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Posts Tagged ‘corporate reputation’
You may forget but the Internet does not
December 14, 2009 | 
Author The problem with the Internet is quite often stories in newspaper and PR in the traditional sense is forgotten about days, weeks or months after it was published. The Internet is an altogether a different beast, it remains there, it stalks you, it follows you and like a snowball can form into a full scale avalanche. Now this can be good if the news or story is positive, however this can be a nightmare if its negative.
What feeds this avalanche quite simply is the same as how a rumour will start in an office or at school. “did you hear what such and such got up to at the weekend, John told me he last night, apparently Steve told him” and so on. Where the Internet plays a much bigger roll in this, is someone can pick up on an article, blog of comment in a forum and write a blog about it and link back to the actual source. If the story is interesting enough then it doesn’t take long for many people to follow suit and start linking back to the source and the 2nd and 3rd placed posts on other blogs who are also talking about it.
Google’s main factor for deciding how high to rank a page in the search results is how many links it has pointing to it, they are a bit like votes, the more links, the more likely Google will see the post as a relevant article and start to rank it highly. If you leave the article at the top of the search results then it attracts even more links and stays up their creating momentum and becoming more difficult to budge when you do decide to address it.
So burying your head in the sand and hope negative or bad press online is going to disappear is the worst PR you could do. That is why reputation management is critical to start straight away, there is nothing better than hearing a client saying “see no negative things are being said our business”, it just means we are doing our job right!
If you are a CEO the last thing you want is your kids reading personal negative things about you (that may or may not be true), quite often we have to not only protect a company name, but also the main drivers behind a corporation. If these types of comments get on to some of the mainstream forums, then people can be quite brutal and vulgar about what they are saying about you.
Protect your company using reputation management (PR Online) to stop things getting to the top is much easier than trying to bury it later on. Check out our prices for standard packages – Reputation Management Prices
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Maclaren buggies bugged with ‘finger amputation’ issue
British pushchair maker Maclaren is now bugged with the sort of issue that is a reputation disaster as parents threaten to sue the pram maker after alleging that the push chair hinges can slice children’s fingers. In summary: reputable pram maker makes dangerous buggies.
The issue concerns the Maclaren baby buggies, which have been “voluntarily” recalled from the US market following 12 cases of ‘finger amputation’. The Consumer Product Safety Commission in the US has confirmed 15 cases of injury, including 12 finger amputations, caused by the hinges of the Maclaren Buggies.
Maclaren Notice on Global website
At the same time, Maclaren, after discussions with trading standards officials, has decided not to recall the buggies from the UK market. The company, defending its product, has said that the buggies are safe when used in the proper manner. Dylan Johnson, the General Manager of Maclaren UK, has stated, “The safety of children and parents has always been our top priority and I completely appreciate the concerns this issue has raised amongst our customers.” He has also said, “I would like to assure you that Maclaren Buggies are completely safe, not only meeting but often exceeding EU and US product safety and quality standards”.
Maclaren, the Northampton based firm which has been engaged in the buggy making business for more than four decades now, has its business spread all across the world and hence this issue is of course a serious threat to the company’s reputation. The company has recalled in the US models like the Volo, Triumph, Quest Sport, Quest Mod, Techno XT, Techno XLR, Twin Triumph, Twin Techno and Easy Traveller and have also offered to provide free of charge hinge covers to customers, to be used to cover the folding mechanism.
Product safety failures are a company’s biggest nightmare especially when you are market leader in your segment of light foldaway buggies. That buggies are difficult to fold and open is well known – just watch any dad trying. The challenge for Maclaren is how to respond.
- Denial. You can start by denying but once there are documented problems denial is not an option
- Play Down – suggest the problem is small and the odds miniscule – but then you appear in denial as a company
- Concerned – state that this problem has only appeared 15 times out of X million uses and state we are urgently investigating the circumstances and in the interim we have developed a safety solution.
Mums are increasingly avid users of social media like bulletin boards and forums and in a market where most product segments are well stocked with options, there is a strong chance that Mums will simply choose another option. There is no hiding the news, especially now that it has been widely covered in the media and television.
Maclaren, the company has all along been selling “ what a mother wants, what a baby needs”, is itself in need of a bit of reputation management at this stage. Yes, brand reputation, corporate reputation…overall reputation management needed. Any takers?
Corporate Reputation Management – Your business needs it!
Your brand is the most essential part of your business. Have you ever thought of how people view or value your brand? You may be running a big company, or may have a team of professionals, and generate a lot of revenue, but everything falls short when you lack sound corporate reputation management.
You may find it odd, but its true that external factors affect your business, it can be either a negative effect or a positive one. Corporate reputation management helps you to have a control over your business.
Studies suggest that only 9% of companies in the Fortune 100 list have control over their respective business or brands. This was based on the top ten listing shown on the first page of search engines and on how many of those top searches were owned by the said company.
Corporate reputation management rolls out a strategic plan to establish a control over the search results shown on the first page and even makes sure that the contents shown are all positive. It is very important to have a control over your business to maintain that positive online reputation. But it was also noticed that many big companies including the Fortune 100′s have negative comments about their products in the top page of Google. Beware! This will dampen the value of your brand in the long run, if not dealt properly.
Many business houses remain ignorant about the importance of online reputation management and bad press. But there are firms that deal with the company’s reputation and provide concrete SEO based reputation management solutions to overcome their reputation crisis and restore the lost sheen.
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