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Corporate reputation management and the web
The relentless expansion of the World Wide Web sees it penetrating more and more into core areas of everyday corporate life. Those who use the Web are no longer just - or even mainly - enthusiasts or leisure surfers. Increasingly large numbers of professionals - business people, journalists, analysts, investors - are now relying on the Web as a primary source of information. At the same time, companies are realising that an effective web presence isn't simply a matter of doing a "cut-and-post" job on the corporate brochure or annual report. A lot of attention is now focusing on e-commerce, reinforced by high-profile coverage of the likes of Amazon or eBay. But it is equally vital that companies should not ignore the impact of the Web on corporate reputation management. The key message is that there is stuff out there which can cause significant damage - or which can be similarly beneficial if managed in the right way. Material on the Web differs from that in most other media: |
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It is to all intents and purposes unregulated: it may be wildly inaccurate, libellous, deliberately misleading; or it may be sober, responsible and authoritative. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference. Either way, it can still impact on corporate reputation. A more subtle point, perhaps, is that web content is often far less influenced by companies than is 'traditional' print or broadcast material. Much of this reflects corporate initiatives such as press releases, press conferences, formal or informal briefing. Web material can be quite different. | |
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To compound the potential danger, there is little evidence as yet of companies systematically monitoring what is said about them on the Web. Most companies use press cuttings services: apart from anything else, they are used to gauge the effectiveness of PR departments at getting stories out. But there is little comparable in relation to the Web. Does it matter? We think it does. There are obvious areas which should be of concern. | |
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Organised boycotts or campaigns
There are a number of current cases where large and well-known companies are the target of campaigns deliberately designed to damage corporate reputation and/or force a change in company policy. Among the high-profile ones are Shell, Microsoft, Disney, Nestle. The Altavista portal offers a handy search category which serves up 238 separate Web sites under "Boycott Shell"; "Boycott Nestle" provides 205 separate sites; and so on. The indiscriminate nature of Web search technology - and the fact that many of those producing such material are more sophisticated than the companies they are attacking - means that Web users are quite likely to find such material above "official" Web sites. When surfers are analysts, journalists, opinion formers, this starts to matter. When a company like Gap becomes the target of a Web site such as www.gapsucks.org it needs at the least to know about it. Investment and share discussion groups
Many money- and investment-oriented Web sites host unmoderated discussion forums. Here a whole range of information may be posted, ranging from idle or malicious gossip to seriously price-sensitive information. Users of these forums may be individual private investors; but email addresses often reveal that those posting messages work for brokers, merchant banks, financial newspapers etc. |
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When comments such as these are attached to the names of respected financial investment
houses, again it begins to matter. And there is a fuzzy line between fair comment and
deliberate share ramping.
Gossip, rumour, libel, trivia
Of course not all of it does matter. A lot is ephemeral, harmless, funny, even helpful. But the Web allows that which is genuinely damaging to proliferate instantaneously and cause real impact alongside the trivia. Companies need to take it more seriously. Three steps are important: Monitor: find out what is being said; use one of (the few) specialists not only to search and report but also to provide intelligent discrimination between trivial and important React: where appropriate, take the necessary action, issue counter-material, publish a disclaimer, in extremis consider legal action - but remember how cases such as "McLibel" can backfire seriously Take the initiative: The Web can only become more important and more influential; any forward-looking corporate communication strategy needs to address it as an integral component of an overall reputation management programme. |
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