According to the ‘Social Media Revolution’ video from Socialnomics, 96% of Generation Y or Millennials (born between 1980 and 2000 or thereabouts) are part of an online social network and yet the fastest growing segment of Facebook is females aged 55-65 years old.

Ashton Kutcher and Britney Spears have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of Sweden, Israel, Switzerland, Ireland, Norway and Panama, and half the mobile internet traffic in the UK is for Facebook. Over 50% of the world’s population is under 30 years old and email is considered old technology by a significant number of them.

We are connecting, communicating and revealing personal and professional details about ourselves more openly than ever before. In the time it takes to read this post around 50 hours of video will be uploaded to YouTube, the world’s second largest search engine.

We tap out information about ourselves at the stroke of a key and yet rarely think about the damage that can be caused to our reputation, both online and off, by posting careless remarks and images.

Even if we don’t write the words ourselves, others are writing about us, and in this digital age of instant upload it’s worth remembering that the camera is always rolling, the microphone is always on, and there’s no such thing as ‘off-the-record’.

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We live in an age of instant global communication and no one knows that better than young people who are incredibly at home in a highly networked world.  What’s also become incredibly apparent is just how vulnerable those same young people are to seriously damaging their reputation by not thinking through long term consequences of online or digital communications.

Downsides of such actions can generate much media play: schoolyard bashings filmed on mobile phone cameras; child bullying by text and emails; young people sharing too much personal information on social networking sites; doubtful photos casting the wrong light on how people present themselves.  

Schools, universities and even employers are checking out online reputations of applicants and taking action accordingly.

So what can a parent teach their digitally advanced child about this realm?  Ten top tips for parents to share with their children include:

1.  Once information is on the internet it’s basically there forever and can be copied, forwarded and misused. Thousands of strangers will read your comments without knowing the type of person you really are, and will draw their own conclusions.

2.  Other people will judge you based on what you say and do on the internet. Small details in the background of images can identify you and others. Think carefully before publishing online information and images.

3.  Never publish anything when you’re in a rush or under pressure. Wait, re-read it and publish it only when you’re sure you want it visible to everyone – forever. Read the rest of this entry »

Will the real Mr X stand up? One of the myths about reputation we often accept is that we only have one reputation and it’s this one reputation that we focus our attention on. The reality is every one of us has multiple reputations.

If five or six people know you in a particular role, for example as a competitive tennis player, you’ll have at least five or six reputations relating to this. This is because each person’s perception of you, based on personal experience or hearsay, is likely to be slightly different than someone else’s perception.

If asked to describe in one or two words what a particular person is like as a tennis player responses may include comments such as ‘aggressive’, ‘makes excuses’ or ‘unreliable’. Others may say ‘a good sport’, ‘a team player’, ‘naturally talented’ and so on. 

Each is referring to the same person in their role as a tennis player. Why the difference in perception? Because our reputation is based on a snapshot in time and determined largely by the personal experience of other people as they perceive it.

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When a company decides to have an official presence on Facebook, or other online social media network, they open themselves up to two huge opportunities:

• They can connect and communicate with potential and existing clients and customers keen to engage in a dialogue with that company and build trust in the process.

• They also run the risk of getting offside with ‘fans’, friends’ and ‘followers’ big-time if they fail to understand the ‘rules of engagement’ and try and use what are perceived as ‘big-brother’ tactics in the process.

The fall-out that’s occurred, which is neatly summarised in Bernard Warner’s blog post at SocialMediaToday.com, demonstrates how the internet can become a bitter battlefield where wars are won or lost based not on words, but on behaviour.

No matter how much a company or organisation may want to control their image and reputation online, it’s almost impossible to do – especially via Social Networking sites such as Facebook.

Attacking its commentators is unlikely to have endeared Nestle to the 90,000 or so ‘friends’ it has (had?) on Facebook as Rick Broida points out at bnet.com.

I’d hazard a guess it would have earned more respect, and perhaps even enhanced its reputation, if it had responded in a way that said ‘we hear you, we welcome your feedback, and we’re actually quite pleased you’re taking the time to let us know how you feel’.

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Over-promising and under-delivering is one of the biggest reputation-damagers there is.

If the breach of promise is relatively minor, most of us will forgive an organisation and give it a second, or even third, chance to deliver and meet our expectations.

However, when promises continue to be broken, and serious doubts are raised about a company’s ability to deliver – in any way – our willingness to trust that company plummets.

New Zealand’s largest telco company, Telecom, is in serious trouble in terms of reputation branding.

Its much-vaunted ‘available (almost) anywhere’ television ads used to launch the XT Network has come back to haunt them with significant network outages that have affected hundreds of thousands of customers.

This isn’t a minor blip. The fourth major outage this week has resulted in the resignation of Telecom’s most senior executive responsible for the network’s design and implementation. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you worry about your online reputation? It seems many of us don’t – but we should.

Research carried out by Microsoft recently highlighted just how powerful the internet can be in terms of affecting how job-seekers, companies and consumers are perceived.

Stark findings from the study of 2,500 consumers, HR managers and recruitment professionals in the US, UK, Germany and France include:

• 63% of consumers surveyed are concerned that online reputation might affect their personal and/or professional life, yet less than half even consider their reputations when they post online content.
• Fewer than 15% of consumers in any of the countries surveyed believe that information found online would have an impact on their getting a job and yet
• 70% of surveyed HR professionals in US, and 41% in the UK, have rejected a candidate based on online reputation information, however, on the up-side:
• 86% of HR professionals (and at least two thirds of those in the UK and Germany) stated that a positive online reputation influences the candidate’s application to some extent with almost half stating that it does so to a great extent.

The take-out of all this? Reputation rules. It opens doors or slams them shut. If you’re concerned about an online reputation that may be less than flattering Microsoft’s ‘Protect your online reputation’ guidelines provide sound advice, including: Read the rest of this entry »

Much like the Kryptonite bike lock debacle back in 2005, the Sons of Maxwell ‘United breaks guitars’ video  continues to be picked up on the web and damage United’s reputation.

When the airline damaged a $3,500 Taylor guitar and refused to accept liability, or provide any kind of compensation, Dave Carroll hit back where it hurt – right at their reputation.

According to a Mashable blog post written just after the video was posted in August last year, the video accrued around 3.2 million views and 14,000 comments less than 10 days after it was uploaded.

Today the clip’s been viewed more than 7.5 million times and continues to circulate on the internet in a practical demonstration of word-of-mouth becoming word-of-mouse.

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Think social media doesn’t matter to you, your business or your reputation? Think again!  Socialnomics’ ‘Social Media Revolution’ clip on YouTube is doing an excellent job of showing how important social media is, and will continue to be, to all of us – both as consumers and product and service providers.

There are currently more than 200 million blogs with 54 percent bloggers posting content or tweeting daily.  Around 34 percent of these bloggers are posting opinions about products and brands online. What might they be saying about you?

It’s worth giving it some thought as around 78 percent of consumers trust peer recommendations, but only 14 percent trust advertisements.  I wonder why?!

Now, you might think ‘all this web stuff’s not for me’ and you may be right. But celebrities Ashton Kutcher and Ellen DeGeneres currently have more followers on Twitter than the entire population of Ireland, Norway and Panama. Read the rest of this entry »

Two stories caught my eye this week regarding companies making claims they apparently haven’t been able to keep.

The first is Telecom who’s reached a settlement with the Commerce Commission following its admission it misled around 130,000 broadband customers regarding pricing plans. Apparently it overcharged customers more than $9.5 million between 1999 and 2006 when dial-up customers switched to broadband.

Although Telecom has refunded almost all these customers, since 2003 it has apparently received warnings, settlements or convictions relating to the Fair Trading Act at least eight times. Read the rest of this entry »

Philosopher Joseph Hall said “A reputation, once broken, may possibly be repaired, but the world will always keep its eyes on the spot where the crack was”.

It’s a particularly relevant quote given the damage that’s been done to New Zealand author Witi Ihimaera’s reputation following his admission of plagiarism.

Quite why such a distinguished author as Ihimaera, who’s acknowledged as one of New Zealand’s undoubted literary elite, and a professor of literature at Auckland University, would plagiarise another author’s work is baffling. I say ‘undoubted’ but of course, Ihimaera’s admission of plagiarism raises massive doubts about his motives and character. Read the rest of this entry »