As more of us get used to sharing our opinions online and off, handling negative feedback and complaints effectively has become increasingly important.

Interestingly, even though we’re increasingly happy to comment online, research tells us that around 96 per cent of us won’t complain to the provider directly when we’re let down.

We will, however, use ‘word-of-mouse’ to tell dozens of people we know face-to-face and via Facebook, Twitter and other social media and encourage them to share the information widely.

Few people complain for the sake of it. They complain primarily because:

1. They’re unhappy at being let down in some way and want to be personally recompensed or acknowledged for this and/or
2. They want to reduce the chance of someone else having a similar experience in future. Read the rest of this entry »

The saying ‘Knowledge is power’ is only partly true. Knowledge, in itself, isn’t power. It’s the application of knowledge that’s powerful.

Which is why I enjoy providing an opportunity for event participants to ‘drill-down’ and explore the impact reputation branding, and building and maintaining trust, might have on their business or in their life specifically instead of simply applying theories vaguely or generically.

It’s one thing to know something. It’s quite another to determine how it might impact you directly, one way or another.

I often say ‘reputation branding is common sense’ but as many of us know, common sense isn’t as common as we’d like to believe. It never ceases to amaze me how many people post angry comments online, or vent their spleen in other ways and think it might have no effect.

Everything we do and say creates consequences – positive and not so positive. Taking a moment to consider what those consequences might be could mean the difference between having to eat humble pie, or worse, or having a reputation that attracts people to you for positive reasons. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: TV3 News.co.nz

Following the media coverage resulting from one of New Zealand’s most high-profile CEOs has been like watching a train crash in slow motion.

The fact that he apparently believes women take more sick leave because of ‘monthly sick problems’ is one thing. It’s quite another that he said this in his role as Chief Executive of the Employer and Manufacturers Association (Northern).

Reputation rules and if the CEO states he’s simply expressing the views of many of its members we can take as read that that’s the case. No wonder, then, that many of those members were both aghast and disturbed at his comments, as were members of his board who scrambled to distance itself from Thompson’s comments.

Now there are numerous examples of leaders of organisations who have made untrue, inappropriate or simply strange comments who haven’t been vilified he way Thompson has. So what is it about him that’s keeping the story running and leaving Twitter and Facebook commentators feasting on it? Read the rest of this entry »

In Reputationz News each month I highlight what I consider to be recent reputation winners and losers. They can be people, companies or even abstract ideas. Some are fairly obvious. Others are off-beat or quirky. You may or may not agree! The lists are purely my opinion.

Check out the lists below for my pick of recent reputation winners and losers and feel free to leave a comment with nominations for the next issue if you think someone or something should be included.

Reputation Winners

• The Kiwi owners of Farmers Trading Company for purchasing almost all of the Whitcoulls and Borders bookshops currently in receivership in New Zealand with a view to making the chains financially viable again.

• Christchurch inventor Glenn Martin for bringing his James Bond style personal jetpack one-step closer to commercial reality with a 5,000 foot flight that has military, search and rescue and commercial investors abuzz.

• The surgeons who undertook the first full face transplant in the US that gave Dallas Wiens the opportunity to have facial features again following an electrical accident that disfigured his face. Read the rest of this entry »

My live radio interview with Mike Handcock of Rock Your Life earlier today provided a perfect example of how technology, amongst other things, has the potential to damage our reputation, and what we may need to do to recover when things don’t always go according to plan.

BlogTalkRadio’s technology clearly had gremlins running around at the start of the interview which meant Mike had to make an in-the-moment decision about whether to postpone it, restart it, or try and struggle through. He made the call to cancel it and then go ahead with the interivew via Skype in a pre-recorded manner to be posted online at a later date.

So whilst I was speaking with Dave Rogers, Mike went about posting updates on both BlogTalkRadio’s page, Facebook and Twitter to let those listening live know what was going on. Doing so meant they knew what was happening and why the show wasn’t available and also enabled them to go about their day without wasting any extra time. Read the rest of this entry »

Love it or hate it, KFC’s ‘Double Down’ burgers were a triumph of word-of-mouth marketing in New Zealand.

KFC reported it had sold 16,000 of the burgers in just three hours on the day of launch and more than 34,000 by 4.00 pm the same day – all without any traditional advertising whatsoever.

Media coverage included slots on state broadcaster TVOne’s Close Up and Breakfast programmes, and TV3’s Campbell Live; as well numerous mentions on commercial and national radio as a news item.

But the real force in driving up sales were blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms where people could share their support or outrage at the 600 calories, carbohydrate-free ‘gut-filler‘. Me blogging about it now is a perfect case in point, even it I’m focusing on the marketing element of the campaign, rather than the product itself! Read the rest of this entry »

It takes just seconds to upload a video or comment to a social networking site, but before you do so, be aware of the possible impact on your career, and reputation of less-than complimentary comments and video clips featuring you finding their way onto the web, either accidentally or deliberately.

Once you hit ‘send’ or ‘publish’ you lose total control of emails, comments and tweets you send. They enter a public domain where they can be copied, edited, stored and forwarded to literally millions of people. Viral marketing is successful purely because of the ease and speed with which electronic information can be transmitted.

TV3 news anchor, Mike McRoberts, may regret posting a tweet apparently criticising his employer regarding coverage of the earthquake in Christchurch this week. Whether it affects his career prospects is anyone’s guess, but it probably won’t endear him to his pay-masters.

Likewise, employees continue to come a cropper when comments they make on Facebook and other sites come back to haunt them and their employer deems them ‘unsuitable’ for the role they have.

Read the rest of this entry »

According to Beloit College’s ‘Mindset’ list many young Americans heading to university this year may think Germany has always been one country, Beethoven is a dog rather than a composer and Banana Republic is a fashion store rather than a politically unstable South American dictatorship.

Times change. If we assume others have a similar world-view to us we may find ourselves faced with blank faces, quizzical looks and wildly different expectations if they don’t – all of which can have a huge adverse impact on how we are perceived, which in turn affects our reputation.

Although increasing numbers of us are embracing social media with the intention of having greater and more immediate connection with our clients and contacts there is a danger that in doing so we may actually distance ourselves, and disconnect from the very people we want to engage with.

Hash-tags, bit.ly and RTs (retweets) may be second-nature to you, but if your clients or customers have no idea what you’re talking about, or feel paralysed and unable to respond, you’re more likely to irritate and annoy, rather than connect and engage.
Read the rest of this entry »

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’.

Read the rest of this entry »

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 »