Ludi GarcíaDirector of Ketchum Digital Spain

INDEX

ONLINE REPUTATION AND CRISIS

1. WHAT IS ONLINE REPUTATION?

-Why is it so important?

-What is reputation?

-How is online reputation built?

-But what is visible? The Iceberg Theory

-Personal online reputation: a “democratic” brand

2. HOW TO WORK ON ONLINE REPUTATION: CORPORATE AND PERSONAL?

- Who can help manage online reputation? Marketing Dircom vs 2.0

-Netiquette: how to take part in the conversation?

-Trolls and fake profiles

-Digital identity ... who are you?

-How can you build your own brand?

3. CRISIS ONLINE: THE SEVEN CAPITAL MISTAKES IN ONLINE REPUTATION

-Examples of personal crises

-The new social crisis: cyberactivism

-Crisis hits, crisis stages

-Crisis manuals

-The audience

Online reputation Online Reputation, also known as Online Reputation Management (ORM), directly affects the good or bad image we project as a company or individual.

Introduction: WHAT IS ONLINE REPUTATION?

Internet runs 24/7, 365 days of the year, during which time millions of bits of information, news items and / or comments on individuals, companies, products or services appear on the network. Google, together with other search engines, trawls through this sea of data and indexes words relating to an individual, company or product by using some of the information uploaded.

Knowledge, monitoring and control of any information affecting personal or corporate reputation are all part of what is known as Online Reputation Management.

This entails more than just web clippings or systematic data collection as it requires you to collect and then track information in order to gauge whether or not it affects the reputation and image of the company, person or product negatively and also to manage and control it, in other words, influence any content that could hurt us or our brand.

The part of online reputation that has the greatest impact stems from search engines and Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM).

Note: SERM or reputation management on search engines places a very specific focus on organic positioning, which consists of controlling all search results from different search engines when consulting the name of an individual, company or brand, aiming to ensure that all results contain accurate and positive comments or information.

(http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2232622/Search-Engine-Reputation-Management-Services)

WHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT?

Building a brand involves huge advertising and marketing costs, as well as a complex process of creating advertising campaigns and mass media actions. In this context, the Internet and new social media platform furnish new tools for browsers to use in order to review, inform and communicate.

The rise and importance of these spaces has transformed the Internet into an unrivalled and limitless platform in terms of freedom of expression, which is a breakthrough for us all. However, usage is not always appropriate or, at least, often does not reflect the personal or business interests of the individuals mentioned in the content posted online.

For example, opinions are a very powerful weapon to promote business when they are positive but extremely harmful when they are negative. Whenever the latter is the case, we need to remedy the situation as soon as possible in order to counteract the negative information and make sure it does not occupy high positions on search engines thereby mitigating its adverse effects.

But let’s start at the beginning.

What does reputation mean?

The reputation (1) of a company is the result of their actions and how they are perceived by their takeholders (2).

1. Corporate reputation: consists of the perceptions that stakeholders have of the

company

2. Stakeholders: are internal and external audiences, who have mutual interests with

the company and maintain a stable relationship with the same:

Reputation is therefore a judgment on a company’s or an individual’s behaviour, based on reality (data drawn from own experience and insights) –information received.

Reputation = doing things well (reality and coherence / commitment) + explaining things well (Communication & Dialogue / stable relationship with

stakeholders).

Managing reputation means influencing the reality of an organisation in order to manage and mitigate reputational risk.

However, a good reputation is not built solely on the basis of communication but requires the organisation to make new commitments and improvements towards stakeholders.

Communication actions are needed to capitalise on the "good reality" of the organization (in terms of reputation).

How is reputation built? It is based on the following pillars:

1. Leadership Managers: their vision, ability to mobilise. Strategy and management model

2. Products and Services The dimension that has the greatest impact. The quality of the commercial offer and customer service.

3. Innovation Ability to reinvent, also in strategy and processes.

4. Ethics and Corporate Governance Transparency, ethical behaviour and right use of power

5. Corporate Social Responsibility Management approach encompassing the social and environmental concerns of stakeholders

6. Financial Results Necessary condition. Without profits an organization cannot innovate or reward its employees fairly or pay its suppliers.

7. Workplace Satisfied and engaged employees, with good conduct towards other stakeholders.

How is online reputation built?

But the game changes on the Internet.... It is not what you say it is but what they say it is....

And Google, as we have seen, plays a big role not only in searching but in managing online reputation ... Why? Because if the information you want isn’t on the first two pages of the search engine, you don’t exist: 80% of users don’t get beyond the second page of results.

I would like to show you some examples now. Let's review how some large companies appear on Google not just in general terms online but also in categories such as images, videos ... because reputation is measured in all these areas:

Coca-Cola

Let’s look at a recent search on Coca-Cola related the employees crisis:

Do you see the third entries on media? *

* The regional coordinator IUCM, Eddy Sánchez, reiterated on Monday the regional government requiring the Coca Cola returning "all subsidies" from the regional government granted if eventually ends up "going away" and shutting the Fuenlabrada factory bottler.

What about Nestle?

Reputation is not only measured in terms of the general input for search engines, but also in terms of images or videos online. Searching for Nestle in images brings up these photos against the company and their products.

But what is visible? The Iceberg Theory

In the cases above, the importance of generating content within the framework of a branding strategy on the Internet is clear. This content delivers differentiation and, in many cases, added value.

Experts have established the following content categories:

- Paid: ads, banners, advertising. Usually on other media or platforms.

- Owned: content generated by you and which you display on your own platforms

- Promoted: content you align with current content or existing media. In the world of personal branding, for example, you could speak at a convention which you "join" by paying for your place by providing supports.

- Earned: positive conversations or content that third parties generate about you.

- Shared: Content that you submit or share on networks or promote during public appearances.

But we also find that in many cases the problem with a personal or corporate brand comes from other content: "uncontrolled" content.

Thus we need to take into account this type of content when managing personal or brand reputation.

Tips on this type of content

The appropriate actions for "uncontrolled" content can be summarised as follows:

Monitor content about you or your company

• Don’t get obsessed

• Don’t get negative

• Don’t generate this negative content

• Don’t do anything you do not want others to know about

• Don’t take it personally, it's only business

• Don’t make more noise trying to cover up previous noise

• It isn’t all bad, leverage any good uncontrolled content ( earned)

• Neutralise any negative content by uploading plenty of positive content

• Think positive and you will achieve more positive results

• Make the sum of your efforts greater than zero

• Be coherent to avoid problems (Reputation)

The best thing you can do with this type of uncontrolled content is to get to know it better than anyone else. Look for it, find it and monitor it. It’s the only way you can decide the best way to neutralise or offset negative content. And don’t forget where you found it, so you can be sure that it doesn’t "move". Negative content can be stored in files and become a serious risk if it is activated by someone or in certain circumstances: CRISIS.

The case for personal "democratic" branding (you don’t control it as it is in everyone's hands)

As personal branding is now accessible to all manner of professionals, uncontrolled content means that the issues that decades ago used to affect the reputation of executives, entrepreneurs, professionals, celebrities or politicians now affect a wider audience, complicating things further due to the problems added by social media and the internet:

• On the one hand, negative content can be located very easily (previously you had to go to a library whereas now you are just a click away to finding and relaunching information).

• On the other hand, it lasts much longer than it used to. As it is reproduced on multiple media supports and given the ease of creating clones instantly, making something disappear completely has become practically impossible.

The latter has shown us that a scandalous video or image of a person, regardless of how limited the media exposure is, tends to reappear no matter what the authorities or authors do to try to avoid this.

A recent case involving a Spanish councilwoman, Hormigos, illustrates this point. When someone posted an intimate video of her, she decided to go public about her intention to take legal action against the person who had uploaded the video. Hormigos’ strategy backfired completely and the video became the most searched for and shared video during the summer of 2012.

Call it reputation, image, or branding. The problem stems from the fact that negative content is not controlled.

Apply the rule from The Godfather: Don’t take it personally, it's strictly information.

"It’s not personal (…), it’s strictly business," says Michael Corleone, which is not just a great line in a movie but also a great tip for anyone moving in the world of communications.

When we find negative content about us, the first and natural reaction is to want to make it disappear. You see, we’re all really like the Corleone family in this respect as we all want to make the problem and its author disappear.

But welcome to the new world of total transparency. Although there is the option, a legal option, of requesting that the content be deleted, the probability that the information has already been stored somewhere else and could reappear at any time is very high.

The irony is that governments, like the Spanish government, are suing Google in the European Courts over the "right to digital oblivion" (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derecho_al_olvido ), whereas previous editions of the Official State Bulletin in Spain (BOE) containing personal data and information on penalties, which citizens would like to see disappear, are becoming increasingly accessible.

Until recently, when someone made a bad decision in life, past mistakes could be rectified, changed and amended. Printed newspapers and the limits of human memory helped this process.

However, the growing globalisation of the Internet, which combines an enormous storage capacity with search engines can locate data in a few seconds, with utmost ease, could herald the end of oblivion. The permanence of information presents new challenges for the legal profession regarding whether an individual can erase the past or not. Most legal claims are made against the medium that published the information concerned first (press, website, blog, etc...) but they have also been made against search engines (http://www.quo.es/tecnologia/que-es-el-derecho-al-olvido).

So with negative information or content, the best course of action is to take all reasonable legal measures available. But if the information is true, it isn’t worth trying to do anything. If the information is illegal, fight it with all the legal and communication tools at your disposal. But only use lawyers to ensure the content are deleted if it is illegal (breaks the law). Remember that by taking action to remove negative content you could draw more attention to it and end up transforming a minor issue into a major problem.

The positive effect of King Juan Carlos’s public apology in April 2012 is a good example of how to deal with negative information that is true and turn the situation around to achieve positive results.

Although clearly, long term, King Juan Carlos’s image advisers would be ill advised to think that his apology provides carte blanche for any future blunders, as this would be a big mistake.

Note: In an unprecedented gesture, the King apologised for his controversial hunting trip to Botswana, Africa, where he broke his hip. "I'm very sorry, I made a mistake and it won’t happen again," the monarch told Spanish television (TVE) after being discharged four days after an operation at the USP San José Hospital in Madrid.

Don Juan Carlos said he felt "much better" and expressed his gratitude to the medical team and the hospital for the excellent treatment he received. He also said that he was "looking forward to doing his duty again”, in a brief statement, where he was shown looking serious.

Should I be worried?

It all depends on whether you've been good or got yourself into trouble. Or if you have made enemies in the past or even if you’ve simply had bad luck.

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is credited with the phrase "Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room." I would add that your brand is what visitors see when they enter the room while you’re deciding whether to go in or not.

As managers of personal or corporate branding, we recommend that all brands should be based on reality, so if you did, said or permitted something previously that you don’t like now, the most reasonable course of action is to simply accept this. This does not mean we haven’t changed our mind, values or actions afterwards. But we need to accept our past in order to begin to explain our present and future sincerely and calmly.

Building your brand is not about applying makeup to cover up reality.

The Iceberg

What you see and what you can’t see are equally important in an iceberg. And both have the same risk.

Apply the iceberg rule to your brand. Analyse how much of what you are is visible and how much lies under the waterline. In both cases, gauge how much is dangerous for your brand or your public profile.

The sooner you are clear about what you want to be visible the better. And you will triumph when the positive outweighs the negative.

And please don’t create any more negative content....

It may seem obvious but you mustn’t create any more negative content and, if it is generated beyond your control, you need to detect it as soon as possible in order to offset it by using techniques such as introducing new content, clarifications, comments ....

The best advice is don’t do anything you don’t want the world to know about in the first place. In a world where the number of cameras or recorders outnumbers the number of citizens, nothing is secret. Simply avoiding writing or doing something detrimental to your brand is the best guarantee that it won’t be published or broadcast.

And when you make a mistake or slip-up, before throwing more wood on the fire, you should take a couple of deep breaths and think hard what to do.

Besides, not everything’s bad. Don’t forget that one of the types of "good" content for your brand is not controlled: earned content.

This comprises interviews, appointments and reviews of your content by third parties. Although many community managers in the digital world tend to confuse this content with retweets or copy and pastes of your material as you originally created it, earned content is actually more believable and richer than content you create yourself (someone recommends you because your content is good or says "copy the content in this exact form".

HOW DO WE WORK ON ONLINE REPUTATION?

Online Reputation Management involves several different phases and it is a job that can be performed occasionally or permanently, depending on the importance of the company, product or individual involved.

The first phase is always to find out about all the content relating to said company, product, individual published on the Internet (monitoring phase). Find out the amount of information available and the websites where such information appears.

What can be monitored?

o brand

o products and services

o CEO, executives and spokespersons

o market trends

o competitors

o marketing campaigns

o company weaknesses

Where can we or should we monitor?

o themed forums and blogs

o our niche communities

o social media

o bookmarking sites

o user reviews

o multimedia content

We can divide monitoring tools as follows:

• Search Behaviour (behaviour analysis) Google insights for search Google Adword Tool

• Social Behaviour Twitter, Twitscoop, blogs, forums, facebook Social Mention, Social seek Radian 6, Metrica, Sysymos (surcharge)

• Websites Google Ad planner Google Analytics Web Trends, Omniture (surcharge)

Free tools for gaining "insights" or clues about personal or corporate online reputation include the following:

The second phase involves analysing and evaluating the nature of the information on the internet by prioritising negative messages as more important in terms of "control" and follow-up (identification phase and testing of the truth of messages online).

Questions you should ask include:

Who else appears when you look for yourself?

Who's talking about me?

Which keywords are used?

Am I important (importance of being well positioned / SEO)?

What tools will I use? • Corporate Blog • Social Networking • Microsites • Executive blog • Employee Blog • Online press rooms • Partners, customers, suppliers websites

Is my corporate site optimised?

Do I post relevant content / have a content strategy?

In the third phase you need to take part in the conversation and work on any negative messages, so they are relegated to irrelevant search engine positions (positioning or repositioning phase if you don’t have online reputation). This combines communications, public relations and positioning (SEO) tasks.

It is important for you to be:

a source of relevant content an opinion leader honest clear

Always ensure your version is better than other people’s version of events

Establish whether negative comments are based on truth?

Online reputation management is a full-time job. It never ends!

The community manager plays a key role in this task as s/he is responsible for dynamising and detecting potential crises. The community manager’s functions can be summarised as follows:

o Monitoring and analysis / crisis detection

o Proposing content

o Responses and maintenance of social platforms

o Ongoing relationship with followers

Who can help with online reputation management?

Communications, advertising and PR agencies, consulting and marketing positioning consultants and Internet consultants increasingly offer this service.

But who is the best person to manage a company’s online reputation?

For a number of years now there has been a major internal debate in our industry about this, PR, advertising, marketing agencies etc. have long co-existed in the market and often worked together as partners. Added to this, digital businesses have appeared as the result of the development of this increasingly important market.

Whether we like or not, we believe that witty TV ads are no longer the answer. Now the key to a successful campaign is based on the idea, technology, concept, innovation, and -perhaps most importantly- the greatest gift of all: connecting with consumers. Consumers and what they have to say are key as they are becoming stronger and more influential. Online channels certainly meet all the above requirements, as well as allowing for consumer interaction and, of course, immediacy.

A campaign may have a big impact but if the content does not hit the right note it won’t be successful nor will it work if it doesn’t connect with consumers, as mentioned above. At the heart of any online initiative there must be a story and who are the content experts or storytellers today? This role often falls to PR agencies as they have been working for years to "engage" with consumers (storytelling).

We also believe that everything posted online should be part of a global communication strategy and business strategy too. This does not mean launching initiative after initiative, without a clear idea of the goals we wish to achieve, of the image the company wants to convey (in other words, reputation, either online or offline) and, finally but perhaps most importantly, of the risks are we’re running. Nothing should be left to chance or improvised in the online world. For this reason performing audits beforehand or daily monitoring are essential. Who then are the experts in communication strategies and in looking after business reputation? The answer is the same as before: PR agencies.

That´s why I think that communication professionals, agencies or dircoms, are the obvious choice to lead a company’s online strategy.

The best option includes the following:

Marketing 2.0 (Interactive or digital):

e- marketing

Email Marketing

mobile marketing

web marketing

SEO: Search Engine Optimisation

SEM: Search Engine Marketing

PR 2.0:

Online Reputation (and, of course, crisis management)

Content Strategy ( Storytelling )

e- PR : netconversa

Virtual Press Room

CSR

Experience and reference

But what often happens is that the dircom or communication professional is “obsolete” and has not realised the extent to which his or her role has evolved in this hyper-connected world.

“Netiquette”: how to take part in the conversation? When taking part in online life, it’s important to know the basic rules of "netiquette "

Each community develops its own netiquette according to the form of communication used and also according to the identity of its members.

Netiquette is the set of unspoken rules that foster interaction within the group, as in any community in real life.

Don’t do or say something you wouldn’t do or say

Some basic principles:

• When you join a forum, and before sending a message, take some time to read the messages sent by other members. This will show you the tone used, topics covered, frequency of use and mechanics of the site.

• Try to register and / or login when you participate regularly in a forum or conversation. You can take part anonymously in some cases (1).

• First look for the FAQ. The frequent questions and answers section will probably provide most of the information you need. You can also search the Forum entries. Sometimes it's annoying for forum members and moderators to see the same question asked again and again.

• Sending adverts to a forum goes against the spirit of the Internet.

• Avoid the copying and pasting comments from other people without adding your own comments and always mention the source.

• If you are no longer interested in the group or list, leave. It helps to avoid flooding the Internet with messages that won’t be read.

• Be polite and respectful online (please, thank you, etc ...). Otherwise the Internet will ignore you.

• It is not polite to upload messages like: URGENT! (Shouting in capital letters) or overuse abbreviations (mobile phone style) that make messages difficult to read. However, communities have their own rules that you should consult too (1).

• Avoid spoilers: Revealing the ending or key part of the plot of a movie, book, game, etc. without giving prior warning that your comments contain spoilers.

Detecting fake users or dubious credibility: trolls or fake users

Detecting a fake profile requires a combination of common sense and a few observations. Our social media profiles are the extension of OUR ONLIFE LIFE.

What is a troll?

A troll is an individual who uses the anonymity of the Internet or impersonates a user of a particular network to create discord in a community, as well as to insult and disrespect others. A troll attacks the good neighbourliness and decency prevailing online, as well as the unwritten rules of any conglomerate of Internet users.

In some forums you will see this image which means please don’t feed the trolls, in other words, enter into a discussion with them, which is what they want after all.

Who is a troll?

Trolls could be our opponents inside or outside the company, competitors, disgruntled customers, ex-employees...

It is also worth mentioning another method used to discredit a brand or cause a reputation crisis: astroturfing. Astroturfing consists of contaminating the brand or image of another person by promoting unfavourable comments. This is usually done from fake profiles.

Digital identity and you ... WHO ARE YOU?

As we have seen, reputation is an asset or feeling that does not just belong only to a company but also to an individual. We will discuss high profile personal reputation crisis cases below.

Just as we work to build the reputation of a company, we must work to create our own brand or digital identity.

"Everyone sees what you seem to be; very few know what you really are" (Machiavelli).

As we have seen, digital reputation and digital branding is not the same thing. The first is built based on what we say about ourselves and also what others say about us (uncontrolled content).

Another fundamental aspect is that there is no distinction between the real world and the virtual world: both are real identities but occupy different spaces ... You are simply placing yourself on another stage. This is why it is essential to look after our online reputation as it can affect our role in the real world: online + offline

The first thing to ask ourselves is WHY we are present on the Internet:

o Do we want to be famous? A new influencer?

o Am I looking for work?

o Professional networking?

o Personal relationships?

"Building identity involves the triple challenge (and risk) of trusting oneself, others and society."

(Zygmunt Bauman)

HOW DO YOU BUILD YOUR PERSONAL BRAND?

First of all you must answer these questions:

What are your goals?

What can you do for others?

Are you satisfying a need?

What are you good at?

Who can you help?

What would you like to do?

What value does your work have?

How do you look?

How do you appear to others?

What need are you able to satisfy?

What limits you?

What do you transmit?

Do you know how to make yourself visible?

How far does your voice go?

Who would pay for your work?

How much?

Which resources do you have?

What strategy are you going to follow?

When are you going to get started?

Your brand allows you to control the way others see you in order to create the impact you want (reputation)

Your brand will enable you to control the way others perceive you in order to create the impact you want (reputation)

Next:

1. Select a niche market, a specialty.

2. Identify what you do best, what you love, the area/s you stand out in.

3. If don’t feel you can do point 2 on your own, ask for help from professionals (coaches), friends, etc..

4. Develop a personal communication strategy to convey your brand. Draw up a plan to achieve your goals with the tools defined (social media) and implement it.

5. Your blog, twitter or facebook are ways of positioning your personal brand. And they are FREE (except time costs).

How do you do this? Create your own social media strategy

1. Define your goals

2. Define your indicators

3. Analyse your environment

4. Design an action plan including:

• Tools

• Strategy

• Monitoring indicators

5. Confirm and review procedures

Personal digital brand or reputation?

"I am myself, my circumstances, my blog and my social media."

We own our brand but we don’t own our reputation. You have to create it and maintain it. We need to try to be coherent about our true self, our essence ... and our online reputation.

ONLINE CRISIS:

WHAT YOU SHOULD NEVER DO IN ONLINE REPUTATION

Online and offline crises share a number of common features, as well as one being the consequence of the other on many occasions. These common features mean that certain needs prevail in both cases such as monitoring, or preparing a prevention plan in advance; a quick and credible response in order to avoid the negative impact on the company ... or at least minimise it.

However, achieving this online is more challenging ... Internet is a catalyst that breaks the barriers of time and space in seconds; it is an additional channel that is much faster than other channels.

It also creates new crisis stages that are not found in offline scenarios:

• Rumours and urban myths about company policies, products or services

• Customer complaints or customer lobbies to put pressure on a specific sector or company

• Conduct of employees on social media

• Fake sites, hacking, security breaches and all forms of cyber-terrorism

• Social Crises: cyberactivism

And worst of all, it is almost impossible to erase the traces of a crisis on the Internet ... even when it's over!

If we focus on analysing these situations from the point of view of the audience, we realise that the situation is complicated in the online world because of instant access to information. In addition, stakeholders are highly fragmented due to the wide range of available online resources and active users can easily find one other and join forces to according to interests. In short, the role of gatekeeper played by the traditional media disappears online and is played by the consumer.

Why do online crises usually happen? There are seven major errors:

1. Inadequate personal or corporate branding

On the Internet every single one of us has our own brand not just companies. It’s a mistake not to have a branding strategy as it:

– Confuses our audience

– Casts doubts on our credibility

– Torpedoes the rest of our initiatives

Thinking about who we are, what we want to transmit in the online environment (values, style, image) is critical.

2. Lack of a monitoring strategy

Although this is not enough on its own, implementing an online monitoring strategy is essential in order to assess our impact and rating and be able to respond quickly.

No need for major investment given the proliferation of free or low-cost monitoring tools for social media and the web.

3. Poor or inappropriate content

Strategic thinking should always precede the creation of an individual or company content generation policy: Who is our target audience? Which are the most appropriate channels to get our message across? How can we deliver more and provide information of interest, which amuses, entertains and mobilises our audience? Which content helps reinforce our branding?

We cannot afford to generate content that does not arouse interest or could generate a reputational crisis: we must change tack if possible.

4. Lack of a proactive strategy

Most organisations identify online reputation with monitoring and reactive strategies with crisis response.

Being proactive translates, in practice, as being ready for the major changes ahead.

5. Overreacting to criticism reacting inappropriately

Managing criticism online is the Achilles heel of many brands. Taking on board constructive criticism is a sign of maturity and responsibility shown by organisations that are serious about their reputation.

Those in charge of online communications for companies and brands should think twice before making mistakes. There are times when you need to accept your mistakes and apologise.

6. Not defending ourselves from attacks or doing it too late and inappropriately

There are occasions when attacks on our reputation may be for malicious motives (don’t feed trolls).

If justified, you should defend yourself by disclosing and denying false information, requesting misinformation be rectified, etc..

7. Lack of adequate information

The six errors mentioned above could be minimised if the people involved in online reputation (marketing and communication departments, CMs, etc..) have the right information.

Prevention is better than cure, and a strong commitment to internal training and skill acquisition prevents greater ills.

Let’s look now at a personal online reputation crisis.... Here are some examples:

Toni Cantó (April 2013): “Most allegations of domestic violence are false”

The Spanish actor and political sparks a controversy after suggesting that the government and public prosecutors "do not pursue them" because they represent a major source of revenue from EU funds

The MP for UPyD for Valencia, Toni Cantó, said on twitter that most allegations of domestic violence "are false" and that public prosecutors "do not pursue them". His words sparked a heated debate on twitter.

He then added further data, which he claimed was from the Spanish Statistics Institute (INE). "Did you know that one third of deaths resulting from domestic violence in Spain are men? Did you know that the EU pays 3,200 euros every time domestic violence is reported? Since 2004 we have received 2.08 billion euros from the EU. I’d like to see a government say no to that.

http://sociedad.elpais.com/sociedad/2013/02/25/actualidad/1361797238_365634.html

Marta Sánchez online reputation crisis (July 2012)

The crisis started with an allegation that the singer claims is false, namely that she insulted protesters who were in her way when she was trying to move her car. The false report (according to her) went viral on the network due to the popularity of the artist, and she then tried to make the most of her guest appearance on a primetime TV show, "Qué tiempo tan feliz!", to try to put out the fire but ended up fanning the flames. She explained the incident with the protesters (very different to story to the viral report), complained about how unprotected celebrities are on social media and finished by saying:

"Making life impossible for your neighbours isn’t the way forward, working is the way forward. "

Someone on Twitter reinterpreted (manipulated) her words, and retweeted the singer saying: "The way forward is working not protesting." This immediately sparked a controversy and the singer’s image was tarnished.

Marta Sanchez managed the first stage of this reputation crisis quickly (recommended in these cases) but did so clumsily. These tweets arguably sum up why the singer did not give the right response.

http://www.cromosomax.com/19709-marta-sanchez-la-lia-en-que-tiempo-tan-feliz

Paula Vazquez’s phone number (October 2012)

Paula (Spanish TV presenter) uploaded a photo of a medical report to Twitter including her private phone number. She did not notice this small detail and the microblogging network did the rest: she received so many phone calls, SMS, whatsapp messages that she had to turn her phone off. But it didn’t stop there because when people kept calling that number they got the answer machine giving them another number to reach Paula Vazquez on!

This case was very amusing and Paula Vazquez’s gaff became Trending Topic worldwide but it was a mistake that could have cost her dear. Furious, she decided to pay back the people calling her and post their phone numbers on Twitter. In her own words she was "at a funeral, please, stop calling and writing now. I’m not going to think about it anymore I’m going to post your phone numbers." But she could have been committing an offence herself by violating the data protection act.

Nonetheless, given the difficult situation Paula was going through when this happened, Paula reacted with dignity and earned respect and admiration. When the situation calmed down she retweeted some messages that reached her such as the following.

http://www.abc.es/20121022/estilo-gente/abci-telefono-paula-vazquez-twitter-201210221615.html

Justin Bieber (April 2013)

Justin Bieber recently outdid himself and gave us a great quote to go down in history. In the Netherlands he said that Anna Frank, the Jewish teenager who died in a Nazi concentration camp, was a great girl and she deserved to be a 'Belieber'. The teen popstar’s narcissistic comment has at least one mitigating factor: he made the statement in a relatively private setting, a guestbook. It was the museum Community Manager who exposed the singer to the world by exhibiting his blunder on the Facebook wall of the museum.

The role of the Community Manager was key in the controversy. While any visitor could have disclosed the slip-up the fact that it was a member of the museum staff made it feel more official. The easiest interpretation to make is that the Community Manager made a mistake and got carried away by Bieber’s star status and didn’t think about the import of what the singer had written. In defence of the star, Anne Frank House seemed to support this version of events, in what may be a veiled rejection of the singer’s self-serving comment.

But sometimes things aren’t always what they seem, leaving the door open to a more Machiavellian interpretation. The first striking aspect is that the museum did not seem to be in a hurry to put out the fire and took two days to respond while the social media were busy lynching the pop singer. The reputation crisis was Bieber’s problem and the Community Manager was given a few days off.

Could the controversy have benefited the museum? The impact was undeniable and possibly even positive for the museum. Attacks rained down on Bieber’s ill-judged comment, thus heightening the historical figure of Anne Frank. The museum has a strong following on Facebook with 51,932 followers and benefited from active interaction with around 6,000 users.

Participation soared after Bieber's comments and 3,760 followers shared content, and the usual number of entries increased 30 fold. The debate between Bieber fans and critics was won by the latter as critical comments received 7,500 likes whereas the report published by the museum received 2,138. The museum’s explanation still had an impact but only 123 users shared the press information, which is a standard volume, close to the usual average for posts.

The entry on Justin Bieber’s comment was retweeted 1,880 times on Twitter, when the standard number of retweets for the museum is 10. The defence made also merited a high number of retweets (1,493).

Anne Frank House is a well-known museum; it is visited by over one million visitors every year, which is an important place of remembrance for the Jewish Holocaust. The singer’s gaff put it firmly in the spotlight worldwide for two days.

http://www.abc.es/estilo/gente/20130415/abci-justin-bieber-anna-frank-201304151150.html

We finish with an example of effective personal online reputation management:

Fernando Alonso, the F1 racing driver, uses Twitter very effectively:

"Since I started using Twitter, I'm the one who says what I'm doing. Previously, they used to say that I was spending my holidays with elephants or having dinner with Obama. Now, for example, I’m the one who says I’m in Italy, skiing at New Year before going to Russia and then to Brazil to take part in the kart race organized by Felipe. "

"Twitter enables me to be in direct contact with my fans; help them discover aspects of my work that they would never know otherwise. Of course, I cannot reveal everything because a lot of information is confidential in Formula 1 but I think it’s a useful and fun tool.”

Apart from his Twitter account, Fernando Alonso has an official website, official Facebook page, extensive collection of Instagram photos and videos on Youtube.

On these accounts Fernando Alonso controls the information he wants to provide to followers, ranging from his impressions after a race or the feeling you get when driving a Ferrari, including details of his personal life, such as who he is going out with, thereby quashing tabloid rumours.

Through effective use of social media, apart from getting closer to fans by providing first-hand information, Fernando Alonso has managed to control his image thanks to good online reputation management, without putting his foot down too hard.

The new social crisis: cyberactivism

A new form of social activism is spreading across the planet. In recent years we have witnessed the Arab revolutions, secrets from US embassies and governments worldwide being disclosed through Wikileaks, the cyberattacks by Anonymous against companies like Visa or Amazon, social change movements such as 15 M in Spain, Occupy in the US or Yo soy 132 in Mexico, protests in Russia, or social media based election campaigns such as the 2008 campaign that swept Obama to the White House.

Together with these group phenomena, or often driving them, we find cases of individual activists using digital platforms and networks to disseminate their protest campaigns, find supporters and confront the opposition, which was previously impossible on an individual scale.

Some of these battles have been fought in areas such as the violation of consumer rights and have hit the mass media due to their online impact. Such cases include the confrontation with the technology company Dell in 2007 by media guru, Jeff Jarvis; a video by John Tyner, a 31-year-old IT worker from California, denouncing the harassment to which he was subjected in 2010 by security officers at San Diego airport, or the user from Alicante who hacked into the Movistar website in August 2011 to reveal the shortcomings of its broadband services through an XSS action (CrossSite Scripting).

But other actions have gone as far as to redefine the political map of the world. The Egyptians Alaa Abd El Fattah and Wael Ghonim, Syrians hiding behind pseudonyms or Rami Nakhe Alexander Page, or the Spanish woman, Carolina, one of the initiators of the global call for protest on 15 October 2011, are already part of the history of online activism.

The distinguishing characteristic of these new forms of social mobilisation and protest is the fact that "we are all potentially activists" now. This approach contrasts with a more widespread approach: focusing on the "instrumental" role of the Internet, which is far from being new. Protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle in 1999, made this visible for the first time as it demonstrated that a movement can nurture, propagate and go global through ICTs. In the aforementioned protest pre-established social movements (NGOs, environmental groups, trades unions, farmers ...) used the new digital weapons available to them as communication and protest tools. Although it should be noted that before this web activism had already started with the vindication and defence of Internet ideology by groups calling themselves cyberhackers, cyberpunks etc. on platforms like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which ended up disappearing as Internet use became universal.

These are the foundations on which social activism is built today. It is no longer just about spreading the message a social group wishes to transmit or reducing the cost of protest actions. What matters is transforming the public space where these battles are fought and this transformation is based on hacker culture and Internet values. Moreover, the global economic crisis and progressive deterioration of the public image of intermediaries such as politicians and journalists encourages cyberactions against the foundations of such decadent system: banks, political parties and mass media.

Actions such as Operation # OpCashBack, which urged people in the United States to withdraw money from the big banks and deposit it in small financial institutions (Credit Unions), or the #nolesvotes initiative in Spain, which sought to punish the political parties that voted for anti-download legislation as it claimed the latter "placed the Internet under unacceptable legal constraints, restricting our right of freedom of expression and to information and effectively placing it in legal custody, facilitating greater political control of the web," as well as to break the two-party politics of the Spanish electoral system. Other milestones of online activism include the 15MpaRato campaign, which raised 18,000 euros in two days in the spring of 2012, through crowdfunding in order to file a lawsuit against the former director of the IMF and Bankia (Spanish bank), Rodrigo Rato.

What is new about these forms of cyberactivism? What are the circumstances in which they arise and what is behind them? What are the dynamics of these actions? What role does technology play? What role does the media play? Where does this leave traditional powerbrokers? And finally, what is the real power wielded by the "connected society"?

CRISIS HITS Types of online crisis:

Always think in 3 dimensions when you manage a crisis:

• Crises provide information for companies that can be leveraged (in some cases)

• Communication doesn’t stop after the crisis is over, there is a day after and your audiences are still the same

• Social media does isn’t a conversation with one person ... but with anyone who wants to read what we write.

Crisis stages

There are three key stages in crisis management:

Before: do I already have a plan prepared? Don’t wait for the crisis to hit

During:

The crisis life cycle:

What is the situation?

How far has it gone?

How is it developing?

Monitoring

Acting:

Who do I want to address?

Where do I have to act?

How do I have to act?

What is the outcome of my actions?

After:

Crisis closure

Post-crisis monitoring

Post-crisis actions

Before the crisis:

Do I have a plan prepared? Don’t wait for the crisis to hit

1. Find out about and understand situation

2. Engage

3. Training and Facilitating

Crisis manuals:

We can be ready to act before an online crisis. The crisis manual is a living tool that we can use and should include the following points.

Before you start you need to answer a series of questions:

o Who is part of your crisis team? (name, position, e-mail, phone number).

o Who is your spokesperson? - What kind of spokesperson do you need?

o Who is part of your group of trusted advisors?

o Who are your key offline "stakeholders", to whom you will need to report throughout the crisis?

o Who are your online "stakeholders" and what are their contact details?

o Which blog or other corporate channel should you use and who is responsible for posting crisis-related news?

During the crisis:

Monitoring: During the crisis period, an online monitoring service can be activated covering:

o Social media: Especially Facebook and Twitter, plus YouTube if crisis-related audiovisual content exists (recorded by amateurs or broadcast by mass media).

o Blogs: Vertical, general...

o Relevant forums: Where to start a conversation regarding the crisis.

Lifecycle of a crisis on social media:

1- Calm

There aren’t any conflicts and no discontent is perceived on our social media (twitter, facebook, etc). In this step monitoring and effective community management are essential. The fact that the situation is calm does not mean we can be passive: we actively manage the network and prepare our teams for crisis situations by presenting case studies or running social conflict games.

2 – Moderate criticism

Monitoring detects discontent and critical messages from followers on our brand’s social media (facebook, twitter, Tuenti, etc ...). This usually happens with new products, launches, campaigns, or when the service the company delivers is not efficient.

This step is key; we can take action to prevent a crisis if we have a team ready and listening to what is happening online. During this stage we should monitor complaints and negative messages to see if criticism goes beyond what we deem as "acceptable" levels.

3 - Conflict

When tension rises and direct criticism of the company goes beyond our network and appears in a blog, e-mail, website, online magazine etc. we enter the conflict stage.

At this point, a common mistake people make is to try to prevent the information spreading by using force: threats, closing walls, removing youtube videos, etc... This simply magnifies the conflict.

Bloggers and twitter users have a field day: "So and so company restricts the freedom of users", "Censorship by Nestle!". Don’t ever make excuses or create victims or heroes.

4 - Crisis

Not all crisis situations are the same, but as a general rule, if we reach this point, we need to involve the team within the company assigned to deal with these situations.

We need to make them understand the seriousness of the situation and the need to take the right course of action. The brand is under attack.

Audiences: Who should I address?

- Internal audience

- Customers

- Partners

- Public Administration

- Investors

- Potential Customers

- Competition

-

Internal audiences: dirty laundry is washed at home

Opportunity or threat

A recent report by Insites Consulting shows that 61% of workers present on social media are proud of the company they work for. That means 39% of workers are not happy.

Only 19% of employees expressed a positive opinion on social media.

If the company doesn’t take people seriously, it is planting the seeds of an online reputation crisis.

You have to use all the resources at your disposal to channel criticism and reduce the number of dissatisfied "internal customers".

Prohibit or permit?

Should we allow our employees to use mobile social media or not during working hours? The questions we need to ask are as follows:

1. Do they know how to act on social media?

2. How can we guide them towards responsible use?

A "Good Practice Guide" can help promote, educate and guide our employees regarding the use of social media.

It should be defined in terms of strategy, objectives and employee profiles

Good Practice Guide. What should it include?

1. “Why" and "for what purpose" the company uses social media: Coca-Cola, "Online Social Media Principles" begins by recognising the power of social networks for the brands and how the vision, internal values can also be applied on social media.

2. Tips and guiding principles for social media presence for all employees. We recommend aligning the guide with internal training initiatives that help employees understand good social media practice.

Good examples:

www.intel.com/sites/sitewide/en_US/social-media.htm

www.roche.com/socialmedia

Ground rules for participating in online Communications. (Distinction between personal and professional)

3. In what ways and for what purpose are social media a work tool? If the company thinks that social media are a waste of time and reduce employee productivity producing a guide will serve no purpose. Convey confidence about responsibility and potential: customers, competition, etc..

4. Role as ambassadors and prescribers of the company on social media: how can employees contribute, inform them about which social media the company uses, who manages them, etc...

5. Our support for and position on personal blogs written by employees: you must have a guide covering this area (HP "Blogging Code of Conduct")

Crisis closure:

The Internet is built on relationships and links so that we can never be sure the crisis will be forgotten:

- Users speaking of our organization may recall the situation

- The press may mention it when documenting company history for readers

- The press may mention it when documenting similar cases

After the crisis:

• Monitoring:

Continue monitoring your brand and the distinctive elements of the crisis

A crisis could resurface if similar situations happen to the competition, so you should have your response ready.

For this reason you must keep up online monitoring and always maintain that the crisis is closed

• Post-crisis actions

If your relationship with the social media has started as a result of the crisis, continues with it (relationship with influencers, bloggers, social media ...) next time won’t have to start from scratch and channel discussions and comments more easily.

Equip yourself with arguments against other potential crises if possible and create your own online sites you can refer to if a similar crisis appears

• Create pages on your website

• Create microsites

• Search for other references...

Finally, I would like to add that every crisis is a great opportunity to stimulate creativity, do things differently and even use the information gleaned to improve our reputation.

Albert Einstein was clear about this and left us this hopeful vision of crisis

Crisis according to Einstein

• Let’s not pretend that things will change if we keep doing the same things. A crisis can be a real blessing to any person, to any nation. For all crises bring progress.

• Creativity is born from anguish, just like the day is born form the dark night.

• It’s in crisis that inventiveness is born, as well as discoveries made and big strategies. He who overcomes crisis, overcomes himself, without getting overcome.

• He who blames his failure to a crisis neglects his own talent and is more interested in problems than in solutions.

• Incompetence is the true crisis. The greatest inconvenience of people and nations is the laziness with which they attempt to find the solutions to their problems.

• There’s no challenge without a crisis. Without challenges, life becomes a routine, a slow agony.

• There’s no merit without crisis. It’s in the crisis where we can show the very best in us. Without a crisis, any wind becomes a tender touch.

• To speak about a crisis is to promote it. Not to speak about it is to exalt conformism. Let us work hard instead. Let us stop, once and for all, the menacing crisis that represents the tragedy of not being willing to overcome it.”

CONCLUSIONS Reputation is a judgment made about the behaviour of the company or individual based on reality (data from own experience and perception (information received).

Managing reputation entails influencing the reality of the organization in order to manage and mitigate reputational risk. A good reputation is not built solely on communication but requires the company to make new commitments and improvements in its behaviour towards its stakeholders.

But the game changes on the Internet.... It is not what you say it is, it’s what they say it is.... Google, as we have seen, plays a role not just as a search engine but also as an online reputation manager ... Why? Because you don’t appear with the information you want to transmit on the first two pages of the search engine, then you don’t exist: 80% of users do not get beyond the second page of search results.

In this sense, the Online Reputation Management goes through different phases and it is a job that can be an occasional or ongoing task, depending on the importance of the company, product or individual.

The first stage is to always find out about all the content relating to that company, product, individual.. available on the Internet. Find out the number of and sites where relevant information appears.

The second phase involves analysing and assessing the nature of the information online, it is more important to control and track negative messages (identification and testing accuracy of the messages on the Internet).

In the third stage you must be part of the conversation and work on the negative messages so that they are relegated to irrelevant search engine positions (positioning or repositioning stage, depending on whether we already have online reputation). This entails a combination of communications, public relations and positioning (SEO) tasks.

Digital identity ... WHO ARE YOU?

As we have seen, reputation is an asset or feeling that does not just belong only to a company but also to an individual. Just as we work to build the reputation of a company, we must work to create our own brand or digital identity.

Another fundamental aspect is that there is no distinction between the real world and the virtual world: both are real identities but occupy different spaces ... You are simply placing yourself on another stage. This is why it is essential to look after our online reputation as it can affect our role in the real world: online + offline

In short, we own our personal brand but not our reputation. We have to create it and maintain it. We have to try to be coherent about our true self, our essence ... and our reputation online.

Online Crisis: what you should never do as regards online reputation

Online and offline crises share a number of common features, as well as one often being the consequence of the other. These common features mean that certain needs prevail in both cases such as monitoring, or creating a prevention plan in advance, in order to provide a quick and credible response and avoid a negative impact on the company ... or at least minimise it.

However, this is more challenging online ... Internet is a catalyst that breaks the barriers of time and space in seconds; it is an additional channel but is much faster than other channels.

Lifecycle of a crisis on social media:

1 - Calm

There are no conflicts or perceived discontent on our social media (twitter, facebook, etc).

2 – Moderate criticism

Monitoring detects discontent and critical messages from followers on our brand social media (facebook, twitter, Tuenti, etc ...) .

3 - Conflict

When tension rises and direct criticism of the company goes beyond our network and appears in a blog, e-mail, website, online magazine etc. we enter the conflict stage.

4 - Crisis

The brand is under attack.

Crisis closure:

The Internet is built on relationships and links so that we can never be sure the crisis will be forgotten. Therefore, we must always be alert and monitor, monitor and monitor...