CHAPTER 11
Reputation Management: Strategy & Collaboration

The opportunities and freedom of the Internet is wonderful. But it also comes with the risk of anyone with a camera and an Internet link to cause a lot of damage, as in this case, where a couple of individuals suddenly overshadow the hard work performed by the 125,000 men and women working for Domino’s across the nation and in 60 countries around the world.

—Tim McIntyre, Vice President of Communications at Domino’s Pizza

Social media is an ever-increasing force in marketing, whether companies like it or not. The rapid spread of damaging mentions about a company’s product, services, or practices in social media is a viral phenomenon. The opposite of word-of-mouth marketing, where people positively recommend brands to each other, negative mentions can spread and create havoc on a company’s hard-earned reputation and brand in mere hours. What, if anything, can be done to protect a company’s brand from such risks? In this chapter, we discuss steps that you can take to actively manage the controls around your reputation. The tools we have discussed so far can only provide you with information. Now you have to take steps to utilize that information to defend your brand equity and keep abreast of all the attacks against your company name. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to

Distinguish between logos and brands

Actively manage your reputation

Engage with your online community

Manage a crisis

Use incident management to reduce risk to your reputation