Issue One covers “Strategies to Recover Reputation”, in which they state that the average length of time required to recover a damaged reputation in the United States is 3.2 years. If you do the math, that’s millions or billions in lost revenue, depending on the size of the company or senior executive. Issue One also encourages readers to develop an early warning system - i.e. a reputation monitoring system. There are many reputation monitoring tools and services out there, and each has its own flavor and approach.

Issue Two covers how “Corporate Responsibility Aids Reputation Recovery”. Adhering to the laws of the land should not be the only measuring stick for a corporation’s social consciousness. By pushing your company to the forefront of social responsibility, you both aid the community and generate significant positive press. Not that everything should be discussed in matters of what you can gain from it, but it’s important to note that companies with advanced social / environmental policies are rewarded with an abundance of positive press.

Issue Three is on “Triggers of Reputation Failure.” Financial irregularities, unethical behavior, and executive misconduct round off the top three triggers of reputation failure. One only has to stop and think of Enron, Michael Jackson (boy troubles), the New England Patriots (SpyGate), and the New York Knicks (Isaiah Thomas) to realize how damaging these three issues can be to a corporation’s global reputation. Your profitability stems from a reputation of trustworthiness and civic responsibility. These foundational issues must be protected as closely as you would guard the safety of your own spouse and children.

In case you’ve been living under a rock and have no idea who Weber Chandwick is and why you should care what they say, read their About Us page and check out their entire website.

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The posts have been flowing like mud around here, and I’ll do my best to provide more value to you loyal RSS readers. Keep in mind, however, that the most prolific subject matter expert bloggers typically “work” the least. Do the math. There’s only so much time in the day. It’s all about finding the balance.

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.

Quick Summary
All government planes used to refuel other planes in the air are extremely old and need to be replaced. The U.S. government opened up bidding to the public and two companies responded: Boeing and Northrop/Airbus. There was heated debate over the possibility of a European manufacturer landing this tremendous $35 billion contract. Never before has a non-American manufacturer won this kind of government contract.

The question now is how does Boeing recover? No other American company can compete for these deals, and how do we know that one loss doesn’t lead to two or three? What happens if European contractors take away hundreds of billions of dollars from the U.S. economy? And maybe more importantly, how did Boeing screw this up?

These are questions investors will have to ask. $35 billion is nothing to scoff at. According to MSNBC, Boeing has been responsible for supplying refueling tankers to the Air Force for the past 50 years. That’s a lot of tradition and revenue to lose.

At this point in time, Boeing appears to be responding with silence and general acceptance of defeat. That could come back to haunt them in the days to come. Anytime your company or brand makes the headlines alongside negative words like “mistake, loses, loss, error, bad news, or defeated”, public perception and confidence in your brand dips at least marginally (if not drastically).

The Boeing PR staff better get it in gear. There’s another $65 billion out there to be had over the next 30 years, and Boeing needs to position itself to be the frontrunner to get it. I’ll keep an eye on this and see how it unfolds.

Certain experts in internet marketing and PR have been assisting individuals and corporations with reputation management for a few years now. Guys like Andy Beal, who’s been writing about ORM since his blog began. Lee Odden, is another example of a marketing professional who has combined the practices of public relations, image consulting, and search engine optimization to provide ORM.

Maybe it’s Andy Beal’s Twitter account. Maybe his blog has matured to the right status. Maybe the Interweb has finally seasoned enough users to deliver viral blow. Assign credit wherever you want; the truth of the matter is still that Andy Beal is in the right place at the right time.

Andy recently launched Trackur, a reputation monitoring program, and the timing just seems perfect. Enough people have enough problems online that a well publicized program/tool could really make a dent in the public awareness. It’s got the Web 2.0 look and feel. Andy Beal is speaking in multiple venues this year on the subject, raising awareness and educating the public on how to handle a reputation crisis (and prevent one from ever happening).

Marketing Pilgrim, Andy’s long standing blog on all things Internet marketing, has received a recent boost from Twitter networking and prize giveaways. In fact, the only thing in question now is the product itself: Trackur. Having not used it yet myself, I must reserve judgment for another day and another post. However, even if Trackur isn’t everything you’ve ever wanted, it’s brandable and it’s memorable and, like everything else these days, it can be improved and enhanced over time.

If I can get my hands on a version of Trackur that lasts more than two weeks, I’ll write up a full review. In the meantime, mind your words, and guard your rep.

That one complaint post ranks #1 for the specialty garden tub company’s name. The company website ranks #2. In his particular niche, search engine reputation is huge. The company depends on their website for sales and promotional information. And somehow, this one post outranked them and was hurting their search rep big time.

As I said in the title, handle public product complaints with care. It’s easy to get offended and rush into battle like a bull in a china shop. But before you try blasting your accuser out of the sky, remember that the decisions you make now will affect your reputation forever. Your words are permanent once you’ve sent them out into the ether, so choose your response with care.

Casey’s (not his real name) initial response was to jump into the fray. He asked me for help finding comparable blogs/forums where he could post his own comments to outrank the complaint. His thought was that anything ranking higher than this negative piece would be better than being beaten outright. To some extent, this is true. But a little more thought put into his response would probably work in his favor in the long-term.

My response to Casey was to forgo the blog/forum hunt for now and focus on printing a response on the same forum/blog that the complaint was posted. My reasoning was twofold: 1) anyone reading the actual complaint would find his response listed immediately after, and 2) there’s always the chance that his response would outrank the original complaint.

My strongest recommendation, however, was that Casey allow me to at least review and revise whatever statements he would write in response. This is key, especially when the accusation comes from an ex-employee or anyone you’ve had relationship with. Your personal offense should not be counted against your company. Allow a “disinterested” third party review your response and make honest comments on style, tone, and content. Not everyone can afford to keep a PR firm on retainer, so choose your third party assistant wisely.

And, as always, feel free to contact me with any questions or ideas you might have.

Best of luck to you all.

Yes, there’s a lot of noise out there about link bait these days. Professional link baiters claim that a well-written blog post or article will bring in the links. Fooey. Those people have lots of friends who do them favors, including free book marks, Diggs, and Stumbles. If a person can gain a quick 100+ Diggs based on their personal influence, it doesn’t really matter if the piece they wrote was top notch, does it?

For those of us yet to develop the international clout of these SEO stars, we have to do some actual work. That includes the negotiation of paid links from webmasters around the world. If you’ve never tried it, start off slow. You can get from a network of bloggers.

Sure, Matt Cutts will hate you. You’ll be on his shitlist, even. But does that REALLY matter? Is your goal to be his buddy or to help your clients? Answer that question and you’ll be ahead of the so-called stars of SEO.

A word to employers: Grow up! Realize that any quality blog posts written by an ex-employee still benefit your company by remaining visible. Those are searchable pages containing industry specific content that can still make you look good. But what about when the employee joins another team? This is your big PR opportunity to look like a mature corporate entity - one that embraces career development and speaks well of employees as they continue to pursue their dreams. It doesn’t hurt you to have an ex-employee’s name on your blog archive bylines. In fact, that employee may go on to be more successful somewhere and his/her name could become a valuable commodity to have in your archive. So don’t jump the gun by erasing ex-employees’ blog posts or by removing their names from the bylines. That’s just childish. And think of all the people those ex-employees may point out your faux pax to. Do you really want a whole group of people knowing that your company is so small minded that it feels threatened by each employee that leaves? Or would you rather be known as the employer who is proud of giving some future stars an excellent opportunity to hone their skills? Seems to be a rather obvious choice here.

Now, a word to ex-employees: Do not fear. WaybackMachine is here. If past employers delete your valuable blog posts from their corporate sites to “stick it to you” for whatever cheesy reason they might have, you can still get credit for them forever. Simply visit WaybackMachine online and search archived versions of your ex-employer’s site. This is especially effective if you make sure to get your name posted in the bylines of every site you write for. Simply pull up archived photos of your blog posts through the WaybackMachine and save screen prints of the actual pages with your blog titles and name in the byline. It will serve as absolute proof of your prolific blogging abilities regardless of whether your ex-bosses are savvy enough to keep them visible.

Take those screen prints with you to interviews in case a discussion should arise concerning the validity of your claims to have blogged professionally. Not only do the WaybackMachine screen prints give you credit, but they prove to your prospective employer that you are intelligent and creative enough to find the means to prove your work history in the midst of adversity.

According to the article, Facebook Beacon made the same mistake some time ago. It’s unusual to see giant web corporations lacking the foresight to handle this type of situation in advance. But when hundreds of complaints start coming in, it’s hard to turn a blind eye.

The Web is obviously the most advanced method of information storage and retrieval the public has ever experienced. eCommerce and social media are such staples in our society today that companies should automatically place user privacy and data sharing policies at the top of the list of importance.

When Google can make the mistake of releasing thousands of details about its users without realizing there’s a problem, allow yourself to become alarmed. As Google continues to grow and store a greater percentage of the world’s information, someone has to hold them accountable. I personally used Google Reader only once, at the behest of Graywolf. I found it to be boring and not nearly as interesting as reading my own feeds and twittering. It’s no big loss to me. My only concern is what this kind of mistake says about the future state of affairs.

Stay tuned.

It’s rather obvious that most executives are not going to understand the value of proactive reputation management. After all, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it… right? Managing something you don’t know or believe could actually become a problem is not worth the monthly maintenance fee of several thousand dollars. Or is it? Only the cautious, conservative investor is likely to acknowledge the wisdom in proactively managing and guarding the corporate brand reputation.

Why spend money on something that hasn’t happened yet? Well, as Downhill points out, “Extensive reputation repair can entail building out as many as 10 sites - in other words 10 separate SEO jobs. At the heart of reputation management is an effective organic SEO strategy, and as we know - good organic SEO is not cheap.”

Well said. Building out sites and pages to fill the top 10 results of Google, Yahoo, MSN Live, and Ask will inevitably cost you much more when you’re competing with a solid negative authorities already in the top 10. The earlier you establish your presence, the better your chances of remaining at the top.

Let’s consider the options:

$3k-5k per month for proactive reputation management, OR

$40k+ per month for last minute emergency reputation repair.

Hmmm….. tough decision.

More details as they come available.