Online Reputation Management Nears the Tipping Point

As mentioned recently on ReputationAdvisor.com, the online reputation management industry is on the verge of its tipping point (for an explanation of “tipping point”, see Macolm Gladwell’s book of the same name). Let’s take a quick look at the buildup.

Online usage increases.
As more people spend more time online  than watching television, the impact of the medium increases. Most businesses now rely on the Web on some level to advertise, inform, validate, and sell. But for the sake of this post, what’s being said and published online about you is more important than your level of web marketing.  Even if your website is a glorified business card with virtually no presence on Google, Yahoo, Ask, or Live Search, negative things can be published about you by competitors, ex-clients, ex-employees, ex-girlfriends, someone you offended, someone you ignored, and on and on. And whether you’ve spent much time and money on branding yourself or your company online, you can lose business and credibility by what others publish.

Example: Local Business
A local plumbing company barely has a website. It’s ugly, one-page, and gives no real information except phone, fax, and address. A disgruntled receptionist has a bad day and offends 1, 2, or 10 different people. One of those people is angry enough to go online and blog about how terrible the plumbing company is. Now that information is out there. Even if satisfied customers refer their friends to that plumbing company, those people may take a few minutes to do a quick Google search on the company name to find out more. If that negative blog post appears at the top of the search results, that plumbing company just lost business. Why would you call a possibly bad plumbing company when there are dozens more out there you’ve heard nothing negative about? Exactly. You wouldn’t.

Take it to the next level.
Now take that example and magnify it to a Fortune 500 level. You’re a big name corporation with millions of customers. How many people will be swayed against using your products or services based on the hundreds or thousands of accusations posted online against you? Can you afford to lose business and revenue because you have no current method of handling these crises?

Unless the term “profit” means nothing to your business, you can’t afford to not monitor and manage your online reputation. That’s why you need to come up with a plan and a budget for handling your online rep. Then comes the task of locating a respected reputation manager to handle your reputation with kid gloves day in and day out.

All of this will seem like a lot of unnecessary concern and expense to many business owners (mostly because denial is a comfortable place to live) until they become aware of their first crisis that could cost millions in revenue and branding. Many executives will hear about reputation management and recognize their own need, yet they will still choose to wait for the crisis to hit (hoping it happens years down the road).

Reputation Terrorism is the battlefield of tomorrow. Look for it. You’ll suddenly see companies severely crippled by negative online campaigns executed by clever opportunists posing as legitimate clients, customers, or employees. This is where the saying, “Information is power” is accepted as gospel truth.

The millions of blogs, forums, article publishers, and social media sites are a breeding ground of user generated content, written by the user for the user. What will the empowered users say about you?