Employee Twitter Accounts - Beware

I saw a tweet late last week when I was in LA from Rebecca Kelley, a friend who works with uber-cool marketing firm 10e20 out of NYC. It was a great 'rep management' moment.

And a great lesson for Enterprise Rent-a-Car.

What Rebecca uncovered was a "branded" Twitter account running under the name @enterpriserent. It's managed by an Enterprise employee out of Canada who unashamedly tweets rants about their job at Enterprise.

Some gems include mocking a co-worker with a pet name of "Shrek" and bemoaning co-workers lazily washing cars. Also, off-hand remarks about using a baseball bat on customers.

I know this is a joke from the Twitter user, but Enterprise truly does have a reputation management "fail" here.

Customers / potential customers who search the net or who search on Twitter (search.twitter.com got 20 million searches in November '09), are likely to find this account. It may also be showing up in Google and Bing SERPs for keywords surrounding the Enterprise brand.

To make matters worse for Enterprise, the @Twitter name contains "enterprise"! Not good.

The lesson learned is you need to communicate to employees the effect their social networking can have on the company. My financial services company has many of our officers using Facebook, and we try to educate them on the idea that what they are saying on these sites is searchable and viewable to customers.

Just like a teenager posting party pictures, employees need a reminder too. Beware.

And you might preclude them from being allowed to register accounts using the company name. :)

Real-Time Rep Management

With Google's introduction of real-time results into their SERPs this week, a new wrinkle appears for online reputation management. A Facebook privacy change has also sent shockwaves through the industry.

Google in Real-Time
If your name or brand is mentioned on sites like Twitter, it is likely to start appearing near the top of the search results. (Watch a video about real-time integration here.)

This matters for ORM because now all the little tweets of the world surrounding your brand or name become more visible to the generic searcher.

The 'fight' to manage how others perceive your name again extends beyond the Google top 10.

Facebook Drops a Bomb
Not wanting to be outdone, Facebook has announced new privacy settings that also complicate reputation management. In a release today, they've stated that users will now have to opt-out from having their status updates displayed to 'Everyone'.

Everyone includes the search engines.

The most troubling aspect of this announcement is that most users will not know to 'opt-out' to keep their status info private.

It's a shame, because this is a big deal when combined with Google's new real-time search.

Why?
Facebook has 350 million users and counting. That is huge compared to Twitter. Tweets in the SERPs? Eh . . . that's small potatoes.

Hundreds of millions of people having a policy changed on them overnight, which results in their mindless status updates popping up in the SERPs? Big.

We'll have to see how this plays out. Maybe the status updates will stay out of Google's grasp . . . but I'm guessing not.

People Just Don't Know
In watching over online rep management for 4 years, I know one thing - most people are clueless about what you can and can't find out about them using a search engine.

Google and Facebook just made it harder for the ignorant to have any protection whatsoever.

(image: wcouch)

Content Creation and Reputation Management

I caught an interesting article today on a Google Image issue suffered by our first lady, Michelle Obama. Apparently a racist picture comparing her to an ape was ranking highly in Google Images. (I haven't looked at the pic personally).

In CNN's report, they talked to two big names in search about the issue. One of the comments about managing an online reputation talked about Kanye West.

How's Kanye's Online Rep?
We all know Kanye has produced some less-than-stellar moments in 2009, and a lot of negative backlash has followed.

But Google 'Kanye West' and you'll see a generally standard set of search results. His website, some images, links to listen to his songs, his MySpace page.



Why isn't Kanye's online reputation ruined? Because he's a content creating machine.

That is, Kanye actively participates in a lot of digital forums. For one, he publishes his own site. That's a no brainer. If you are in any way aware of the "power of the internet", you should own yourname.com (or a very close variation if your name is generic).

Social Sites of our Times. They Rank.
Notice I mentioned Kanye's MySpace page ranking. MySpace may be sooo 2005, but in its place are the powers of Facebook and Twitter. Register an account on these social networking websites and create a profile. Publish some updates. Interact.

All these actions will help create a digital footprint for yourself, and let you proactively manage your online reputation.

You are a Brand.
It's important to look at yourself like a brand in the new digital age. Don't let the fact that employers will Google your name, or potential friends/significant others will do the same, just pass by.

Take action and follow some simple steps like registering yourname.com, and creating active profiles on sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Being proactive about it will help protect you if anything negative somehow gets published about you online. And it might save you from having to hire these guys . . .

(image: hecyra)

Preventive Online Reputation Management

This post is a guest post by Brennan Sayre who is President of The Sayre Group, a leading online reputation management and monitoring firm that also consults on public relations and social media.

The industry of online reputation management is becoming a hot one as numerous companies are now offering the service or starting brand new companies to focus on this. The reason the industry is growing is because there is a huge need to protect businesses and individuals online because of the rapid pace of growth on the internet as well as the introduction of consumer and user generated media. User and consumer generated media would be things such as customer reviews, blogs, and social media websites. These types of websites can help influence decisions in purchases or can be used to falsely destroy a company’s reputation. That is where online reputation management comes in. Online reputation management companies for the most part are only protecting clients from search engine results instead of doing what they should be doing and that is monitoring and keeping a pulse on the internet and the consumer.

Preventive online reputation management is what sets my company, The Sayre Group, and others apart as many other public relations professionals know once the rumor 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. The way we monitor is through custom programs as well as a danger algorithm which alerts us through over 100 key factors on when something may be a problem. We can see everything that is being said about your company on social websites like Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter to major news organizations such as Fox News, CNN, and NBC News and we can even see all consumer reviews on over 10,000 product websites.

In years past businesses may not have needed an online reputation firm to protect them but as companies such as Dell, Dominos, and Kryptonite have seen it only takes a few Youtube videos or blog posts to destroy your company’s reputation and profits for the short-term and even with some the long-term. So in ending the internet has now become a very powerful and complex place that if managed right can be a great asset to your company 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. So the real question is how much is you and your company’s reputation worth to you? If you are looking for this service by industry professionals who have had past Fortune 500 clients then contact The Sayre Group today.

Questions About Using a Site? Check Google

I came across two different articles today commenting on the trustworthiness of websites based on opinions the author's formed after Googling the company / owner's name. This one from SFGate.com talks about new online bid tool BidRate.com and some of the questionable aspects of the website (a lot of the properties have the same name and the CEO has 2 different last names).

At the end of the article, the author states that a Google search was performed on the CEO and 3 things are mentioned - that he's listed as 29 years old, that he has pictures of 'hot' ladies on the space, and some quote is pulled from his wall that alludes to him being unethical ("If the Facts Don't Fit the Theory ... Change the Facts").

What is the author saying here? The guy is a partying youngster who likes to bend the rules, and more importantly, to stay away from BidRent.com. It's crazy how more and more of these instances keep appearing that show that people will Google the name of any company or person that they come into contact with, just to do a little "background check". I admit it - I do it all the time. I even Google incoming calls if I don't recognize the number.

It just goes to show how everyone that has a name, whether you are an individual or a company, must be aware of the effect your online footprint is having on you every day. Take notice of the top 10 results in the major search engines and become active in influencing them. Hire a Reputation Management firm if you have to - but take this seriously, your online reputation is MORE important than your word-of-mouth reputation. Anyone can Google you at any time to take a peek.

Online Reputation Management and SEO Help

If you're looking for help managing your online reputation, visit the experts at Plus1 Media. For more information on search engine optimization, EnviSEO is a nice start.

Voltron Reputation - Defender of the Universe.com

A new start-up company called Reputation Defender caught my attention today. They are a repuation management firm that is set on catering to the average student and / or adult who may be applying for jobs, monitoring their kids, dating online and the like. Reputation Defender's clients will likely be fairly easy to manage online, low-profile clients will generally only need a moderate amount of monitoring and will probably only have information running on them on the standard social media/UGC sites. So, good luck Reputation Defender, I'm sure you'll be successful.

The post at SearchViews that mentions the start-up had some good insights into the growing online reputation management industry. First and foremost, it is growing, and at a rapid pace. Now is the time where this concept is spreading into the mainstream, and many companies will soon find different niches and methodologies to employ to profit from it (they will also be providing a needed service of course). The post also talks about how software that effectively can monitor the loads of information out on the web for relevant personal data, with a highlight on user-generated content, will be a huge step forward for the company or companies that develop it.

There are already some out there who have similar products, but it will be interesting to see who takes off and what niches they break into . . . . will it be the average Joe (like with Reputation Defender), the celebrity, the sports stars, the politicians, the corporations? The list can go on and on. In reality, everyone and everything has a repuation, and those reputations are now online. I'd expect to see many more companies popping up in the near future.

But what is the best way to effectively manage an online reputation? Is it by contacting the site owners, the people operating the site that is showing undesirable or untruthful information about you and demading its removal? I don't personally think that's the best way to go about things. At least not as an initial approach. Online reputations should be planned out, practiced, and managed. You can accomplish that by creating and optimizing positive websites regarding your name our brand. You can have a low-budget PPC campaign going as well. Send out a press release, contribute frequently to a blog, get friends to post a page about you, etc. Get the information that you want people to see / read about you on the web, and practice good SEO techniques to ensure that's what they'll see. I think the startup that provides that to the industry will be more effective than a search and destroy outfit.

The more you plan ahead, the more you take time to create a good reputation for yourself, the less time and money you'll need to spend in the future to combat negative information. Combining that with simply realizing that the information you put out on the web can always find a way back to you will go a long way with most people's online reputations. The big corporations and the politicians of the world will always need some sort of PR / spin control in the online forum, just like they do in all forms of media, but the average individual? I think not. Hopefully the continued rise of the idea of even having an "online reputation" will lead to greater awareness about what it is and what it can mean for people and companies.