Social media is a valuable tool, but misuse it and you could be in trouble. Whether your purpose is crisis management, marketing, reputation management, or simple conversation, if you don’t mind your manners you could find yourself or your business ostracized from these online societies. In order to help avoid …
As the H1N1 swine flu rapidly spreads from nation to nation, many companies are taking advanced measures to prevent further spread. One major concern is business travel. Many crisis management plans call for employees’ travel to be tracked, as an interview from this New York Times web article states. “So …
Your reputation means everything. A positive one can drive your business, bringing new customers and positive press. Get a bad rap though, even an unwarranted one, and you may soon find yourself in full crisis management mode, struggling to take back control. The average user who searches your company name …
Social media startup iMindi, a new type of blog service built to act as a “Thought Engine,” faltered in its first steps into the public eye Monday, accidentally deleting 1,000 accounts belonging to beta users of the site. TechCrunch.com explains: On Monday we wrote about iMindi, a new startup that …
As far as crisis management jobs go, the task of coming up with crisis response plans to counter a nuclear strike is about as intense as it gets. This is exactly what a new team formed by the South Korean government has been assigned to do in reaction to yet …
The advent of mainstream social media means that the things posted online by some anonymous users are now being given, at least by the average reader, the same weight they might give to a story by an accredited reporter. While this creates the opportunity for a wide variety of viewpoints …
“Bloggers are increasingly getting sued or threatened with legal action for everything from defamation to invasion of privacy to copyright infringement. In 2007 — the most recent data available — 106 civil lawsuits against bloggers and others in social networks and online forums were tallied by the Citizen Media Law …
If you’re even remotely involved in crisis management, then a couple weeks ago your desk was flooded with H1N1 flu warnings and preparations. The aim of many communicators was to prevent panic, and they were quite effective. Judith Analco of consulting firm EnviroKey says that may be a problem. In …
We’ve seen many public figures in dire need of reputation management, from Hollywood starlets to Wall Street Bankers and sports superstars. The fastest way to get past these problems is to first accept responsibility and apologize, then demonstrate to the public that you have changed your ways. Of course, they …
Yesterday we talked about one of the crucial ingredients to successful reputation management, transparency. Today I’d like to take a look at another important aspect – customer service. This time, though, our story is an example of what not to do from Boston-based computer-repair service Geek Choice (no affiliation with …
There have been some spectacular crisis management disasters in the online tech world recently (#amazonfail anyone?), but how about a success story? This one comes from the usually tight-lipped 500 pound gorilla of the web, Google! When many of Google’s sites went down Thursday, there was an immediate backlash across …
“We may have to delay the Marathon at least three hours.” Few words can put a chill down a Marathon staff’s spine quite like “delay.” For runners and walkers who have their pre-event routine timed to the minute; any kind of a disruption is upsetting at the least, and devastating …
Every manufacturer and reseller should be ready to launch into crisis response mode in case of an unexpected product recall. As I said in this story: “Too many CEO’s play ostrich about the possibility of a recall. They wait until the recall is required and then try to figure out …
There’s a new issue of Crisis Manager hot off the presses, with some oddly titled but excellent stories. It’s free for the taking! This edition’s got a crisis management success story by Betsy Ross, president of Game Day Communications, a couple announcements, and crisis prevention advice spawned from a spat …
We haven’t quite made it a week since the last crisis management disaster involving a major US company and here’s The Consumerist at it again, this time with a doozy of a story involving sporting goods giant REI and Loomis security. While Shane was standing in the customer service line …
