Bluegrass Consulting: Blueblog

Lets cut to the chase: Managing your reputation online is challenging. You need to have an effective system in place to track, listen, engage and respond to any potential opportunities or issues which emerge online otherwise you may be punished for failing to spot them.

Dell certainly didn’t have an effective system in place in 2005 when influential blogger Jeff Jarvis began his “Dell Hell” blogging saga. A simple customer complaint procedure about a fault snowballed into a dramatic mini-series of blog posts that were widely publicised, commented on and linked to. Dell eventually used this event as a catalyst to change the way they engage with customers online ( See www.dellideastorm.com) but not until after their reputation took a big hit.

With the steady grown in consumer generated media through blogs, twitter and other social media platforms and networks the potential and the risk has escalated. Even if you don’t want to engage online with your stakeholders - you can sure bet that they will talk about you anyway. So here is our practical grassroots approach to tracking and managing your reputation online.

#1 : Listen up and track your key search terms

‘Listen’: Yes yes - we know - you’ve heard it before a 100 times before. Listen before you go bumbling into online conversations in forums you don’t understand or participate in. Otherwise you could be in for a rude shock. But as practical is our watch word -so brain storm a full set of key words about your issue, organisation, brand and competitors and use a range of free tools to track them:

• RSS is sweet: Using a combination of search tools and RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds is the best way to aggregate and track the information you need to including blogs, news, forums and website updates you wish to track. Firstly setup a google reader account or link it with your gmail account
• Google is everywhere: Google really is king of the jungle and they have a great range of additional free tools which can assist you to track and pipe in your various key word searches into your RSS reader Google alerts, Google News, Google Blog Search, Google Patent Search
• Other sites we use include Blogpulse for online conversations, Technorati for blog tracking and social media tagging, BoardTracker for monitoring popular forums, Flickr for any tagged images, Delicious for social bookmarking and if you’re feeling really adventurous Yahoo Pipes to setup a custom social media monitoring too

#2 : Summarise and assess key ‘mentions’ coming in at regular intervals

Build a list of key mentions coming in. Build a simple table which summarises the Mention URL, Sentiment (positive, negative or neutral), Theme / Tags, Source, Influence and action. Most of the columns are self explanatory but the Influence score is important. It can be difficult to scientifically assess but a score out of 5 or 10 can be given objectively by the reputation manager according to who is making the mention. Usually inspection of the news source, the number of blog comments or subscribers, and possibly even a cross check of site popularity with a site such as Social Meter may be appropriate.

If you are tracking an issue or campaign over a series of months or years, you may wish to compile the key stats into a spread sheet to enable you to analyse the relative proportion of positive / negative mentions over time.

You may also like to visually map the communications flows in and around your company. Draw two axis. The vertical - is influence. The horizontal positive to negative. Map your various specific mentions, sources or topics on the axis. Symbolise different size spheres / circles according to how much chatter is going on particular topics. The more chat, the bigger the circle. Draw linkages and group themes to help you identify key issues and strategic options.

#3: Develop comms strategy and identify communication parameters

After your intial round of analysis you should have a feel for which areas of the web are buzzing about (or not) and allow you to form a plan of attack. Agree who is going to say what to whom and develop a framework of your organisation’s “Rules of engagement” moving forward to allow the authorised spokeperson to comment on your behalf in a timely manner should issues flare.

#4: Engage in conversation : carefully but confidently

After you have agreed your plan of attack and your rules of engagement- dont just peek through the window like a peeping tom. Go out there and engage in conversation. Here are some simple tips which may help you engage better:

• Positive / supportive statements should be acknowledged. Stakeholders appreciate knowing they are being listened to.
• Try to lead the conversation - being on the front foot and creating positive stories via social media and blogs can only help your online reputation and can help keep any negative flare issues low in the google index
• Complaints - particularly product complaints - should be forwarded to your customer service / marketing department who are better equipped to manage these type of inquiries. You can almost always make a complaint right again. Try to take it offline first and if that fails resolve it online.
• Criticism can come from a range of sources. If a criticism includes false information try to correct it. If the criticism is accurate then it should be acknowledged and your proposed plans to address these criticisms moving forward .
• If its a Blog, find the bloggers contact details and email them first. Be aware these emails often end up as blog posts themselves. At a last resort comments form process for their site .
• If a major issue is brewing - look to take some defensive measure such as purchasing  negative name domains, such as www.YOURBRANDsucks.com, to reduce effectiveness of any attack sites and look to buy Pay per click advertising to sit along side any negative brand searches to respond at least partially
• Finally - be open, frank and honest at all times. And make sure your agency (if you have one) is as well. Stakeholders in the digital age can smell bullsh*t a mile away and will rip you to shreds for it. Fake youtube response videos with actors or PR people posing as a pretend supporter or anonymous commenter have led to some of the most spectacular attacks on brands and companies in 2009. Have a look at this breakdown of clothing brand Witchery’s fake “Man who lost his jacket” which caused one hell of a backlash. Don’t let it be you!

NP

Here is my Top 10 funniest political videos. Or  more accurately they could be seen as my Top 10 occasionally humorous, awesome and/or downright terrible politically themed videos on the Internet.

# 10 Star wars political analogies rule: Coming in at number 10. Chris Knight goes all Star Wars campaigning for Rockingham County Board of Education in 2006.

It is a dark time for the Rebellion. Evading the dreaded Imperial starfleet, a group of freedom fighters led by Chris Knight have established a new secret base on the remote ice world of Hoth.

The evil Board of Education Vader, obsessed with finding young Knight, has dispatched thousands of remote probes into the far reaches of space….

#9 There’s not a chin behind Chuck Norris’ beard only another fist: History will show that Arkansas Republican Mike Huckabee finished second behind John McCain in his tilt for the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination. History will also show that he was also rather awesomely the only “Chuck Norris Approved” candidate in that particular race.

#8 The Howard Dean scream: 2004 were the fledgling days of youtube and with it’s help one enthusiastic Dean scream to supporters after the 2004 Iowa primary was amplified to such a degree that it scuppered the Democratic Presidential hopeful’s nomination attempt in one fell swoop;

#7 This is my Land : From the same era, a legendary political viral. This is my land parodied both President Bush and John Kerry with equal measure and ensured it travelled far beyond the usual partisan attack videos.

#6 Gordon Brown picks a winner (and eats it) : Gordon Brown showed us back in 2007 he was made of the right stuff for PM; determining his goal, deftly picking away at it and executing with a skilled slight of hand. Love the analytical notes accompanying this one.

#5 Kevin Rudd waxes lyrical : Closer to home, the infamous ear wax saga - Australian PM in his back bench days picking his own ear wax and eating it. To me this is somehow far more weird and disturbing than your run of the mill nose picking job. See also the famous Australian satirists Chaser’s war on everything subsequent ambush the PM with a giant cotton bud dripping with ear wax.

#4 Political fisticuffs : Again - one of those topics that warrants its own list. It is perhaps not surprising that when passionate people with diametrically opposing views are put in a room to shout at one another that occasionally tempers can get a little flared. What is surprising that these people all around the world hardly ever come to blows, but when they do it’s shamefully spectacular. Here is a compilation of some of the biggest political melees ever caught on camera set to the Benny Hill theme tune. 

#3 Roll like Barack : This divisive classic has been given a distinctive Obama twist

#2 Tina Fey single handedly skewers Sarah Palin : Sarah Palin played an important role in the 2008 election. As the Republican VP candidate she mobilised the Hard christian right concerned that the moderate McCain was not standing up for their values and helped quell some nasty internal GOP divisions. She also pretty much scared the living daylights out of everyone else.  Enter Tina Fey and her earth shattering Palin impersonations… (apologies for the highlights vid - NBC has stomped out all copies and restricted regional viewings… unless you’re in the US)

#1 The genius behind Bush’s soaring rhetoric : Topping out my Top 10 funny political videos list you cant go past former American President George W. Bush. With so many Bushisms to cover off (they could easily form a separate top 100 list), I thought it best we look at this revealing interview with the genius behind so many of them… Bush’s ‘Speechalist’ Harlan McCraney

What other funny videos of a political bent have you loved in recent years?

NP

See writer and actor John Hodgman at the 2009 Radio and TV Correspondents’ Dinner roast the President for being a “nerd”.

Proof that some journalists really do put themselves in the firing line.  Last week reporter Aaron Tru got more than he bargained for when interviewing one of the leading female MMA ultimate fighters Cris “Cyborg” Santos. Questioning whether Ms Santos had the strength to “finish her mission” she kindly demonstrated what she can do.

NP

I like many millions of people worldwide have been closely watching the tragic events unfold in Iran. It is shocking and disheartening to see genuine grassroots protesters being beaten and intimidated in this way.

Today I was taken by a particularly sharp call for ‘real’ activism by Huffington Post’s Kase Wickerman questioning the real value of “adding a green overlay to your online presence”.

“So instead of empty gestures and hashtags, why don’t we actually engage in some activism and help, instead of whispering about this like some kind of neighborhood scandal that will never catch up to us because it’s an ocean away?

There’s always the option of an online donation to a relief agency like Red Crescent, for something immediate and helpful. The world runs on money and blood (as the events in Iran over the last week and a half have so morosely reminded us), and America is too far away to donate the blood that the wounded in Iran so desperately need.

You can also make donations to those covering the ongoing protests and violence, like Tehran Bureau, which is run by an Iranian-emigre out of a house in Newton, Massachusetts and is in need of financial support to keep the site live and bandwidth plentiful. Reliable information is harder and harder to come by, already 24 journalists have been arrested in Iran, and the majority of the rest have been forced out of the country by expired visas and government intimidation.

Don’t have cash? There are ways you can help for free without ever leaving your computer. You can create a proxy or Twitter relay to help keep those ever-important Iranian Twitterers connected and informing the world about the situation in Iran. Or change your location and time zone to match Iran, in hopes of tripping up government censors looking for active sources.

If you’re more diplomatically-inclined, and looking toward the long term, write a letter to the United Nations Human Rights Council and urge them to take action on international election standards and protection for citizens.

Above all, the thing you must do before any difference can be made is to inform yourself. The term “knowledge is power” wouldn’t be repeated so much if it wasn’t true. So spend some time reading the news, know what the hell you’re talking about, and go out and tell someone else about it, and how they can help”

I hear you Kase - I’ve just donated to Red Crescent selecting funds go ‘where most needed’, and hopefully helped spread the word. Any other ways we can help in Iran?

NP

The Labour party in Britain were left reeling yesterday as they slipped to overall fourth place at a historic low of just 16% of the proportional vote for the European elections held last week.

Voters across Europe deserted mainstream parties in favour of fringe parties or simply abstained from voting, in what some analysts say is a backlash to perceived economic inaction surrounding the global financial crisis.

In Britain, voters were still reeling from the cross party MP expenses scandal. Labour appeared to be most heavily hit with an almost 10 point drop in overall votes, but the conservatives, whilst finishing on top, also did not receive the expected surge in support from their previous showing. They did however hold their ground and led the party vote split with 27% share of the vote.

The centre left parties were the biggest loser across 27 Euro member states with the Centre right coalition cementing its place as the largest voting bloc. The BBC has a rather nifty interactive chart showing the results here

There was also a notable rise of nationalist or specifically anti-immigration (often outwardly racist) parties in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, the Netherlands, Slovakia and the United Kingdom.

The British political establishment appeared in despair at their failure to mobilise voters against the far right British National Party (BNP). The party has now broken into the mainstream by securing two seats in the EU parliament.

Of interest to the many Australian “No clean feed” activists - the Swedish “Pirate Party” won a historic seat in the parliament running on an internet privacy platform, after polling 7.4% of the vote in Sweden. Support for the party increased markedly in April after a Stockholm court sentenced the four original founders of file sharing website the Piratebay to a year in jail.

NP

That rather enterprising fellow Richard Branson - you remember him? The silver fox with a penchant for hot air (balloons) and bikini clad virgins?

Well he’s come up with PitchTV a cracking way of letting small businesses pitch their ideas into the jetset via his Virgin Atlantic media platform.

Cracking idea I think.

NP

Perk Up. Caution Hot!

In light of the recent Freedom of Information disclosure of MPs expenses in UK politics - most famously Sir Peter Viggers claiming around £30,000 in Gardening expenses including £1,645 for a “duck island” - we wondered what other scandals involving perks for politicians have been causing an uproar around the world recently.

In this week’s Economist an article “The worst of times the best of times” revealed some of the more contentious European perks making headlines this year including:

In Spain earlier this year, hostile headlines centered on a €480,000 armoured Audi bought by the president of the western region of Galicia (who already had three other limousines).

In Belgium’s depressed French-speaking region of Wallonia, it was a taxpayer-funded “working visit” to America by members of the Walloon parliament. Its highlights included tours of the Grand Canyon, Napa Valley vineyards and Alcatraz prison; the 11-day trip in April involved just four days of meetings, including one with experts on farming in arid regions, a joke not appreciated back in rain-lashed Belgium.

In Australia - it was revealed that many current MPs have been claiming an away from home allowance while staying in their own homes and using it to pay off their mortgage.

What other political perks and schemes have you seen?