Warren Buffet said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it.” Nowhere could this idea be more true than on the Internet.
With lightening-fast speed, one negative post about your company on Facebook or other social media site can travel to hundreds or thousands of potential customers or employees and ruin your reputation.
On top of the humiliation of “losing face,” from negative online feed-back, you could lose customers, sales, and vendor relationships, too.
The Un-Truth
While some “company-bashing” comments might be warranted, here’s the worst part: some are completely untrue. Obviously, there’s no way to fact-check everything posted about your business. Most online comments about any business are actually just pure opinion.
Think negative online opinions on Twitter or Facebook will just “blow over?” Not likely.
Posting something online makes it available for anyone to copy and distribute instantly. So even if you delete the initial post, the same information may already be posted in 18 different places. Once something is online, it’s pretty much there to stay.
How Your Reputation Could Be Tarnished
There are four ways potentially damaging messages could be said about your company.
1. Competitors. It isn’t difficult to hide your true identity online. All your competition has to do is pose as an “average Joe” and pretend to be your customer. Then he can post negative reviews, damaging comments, or horrible customer experiences that never happened. In a matter of minutes, he can make your loyal customers have their doubts about continuing to do business with you and ward off potential new clients.
When this happens to you, proving these comments are posted by your competition is no small feat. Even if you could prove who the culprit was, you wouldn’t be likely to nail him. Since social media is a relatively new phenomenon, there is very little case law available. What is available pertains more to employees’ social media activity than to your competitors.
2. Employees. Without intending to, employees could post or comment about confidential company information and put the business at enormous risk. Merely commenting on a project or a particular customer could cause the competition to steal business away, or could make the customer leave, upset that your employees are writing about their dealings with you for all the world to see.
Then there’s the disgruntled employee. According to a recent survey by Deloitte, 74% of employees say it’s easy to damage an employer’s reputation using social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.).
Recently, a bank sued one of their ex-vice presidents after he posted confidential company documents online. Allegedly, the documents exposed illegal activities. The law suit requested the forceful removal of the documents. The bank lost the case, saying that the website and the ex–vice president had a First Amendment right to keep the documents online. In addition, the judge pointed out that taking down the documents would do little good, since they could have been copied and re-posted by other sites.
3. Employees’ “Friends” And Family. Turns out it’s not just employees you need to worry about...but their circle of friends and family, too.
In a recent U.S. court case, a restauranteur was quoted in a newspaper article as saying that he treats his employees with “dignity and respect.” When the father of a former employee read this article online, he was not too happy. He left a comment that the company had been sexually harassing his daughter and that the owner condoned the behavior.
The company looked for justice by suing the father for defamation, but the case got thrown out. The reason? The court sited these comments as opinion and not applicable to defamation laws.
4. Customers. Social media and other online chat has made it easier than ever for customers to let the world know about negative experiences with your company. Of course, the best thing to do is work diligently to keep your customers happy and avoid this issue altogether. But just one “minor” incident can send a bad vibe to all your prospects at the speed of light online.
Though you can’t prevent customers or competition from posting whatever they want, you can have some control over what your employees do.
How To Prevent Online Company Bashing
First, make sure you have a computer use policy. In it, you can dictate what employees can and cannot do online and include a section on banning any conduct that could damage your company’s reputation.
Second, monitor your employees’ activity online. Newer content filtering appliances allow business owners to keep an eye on where their employees are going and even what information they are posting online.
FREE 2-HOUR SERVICE CALL HELPS YOU PROTECT YOUR REPUTATION
During the month of April, we’re giving away 2 FREE hours of service to use as you wish. You can have us review or begin writing your computer use policy, help you develop a plan for monitoring negative online comments or review your firewall for other Internet threats. Don’t miss out! Call us for your 2 FREE hours today!
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