Judo Moves for Defending your Online Reputation, Thor Muller
The dark underside of the internet - picking up all the things said about your brand online. Within a short period of time things can go wrong and the internet can change. But we can harness that open-ness for good.A future that is basically here, the near future. If we all have access to all the photos and live video of ourselves this protects our privacy more. Many of the tools are already available. The unbridled stream of information “ the new superpowers”. The great shift – we are used to small communities and cultivating reputations there but it is now moving wider. The networks can build a very complex reputation. It requires the viewer to do more interpretation for themselves. You work out which are the extreme viewpoints and discount them from your overall opinion.
How can you control your reputation? the site reputationdefender.com – they sell the lie that you can control your reputation…. Not true, you can curate it.
Five acts
1. Six judo moves
2. Griefer madness
3. A tale of two lawyers
4. Lane Hartwell
5. Arin Crumley
The challenge: Reputation versus privacy versus free speech. The management of reputation often had headlong collisions with these other needs.
Thor runs get satisfaction.com concept if you are a company you are vulnerable to what other people can say about you…When they respond to blog posts companies can be perceived as being over-protective. This site invites the companies and customers to participate.
Judo moves
1. Cast a long shadow. In a world where anyone can bear false witness, try to make sure there are lots of witnesses! Accrue more positive content about you to inoculate yourself against bad stuff. This is a baseline plan. There is a context for any comment.
2. Tell your side of the story. Julie Melton valleywag. Record your position online and send your version to your key audience, selectively. Be engaging and non-defensive. Use terms like proactive, nip in the bud. Post a reply before they have the chance to strike.
3. A heartfelt apology. SW Airlines has a chief apology officer! JetBlue apologised in a third party space and left comments open. His criticism was in the context of the apology.
4. Sarah Lacy: no apologies. She apologies by blaming the audience. Google results for today and an apology video showing above the critical bloggers.
5. Inspire an Army. Sometimes it isn’t enough just to tell your side of the story alone – get others to tell it for you. Mike Brown of Foundation Capital’s clients used the Funded to say how well he’d treated them and what it was like working with him.
6. Stand for something. Patti of Timbuk2 started using get satisfaction – free advertising on the home page we used to have a strong point of view and being ‘snarky and opinionated’ and when she rejoined the company. “here today, gone tomorrow just like that guy who stole your virginity” an email campaign she wrote. Her opt in list was 110k but the concentric reverberation from the womens rape advocacy group got their teeth into it. She took a lot of direct correspondence back to their blogs. But other evangelists started picking it up and responding to the bloggers. Defence from outside the employee base. She is still trying to be amusing, funny and opinionated but a lot more careful!
7. Celebrate your critics. Brian Shaler BitGravity videos people criticising himself! Celebrate the worst of the haters in your life!
Griefer madness – people who exist to make life hell for others. Michael Crook (got a name change), A man who exists to destroy his own reputation. You cannot control your image online. He used the DMCA even though he was a ‘true villain’.
[not sure how I managed to write 7 down….. time-space-continuum issues, clearly!]
A tale of two lawyers – a lesson for people to learn from and court settlement asked for a video from Michael Crook in order to state the corrected record. This closed the lawsuit. Unexpected consequence was an improvement in Crook’s online profile! You can make the ‘bad’ fall away over time by doing good things to replace your bad Google ranking incidents.
Another lawyer asks for people to conceal her identity online because she’s a lawyer who defends battered wives and her name might harm her clients who live in potentially violent situations. What happens on the web casts a ‘long shadow’.
Lane Hartwell – a photographer who tried to enforce her own copyright. She used the DMCA to support her case. It is used by big corporations to sue the little guys. But because she used it as a little guy, people assumed she was a big organisation. she defended herself and became associated with standing up for her clients.
Arin Crumley – a film maker 4 eyed monster. Had his coat stolen at a party and when he posted a video asking for its return, he got hate mail. And then posted a new video singing the comments to music to ‘celebrate’ them. Judo move!
Questions:
How do you deal with the emotional hurt? There are extraordinary people out there. The act of responding and engaging is transformative and acts as a salve for the hurt.
Where does privacy come in? Lane was trying to deal with a copyright violation privately, but it became very public because it was in the artistic arena. She had to give up her personal privacy in that context in order to defend and redress her reputation.
Responsible and effective ways to attack those whose reputation deserves it? Michael Crook is the perfect one. The internet is designed to tag these types. Tone is key. Context to allow the person to respond.
oh, and a lovely photo of Thor's daughter, sitting in the row behind me with her Mum….poppet
Tags: , online reputation, SXSW, Thor Muller