The ease and speed with which social media/networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook can spread information is in the news again as Barak Obama’s unheralded low-key visit to Afghanistan was almost blown by tweets from the region.

Presidential aides rebutted the tweets in an effort not to damage security arrangements but their efforts ultimately proved futile as the visit got underway.

Controlling a message has gone out of the window given the mass use of smartphones and sites such as Twitter. Rumours abound and tweets can be spread, literally like wild-fire.

Apparently ‘random’ tweets can set of a chain of events that can see cricketers having to defend themselves against allegations of match-fixing, celebrities commenting on relationship issues, and politicians’ whereabouts made public.

Whilst some tweets might be deliberate and malicious, many more will simply be innocent commentary on what the tweeter is seeing or hearing around them. If we don’t want that to be commented on, best we keep it behind firmly shut closed doors.

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 »

Choosing what to call yourself online may seem frivolous and an opportunity to create a form of ‘alter-ego’ but its impact shouldn’t be underestimated. What you’re known as online can have a major impact on how you are perceived.

Far from being online identities, Twisty Poi, Sex Fruit and Stallion were all blocked by real-life officials when applications were made to register new-borns with these names, primarily because it was deemed such names were likely to create ‘social hurdles’ for the children as they grew up.

Nine year Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii (who’s actually from New Plymouth) might agree with the officials’ stance given that she was so embarrassed by her legal name she petitioned to have it changed ‘K’ instead.

Intentionally or otherwise, the name we are known by can elicit thoughts and emotions in others that may open doors or slam them shut. Hence the reason most of us think carefully before naming a new arrival Violence or Benson and Hedges (twins) – both genuine name applications! But thinking carefully when choosing a name is something many of us fail to do when we blithely create an identity on social networking sites and internet forums. Read the rest of this entry »

The saying ‘niche to be rich‘ is smart advice. Twitter’s announcement that it’s NOT a social network has raised eyebrows amongst many, however they should’t be surprised. Twitter’s VP for business and corporate development, Kevin Thau, says ‘Twitter is for news, content and information’.

Personally I’m not surprised as I’ve always viewed Twitter as a syndication site rather than social network. It’s a way of spreading and finding information quickly and easily gaining insights into what twitterers think about things.

Twitter’s become a phenomenon partly because it’s been clear about what its purpose and function is. Rather than being seduced into trying to become something it isn’t, it’s steered a tight course and simply become the best at what it does by focusing on its niche.

The benefits of focusing on being niche are tremendous. Amongst others, these include: 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 »

New Year resolutions happen every year, but predictions generally only occur at the turn of a decade. Knowing what might happen before it actually occurs would certainly be handy.

If we could predict what might happen it would certainly give us a competitive edge.  We could be ‘one-step-ahead-of-the-game’, give us an opportunity to maximise every opportunity and put all our efforts into those things likely to generate the greatest reward – whatever we might want that to be.

Moving from the ‘noughties’ to the teen years of the 21st Century  gives us a opportunity, not only to look back on what happend between 2000 and 2009 – think iTunes, the social media explosion and wireless internet – but also to look ahead and predict what might happen during 2010 and beyond. Read the rest of this entry »