Monitoring your reputation

What is the starting point in ensuring you have a good online reputation?
In my opinion it is the understanding that you don't control your reputation any longer. It is not about advertising, it is about what people say about you! And social media means that a bad word about your company or its services goes an awfully long way.
For a travel company it might be a bad review on TripAdvisor. For a bank it might be a bitchy post on a financial services website.
Once you appreciate that countless conversations about you and your company are taking place on online, then the first thing to do is to set up a system to keep track of what is being said and where. Only then can you start to engage in the dialogue. Once you know what is going on, then an action place can be started that will enable you to engage with your stakeholders online.
There are tools available that will assist you in tracking these conversations, but engagement takes real expertise and a real understanding of how to talk to stakeholders using social media.
In Malaysia, where I currently hang out, so few companies actually understand this.
A new company, which I won't name for now, is about to launch in KL that will provide bespoke consultancy to companies and individuals who want to use social media to enhance their brands and services.
More on this later...

The First Post...

So, I thought I would start as I mean to go on and talk about the world of online communications. To many, including most corporate PR departments and CEOs, the new wave of internet communities is something of a puzzle. Everyone is on them (Twitter, Facebook, myspace etc etc) but how do you tap into these communities to add value to your company’s brand or enhance your own reputation?
The first lesson to learn is that you are no longer in control of your reputation. It doesn’t matter how many press releases or adverts you churn out, the deciding factor in how you are viewed by the world is what people are saying about you. A recent Edelman PR survey found that people are most likely to trust information provided by someone like themselves. PRs featured at the bottom of the list nestled between estate agents (realty agents for you US readers) and Fox News Anchors. So the challenge now facing companies and high profile business leaders, is how to engage with stakeholders who recognise and instinctively distrust corporate spin.
This is a topic that I will be returning to in detail over the next few months.