Online reputation management is getting hotter as corporate managers begin to understand the power of social media and social marketing strategies. The web’s influence is quite powerful, it only takes one negative article being picked up by Digg or StumbleUpon users and suddenly your reputation is gone. Being able to pick these moves early is the first step to managing the fallout that may ensue.

Having a strong online reputation may count for nothing in these cases. I am reminded of the case of Kryponite who manufactured and sold bicycle locks – one article on the web explaining how easy it was to circumvent the lock and within 48 hours that article had been circulated to all corners of the globe – Kryponite ended up replacing almost half a million locks. Could they have prevented the fallout? Possibly not but they may have been able to put in place a contingency plan that could have reduced the damage.

There are now software monitoring packages that can assist with the early detection of negative data being posted throughout the web. It is however pointless being able to detect negatives data unless you have strategic plans in place to counter them.

Having a strong online presence with a solid social marketing strategy is the first step. Constantly engaging and monitoring these social sites should be a major part of your social marketing strategy. Your reputation management program is then fully integrated into your social marketing program. When bad news strikes, you are perfectly placed to step in and if nothing else, reduce the damage that could ensue.

The bottom line is, if your not involved in social marketing your ability to engage in reputation management will be significantly reduced.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 at 8:37 am and is filed under Reputation Management, Social Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.