Someone in your industry is going to be the eco trendsetter. Will it be you? It’s a label that draws a lot of media coverage and widespread appreciation. Any company looking to enhance its online reputation should take a closer look at going green.

Telecommuting, i.e. working remotely, is a fairly easy way for any company with phone sales or computer based employees to contribute to a greener economy. According to Treehugger, most employers still resist telecommuting despite the obvious benefits.

“In a poll of 1,500 technology workers, 37% said they would accept a salary cut (of up to 10%) if they could work from home, according to Dice Holdings.”

The United States could save an estimated 9.7 million gallons of gas and $38.2 billion per year from white collar employees working remotely from home just two days per week.

IT and technology based companies are slowly making the conceptual transition to accept the obvious: saving money and the environment is good. As the CIO, CEO, or IT leader of your company, look at this opportunity quickly. In five years, every company that can will allow employees to telecommute. Bob Hirsch has predicted $500 per barrel of crude oil within the next 3-5 years. That would put a heavy strain on the profits of every industry and the global economy.

Thinking ahead, any organization that can quickly make the switch to telecommuting can get a jump on the masses and come out on top as an environmental thought leader. Other benefits include:

• Higher employee satisfaction
• Less money spent on employee salaries
• Less money spent by employees on fuel and car maintenance
• Excellent material for PR and online reputation enhancement
• Contributing to the conservation of fuel
• Established environmental thought leadership in the industry

There will be some bumps and bruises along the way. Most objections to telecommuting revolve around organizational structure and production accountability. Employee production is a legitimate concern, but one that can be creatively overcome by the company focused on becoming a trend setter and thought leader.

For the sake of client privacy, we’ll call this client, “Flamingo Crossing.” Flamingo Crossing sells a high-end product to the posh VPs and real estate agent types who relish living in the lap of luxury. Flamingo Crossing not only sells their product through an ecommerce store, it also sells through a list of approved vendors. Now comes the problem(s).

There are dozens of non-approved vendors selling Flamingo Crossing’s product. They are using the company name “Flamingo Crossing” in their PPC ads, matching old or incorrect logos/images with the product, selling stolen product, reselling product without permission, etc. On top of these issues, even the approved vendors are not adhering to a consistent branding theme, thus diluting the potency of the Flamingo Crossing brand.

This is where the reputation manager enters into the equation. With several hundred approved vendors to review and potential thousands of non-approved vendors to deal with, Flamingo Crossing needs someone to monitor their branded names and products in hopes of serving these offenders with cease and desist letters from their legal department.

This project revolves more around brand management, but rolls over into reputation management as these inappropriate vendors may generate negative reactions from the consumer. So we have a multi-tiered problem to deal with, and a client that is VERY motivated to make things happen. Let’s look at the basic outline of this project:

Identify Goals
We have already established that the primary goal here is to locate vendors selling the brand or the product. We also want to inform the client of negative statements made against their brand so that they may both generate responses and follow the trail to possible misuses of their brand names.

Identify Terms
We begin by requesting a comprehensive list of identifiable terms, including SKUs (SKUs optional, based on scope of approved project). We take that list of terms and run it through our keyword analysis tools just to make sure there aren’t similar words and phrases that could lead us to our targets.

Monitor Tool Setup
We set up several monitoring tools to begin scouring the Web for information regarding our targets. We don’t implicitly trust any one tool at this point to provide comprehensive information, so we use each client as a case study for comparing the tools and how they perform.

Data Analysis
Perhaps the most lengthy part of the ongoing project. We take all the URLs that lead to mentions of our target keywords and review each instance not stemming from a website owned by the client for possible negative statements or misuse / abuse of intellectual property. We compile a list of pages on the Web to be addressed along with comments about each.

Reporting
In addition to compiling a list of troubling mentions / instances, we deliver to the client comprehensive reporting on the overall status of brand mentions, the proliferation or lack thereof of negative mentions / brand abuse, and deliver recommendations for how to appropriately deal with visible or forseeable top level issues that could spread.

Execution
This includes both the daily and the top level strategic responses that should be made to stave off the PR slide that can come from negative press online. The reputation manager distributes cease and desist letters to brand abusers (NOT an action taken for standard reputation issues) and assists the client with implementing approved measures to counter balance the negative statements already made. This is also the time for proactive PR and marketing initiatives to stave off potential future crises.

In the end, the client is responsible for legal actions taken, and the reputation manager is not in any way responsible for discussing legal terms with brand abusers or illegitimate vendors. When not directly responsible for the creation of ORM responses, the reputation manager is charged primarily with the task of locating the problems, accurately assessing the atmosphere surrounding each issue, and ensuring a timely response to crises, questions, complaints, and negative statements so that further damage to the company name is avoided.

Point me in the direction of themes you think would fit the Reputation Advisor content. Heck, we might even award a prize to the person who helps me find the perfect look.

What do you think?

Patel brings up a great point in one of his QuickSprout posts. He says that you have to think strategically in order to make your 15 minutes of fame last longer.

I’ve already passed up my first 15 minutes of fame. Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz decided to chastise me in front of the world last October for an article I wrote nearly a year before. My CultureFeast website jumped 150 daily visitors just because of that. Unfortunately, I didn’t make the most of my 15 minutes and I faded from view. I had a good excuse, really. I was concerned about how my responses might affect the company I worked for, so I kept my responses mellow and more good natured than they would have been otherwise.

Of course, my traffic dropped back down after a month, and I experienced the equivalent of a speed freak’s morning after.

All is not lost, though. According to Google Analytics, CultureFeast is now at an all-time high with more than 8,000 visitors this past 30 days. I owe it all to my wife, who has a Papaya Clothing store addiction.

Because of my writing about all things Papaya Clothing related, I should be the company’s online marketing manager. The company doesn’t even have a website and I’m working on presenting them with my analytics and comment results to show them how I can drive business to their website if only they will build one.

Something big will happen. Either Papaya Clothing Co. will heed my warning and use me or someone to build and optimize their website, or their reputation will be damaged online when all the potential customers start bashing them for not giving customers access to their products and store information. It’s a tense situation. I don’t know which way the company will choose to go.

I am available to help if only Papaya Clothing will wake up and smell the house burning down.