Whatever be the size of your business, the most serious dent to your reputation can come from a single highly motivated individual armed with a $100 laptop and an internet connection.
Digital world has opened up a situation where businesses are constantly exposed to threats to their reputation. And the opposition may not be a competitor, or another business; a disgruntled customer, a sacked employee or even an imposter (see my earlier blog “Do you have a digital strategy in place?) , armed with a computer and an internet connection can cause serious dent to your business. Internet, and the profusion of digital forum has dramatically changed the rules of engagement. It has levelled the playing field between large businesses and single individual. What is required is the dedication and perseverance to post disparaging and (often) damaging contents about a business on key sites, stroking the flame the keeping it alive for a minimum time for it to start raging. And business leaders do not have any advance warning or time to reflect!
If your company comes into disrepute for any reason, you can expect
• A media grilling
• Negative public opinion that is hard to reverse
• Punitive fines, if applicable
• Unwanted attention from pressure groups
• Disastrous sales
• Reduced profits and revenue.
In this economic climate, can you afford it? How can you be prepared and be able to identify and kill these sparks early? What new tools or techniques do you need in your business to counter these sniper attacks?
The permanence of web comments makes the internet a challenging place for corporate reputations. There was a time when bad news that surfaced in traditional media might be expected to blow over in a couple of days. These days, however, just about every google search for a business’ name can dredge up gripes from years past. This is a good reason for communicators to take control of their online destiny and ensure they are in driving seat when it comes to steering their corporate reputation.
With a meaningful digital strategy in place, it can go a long way to keep you prepared for such situations. How does it work?
A digital strategy helps you think through the different future scenarios/events that your business can be exposed to. Let’s take the example of insurance industry. The industry has been at the receiving end of criticisms, since the onset of economic crisis. Websites, discussion forum, tweets are full of criticism on products, processes and people in the industry. Be it remunerations, bonuses, measly returns or unsettled claims, people get a (almost) perverse delight in posting criticisms on the digital forum. What is conspicuous is an almost lack of response of any kind from the companies. I am not trying to defend the insurance companies. But I cannot believe that they do not have a point of view which they would not like to share. And sometimes the insurance companies do share their points of view. But by the time, the response is written, re-written, reviewed and whetted by compliance, legal, marketing, communications etc, the number of ‘re-tweets’, post-shares and comments have far exceeded the response. The response is often apologetic, light and lost in the storm of responses.
In the current landscape you cannot afford to be reactive. Most often, you are aware of future events/triggers which have potential disruptive impact on your business. You need to have canned responses ready for it. Or, better still; offset the negative response by publishing your view point ahead of the reaction. Let’s take a hypothetical case. An insurance company has been imposed fines by a regulator for a breach. The business is aware of the fine days before it is made public by the regulator. The business can do well by identifying potential scenarios (read responses) to the news, the potential sites where the reaction would be published (for example, trade journals, blog sites of industry commentators, financial discussion forum and not to forget, their own Intranet). The marketing/PR/Strategy depart has pretty good idea of the extent of criticism that the news would generate. Armed with this insight, the business could prepare ‘wire frame’ responses to the (potential) reaction which could be quickly customised and posted, as the reactions are being aired. Or, even better, pre-empt the reaction by breaking the news themselves with details on the steps the company is taking to ensure that the breach is not repeated in future!
Planning ahead helps – this is a well known fact. Building and nurturing a mechanism to plan for such situations will relieve the business of herding the stakeholders into their war room every time there is a crisis. The mechanism to plan for such scenarios is your digital strategy team. It is a small group drawn from various key functions who understand the potential impact of various digital forum, and who are empowered to issue responses as the reactions are posted, or as an event unfolds! What helps them to perform this role is your digital strategy.
Today having a meaningful digital strategy is not less important than a business strategy. Digital space is emerging as the de facto place for sharing ideas and opinions. And, shaping them as well. In a recent survey conducted by @equalman production suggests that 78% of the consumers trust peer recommendations as against 14% who trust adverts! The various forum give you a perfect opportunity to be in touch with the popular discussions on your products and services, engage with the participants and help shape the opinion. If 78% of the users trust a peer review, there cannot be a better business case of having a presence on the digital space and engaging with them.
Your presence on the digital space also ensures that any disparaging comments/observations made are picked up and dealt with swiftly. A demographic analysis of the users can reveal wealth of opportunities for the business participating on the digital space. Analytics and insight forms a separate topic itself, which (hopefully) I will cover in a later blog.
In this world of mega-connectivity, businesses need to rethink their marketing/communication strategy to engage the customers and help shape opinion and nudge them into a buying scenario. The population is willing to listen and form an opinion on your products and services. Have you been engaging with them recently?
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