According to a report recently released by the The Conference Board, online reputation management is becoming more and more important to corporate marketers and brand managers. This report highlights the results of a study that confirms online reputation management concern is significantly on the rise.
This is great news, and certainly to be expected considering the recent nightmare scenario experienced by Dominos, where an employee posted a YouTube video of himself messing with customer food that was syndicated on major news channels and severely hurt the almost 30 year old brand. But although the report highlights advances in this regard, it also demonstrates how behind much of the corporate world is.
Consider this:
1. Only 49 percent of corporate executives surveyed in the report said that the management of reputation risk was highly integrated with their ERM function or other programs.
2. Only 34 percent of respondents said that they monitor social media such as blogs, online forums and social network sites.
3. Only 10 percent actively participate in social media
These numbers, while an improvement from past years, are still very low. Companies need to be more active in guarding their brand, whether online or offline. Sometimes, companies look down at digital media and user generated content as something unimportant, even beneath their company. But as the situation with Dominos indicates, these new channels can be detrimental to a brand. Consumers have a large impact on a brand’s reputation, and if they are moving the conversion to digital channels, then it makes sense that companies need to adapt with their customer base and shift their monitoring priorities online as well.
Companies have to understand that customers are going to carry on the conversation about them whether they are present or not. They can either participate and thus influence/monitor the conversation, or they can try to ignore it, and thus be totally out of control. Put this way, isn’t it obvious that the right thing to do is to participate?
