Jennifer Jones from PodTech interviews Chris Pizzo on the perils of someone in the blogosphere 'smearing' you and damaging your online reputation.
As Chris says many companies are just not managing their online reputation. Whilst there are tools to help it is not as well established as traditional media monitoring. Yet the consequences of not actively monitoring and then participating in the blogosphere can be very painful (just as Dell did - see earlier post).
My experience is that most corporations are afraid of the online community. This is mainly due to the fear of loss of control. This is not like mainstream journalists or print media who have an uneasy relationship with companies that infact pay their salaries.
But to be fair to journalists I am sure it is the companies themselves who think they have some influence over print media. In reality they have little or none. Print media and journalists are better understood by business rather than independent people communicating via the blogosphere.
Secondly most businesses run on a longer timescale. Most trade publications are monthly or weekly. It takes time for a negative story to build usually. In that time the company can prepare a response.
With blogs the news travels fast. Very fast. Companies do not have many days let alone weeks before negative news can go 'viral' and word-of-mouth/mouse damages a companies reputation.
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