Posts Tagged ‘social media’

Have been reading about corporate brands and went back to my stash of articles. The IBM CMO C-Suite studies has solid information in their report, “From Stretched to Strengthened” which was conducted among the nearly 2,000 CMOs worldwide.  Not the main focus of the research but they do report that it is no longer enough for a company to just markets its products and services. In fact, the report talks about how the character of the company is now on full display as “social media has exposed the bones beneath the skin.”  Only 53% of CMOs report that their corporate character is understood in the marketplace and 57% say they have significant work ahead to get employees on board.

Here is the  part that I liked best because it speaks to corporate reputation today. “For many decades, the CMO’s job was to market an organization’s products and services. Today, it begins with the marketing of the organization itself.”  A fairly sizeable 61% said that one of the initiatives they have set for themselves ahead is to orchestrate a single view of the brand, something we call enterprise branding.

When people ask me what reputation means, I always say it is all about a company’s character. Glad CMOs agree.

Have Asia on my mind as I am soon airborn. A few facts and stories I just learned as I am preparing to go and talk about reputation trends. These are all China-based for now….

• In four years, more than 700 million people in China will be watching online video sites. Youku, similar to our YouTube, is one such leading site. (McKinsey Quarterly, 2011). Pretty dazzling if you ask me.
• Even during the global recession, sales of luxury goods in China rose by 16%. (McKinsey Quarterly, 2011).
• An interesting incident that caught my attention. Apparently the CEO of DangDang (China’s Amazon) exploded at his bankers in a profanity-filled tirade blaming them for an IPO that undervalued his firm. The language was so profane that when reported there were alot of ****s. This all appeared on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter.  Apparently some employees of the bankers fired back on Weibo although now there are reports saying they were not employees. Whatever the story, what I found interesting is that we focus so much on social media guidelines for employees and perhaps its time to develop them for CEOs too! Not exactly a reputation-building story.

When I was researching and writing an article  on safeguarding your digital reputation for the Wall Street Journal Europe’s website this week, I found this interesting article on how the International Olympic Comittee (IOC) had issued social media guidelines for “athletes and other accredited persons” for the 2012 games. Now we all know that many companies and organizations have such guidelines, but this was different in that the IOC made it clear it would be monitoring online content and would withdraw accreditation “without notice, at the discretion of the IOC, for purposes of ensuring compliance with these Guidelines.”  That will surely keep athletes and any other accredited individuals from using social media for commercial purposes and harming the reputation of the games and committee. At first I thought this was a bit harsh but on second thought, many companies and organizations monitor what employees are saying but don’t outright admit it. Sounds like the IOC is being very transparent about keeping its reputation clear.

I only wish they had defined “accredited” persons.  They have a definition of terms at the end of the guidelines but do not define what it exactly means. I assume they mean third-parties but I did not have much luck online figuring it out either. Does that mean only third-parties must follow the social policies set forth? What about fourth or fifth parties — meaning four or five degrees of separation away from the first and second parties? I guess I am getting too technical and asking too many questions. But I think it would help to know if a vendor or supplier is an accredited person of interest!

Anyhow, please read my article on digital defense and the five essential tips to safeguarding your reputation.

    Twitterologies. Is there such a word? I doubt it.  The CEO of Vodacom, Pieter Uys, apologized for outages via Twitter (@uyspj). Despite the inconvenience to Vodacom subscribers, the CEO is getting good marks for his simple apology. While it was happening, Uys was tweeting to customers about what he could do for them and kept in continuous contact. He tweeted the following:

“I do care for every one of our customers. What happened today was not acceptable. I’ll work hard to make you smile again.”

“Words can’t express how sorry I am about today’s problem. Flat out working at making sure all is 100%. Pieter.”

“At the network switch with the engineers. All looks OK now. If you still have a problem, please switch phone off and on.”

Fairly simple way to tell your customers you care. And that you are there. Helps to keep your company reputation intact.

  Lawyers and communications specialists seem at times to inhabit entirely different worlds.  This is something that I’ve often thought about but has received little attention in the public relations and legal counsels’ worlds. So it’s time to think about this new trend in reputation managment that can help companies managing crises and issues better.

Consider this example I was told that has to do with the comments of one anxious general counsel reviewing his company’s first few Tweets.  “Looks good but you have a typo at the end,” the in-house counsel warned the communications officer.  The more socially-savvy communications person quickly replied that the so-called typo — a colon and closed parenthesis — was none other than that now nearly universal icon … the smiley face .

Of course, not all general counsels are so unfamiliar with standard and new social media customs and practices.  However, companies can no longer afford a disconnect between legal and communications.  In times of crisis, particularly, the general counsel  (GC) and chief communications officer (CCO) represent two departments often at odds with one another.  Lawyers typically urge minimal or even no public comment out of fear that admissions might damage a company’s case in a court of law, while communications professionals typically demand prompt public comment, even a CEO apology, to avoid further damage to a company’s reputation in the court of public opinion.

As the “information age” produces one corporate crisis after another and social media zingers multiply at alarming speed, everyone is responsible for keeping a watchful eye on defending company reputation as well as protecting against slander, libel and other legal  difficulties. Despite decidedly different approaches, GCs and CCOs are now both finding themselves participating in the same “reputation management” strategy meetings and conference calls.  They now have no choice but to trust and understand each other.

Here are three ways that these corporate officers can get on the same page:

1. Socialize.   Instead of dealing with problems incident by incident, start strengthening the relationship between GC and CCO by getting them to the table to jointly craft the company’s social media policy and guidelines.  Only about one-third of companies have such policies which leaves plenty of seats left for the two departments to fill. Agreeing to and understanding the needs of the other and providing for thoughtful compromise ahead of time can only help protect against trade secret violations, adverse publicity, confidential leaks and inadvertent disclosures about employee departures and misbehavior. Companies with employees who know  what’s allowable and not allowable on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs because the GC and CCO have cooperated will save their companies sudden embarrassment and reinforce continued cooperation between the departments.
2. Scenario Plan.  The time to build mutual respect is before reputation risk knocks at the door. Best practice requires getting  GCs and CCOs together with CEOs, HR, IT officers and others to rehearse various best and worst case scenarios, online and offline.  After a few sessions of rapid response simulations (we have an online simulation crisis drill called Firebell to do exactly this),  GCs and CCOs will have the opportunity to work out obstacles and craft prepared statements to hypothetical crises that will give them a head start should real crises occur.
3. Value Set.  Anchor both communications and legal concerns to the company’s core values. The values by which a company operates serves as the grease that reduces the natural friction between legal and communications best practices.  Both departments need to consistently call up company values – for example, integrity, good governance and customer always comes first – as the standard by which any legal or communications decision is judged.  Once the primacy of company values is accepted as the ground rule, cooperation between GCs and CCOs can be more easily facilitated.

 No doubt you have heard about icorrect.com – the web site that sets the record straight about rumors and hearsay. The website says that it  is about protecting ” one’s reputation in cyberspace forever.”

ICorrect was started by the founder of Shanghai Tang, the terrifically classy and expensive department store chain. Since I was recently in China, I certainly did not pass up the opportunity to drop into Shanghai Tang and admire all its beautiful apparel and items. It is known as a luxury lifestyle brand.  Sir David, the founder and businessman, began this web site to help people clear up misinformation that lives permanently on the Internet. Several well-known celebrities and luminaries have taken to clearing their records. Anyone can view the corrections although to post costs $1,000 annually. There are posts from Cherie Blair, Sienna Miller and Michael Cain. I do wonder if they are actually took the trouble to post these corrections but it seems to be the case.

 Here is an example — the accusation followed by the correction.

Accusation: Kate Moss to make her acting debut in Shakespeare’s The Tempest

Kate Moss is taking the acting world by storm – making her stage debut in the Tempest. The supermodel, 36, has landed a minor role as a nymph in an upcoming version of Shakespeare’s play. It follows a series of meetings and phone calls with Kevin Spacey who is overseeing the production as part of the Bridge project at London’s Old Vic. Our spy tells us: “Kate has had several acting lessons and is keen to broaden her…….

I am always eager to learn how other countries are managing their company or brand online reputations. Here in the U.S., it is always a topic of conversation at work or at home. Therefore I was pleased when a colleague in our office in the Hague sent me some research they did among executives in Dutch organizations on the subject. I was particularly pleased that they cited our global research that we did on online reputation management in cooperation with the Economist Intelligence Unit. Here are some of the facts that jumped out at me and here is the link if you are interested in learning more.

• Most Dutch companies actively monitor social media but do not react proactively when something appears online that impacts their reputation.
• Dutch companies are slow to react to detractors online or what we call badvocates (I would say that companies here in the U.S. do not necessarily react that quickly either). Dutch companies are quicker to respond to advocates or those who support them than their critics. I think that this reflects the difficulty in getting executives to agree on what to say to detractors. There are so many opinions and people to consult unless you are extremely well-rehearsed or  fairly advanced on the social media continuum.
• A large 62% said that they had encountered badvocates online and one-quarter felt that they had difficulty controling their impact.  I would have expected the latter number to be higher since it is hard to control one’s badvocates. It is hard to know what to do unless you are in the social media conversation often and have built credibility.
• Suprising to me, these executives believe that positive comments online have a greater impact on reputation than negative comments. I would have thought the other way around since detractors’ negativity travels so quickly here in the U.S.  But this does make sense.
• Nearly two-thirds (64%) say that Dutch companies do not have a plan for managing reputation online.  That seems to compare with the U.S. in terms of preparation. I think that most companies think about online reputation management but their planning is less than perfect.

 As my colleagues concluded, “organizations hear what they want to hear.”  I have to totally agree with this conclusion. When I wrote my book on reputation recovery, one of the salient points I learned is how hard it is for companies to stop believing their own propaganda. It is more difficult than ever to think out of the silo or box.  Perhaps that is because every misstep today can be magnified and amplified. Someone once said to me that it is easy to listen but harder to hear. That is the truth.

If you can read in Dutch, you might want to go here.

           An important week for me and I am very proud to share the news with you. An article I wrote — Reputation Warfare – appears in this month’s issue of Harvard Business Review. The issue is themed Social Media and the New Rules of Branding.  Here is the Idea in Brief as HBR likes to call it.

“Companies trying to protect their good names are increasingly coming under assault from small-scale antagonists: dissatisfied customers, disgruntled employees—virtually anyone with a personal computer and an ax to grind. Just as the military learned new strategies to deal with information-based attacks, managers of other organizations can fight back against new-media snipers by applying important lessons.”

The article identifies six strategies for protecting and defending reputation against online antagonists.  Please let me know what you think.

In our research on online reputation management, Risky Business, which we conducted in cooperation with The Economist Intelligence Unit,  we found that employee criticism tied for first place with leaked confidential information as the greatest online reputation risks to a company’s reputation. Today I read about a product called Social Sentry that provides employers with the ability to track what employees are saying about the company in social media while using work computers. The software lets a company know if something questionable is being said such or revealed.  [Note: If an employee is using his or her own personal computer, it cannot track that information.] The article points out that this tool brings the privacay debate to the surface.

Of course, this is one way to manage reputation but one has to ask whether it is really worth it? I am not sure.

 On my way to work today I read an article about the West Wing Week video series which I had forgotten about until now.  The article is focused on Arun Chaudhary who is the White House videographer in charge of capturing the activity of the President every week. He is the first person to hold this job. There are segments that are fun, some serious and some very stately. The aim is to document the presidency for historical purposes and no doubt they will be extremely valuable 25 years from now.

The video is approved by the White House Comms Shop (that is what they call it) before it goes live. Essentially it is what we in the comms business call “owned media.”  The White House is the content provider and is sending the message of an active, friendly, presidential occupant of Pennsylvania Avenue.

What interested me after watching this week’s video was how positive the message was compared to what I tend to read in the press, online and on cable news.  Most of the latter is neutral to negative. The video does a fine job of changing perception, interesting to watch (speechwriter working on board Air Force One, Michelle Obama serving food to military in Germany, Obama and his wife dancing with children in India who pull them in) and a reminder of the stateliness of the office. I get the point that it is put out by the White House but it is more reassuring than what the media delivers to us every day. In fact, it was a relief because the news can be downright depressing.

In an article I wrote on Reputation Warfare appearing in December’s Harvard Business Review, I mention the saliency of video as a way to communicate directly with stakeholders in defending and safeguarding reputation. The best reputation antagonists use video strategically, so why not the President?

Interestingly, in the article and the short video with Arun and the writer, they mention that there is tremendous interest in the West Wing Week video internally. Always a side-benefit that companies should seriously consider…..