL other users in different countries.

With Facebook and other social networking sites expanding and incorporating new applications, Twitter it seems is trying hard to spread its wings into new regions of the world. After the China debacle when it got blocked there, Twitter is cautious about its market moves.

So, is Twitter losing its reputation for free speech while wooing countries like China back into its fold? What do you think?

Google’s most popular feature with searches is ‘suggestions’. The suggestions sometimes appear much before you have finished typing. Many wonder how Google knows what you are exactly looking for.

After a court in Italy held search engines responsible for suggesting offensive terms, Google had elucidated that “search suggestion service suggests words potentially connected to the words that users type on the Google search field”.

So that might be the reason when my friend typed ‘Arindam Chaudhuri’ on Google and it suggested the word ‘Fraud’ associated to the name. The user was surprised by the suggestion because Arindam Chaudhuri is the Director of IIPM (The Indian Institute of Planning and Management), a private B-School in India. He posted the screen-shot on Twitter (http://twitpic.com/5f6t8h) on June 22, 2011 for all to see.

Next I decided to do a quick search about IIPM, unfortunately the word ‘Fraud’ showed up next to the name.

Following this, somebody who claims may be representing ‘IIPM and Arindam Chaudhuri’  committed a fatal error, she shot a mail from her personal email ID to the user asking him to remove that picture, else face legal action. The mail further claims that they have settled the issue with Google, but Google gracefully refused to comply unless this picture is taken off.

I am skeptical if IIPM did this since they claim to be one of the premier B-Schools in India, with the so-called best think-tank heading them. Secondly any third-party who sends a mail on their behalf threatening legal action is only going to put the institution in bad light. It only endorses what Google is suggesting.

How can you hold the user responsible for what Search Engines suggest? The Management Guru should know that taking legal action on every negative comment is not the solution, since there are plenty of bad mouthing that happens on the Internet. And with the kind of suggestions that comes up during searches, it’s obvious that users will click on the forbidden combination and you further lose credibility. What you ought to do is to figure out why it is so, and then sort it out amicably. Your reputation is at stake and your prime concern should be to deal with negative contents about you on the Internet if you are really that great an institution; after all everybody deserve to keep their goodwill intact. Let sense prevail!

If in the past, we’d turn to our family or friends circles for recommendations, advice, opinions or answers, it then turned towards “www.com” ever since it appeared on the virtual scene. Today, we are once again back to asking friends and family circles with the help of this World Wide Web. The 3 W’s have given birth to several new generation virtualities, especially the ‘social media’. Now, ‘social media’ is the best source of recommendations for nearly everything including the reputation of your brand.

Social media has emerged itself into a vast number of siblings such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Flickr, Linkedin, Google Plus and so on and on the list goes. Social media and search are converging because search engines are incorporating social signals. Google, Bing and Yahoo have incorporated Facebook likes and Twitter’s tweets into their organic search results. Now, searchers see results in different formats based on activity within their social networks.

Social networks are now expanding their own search functionality. Facebook now lets you search your News Feed for status updates, pictures and videos shared by your connections or brands that you “like.” Twitter bought Summize and is continually improving its search capabilities.

It is seen that consumers are skipping search engines and asking their social networks friends and family for recommendations. This may be most alarming for marketers who are relying on search engine marketing. These social media can make or break one’s reputation. That’s the reason why most of the brands and businesses are after these social searches. Ensure that your brand is well-positioned in a world of social search and that is the big tip for 2012 from Reputation Management For.com for brand protection.