From this week's radio appearance on Talk 1300 - Your Online Reputation

This week, we received what we believe to be some unfortunate and inaccurate publicity, and it got me thinking and working on reputation management, and online PR.

With a banner headline reading "Survival Mode: businesses pessimistic about '09" the new edition of the Capital District Business Review article paints an incorrect and incomplete picture of where the Gile Companies are today.  It makes the Gile Companies, of which WSG is a part, appear to be the poster children for small business struggles.  Far from the truth.

But that's not what was printed, on paper and online.  So what does it mean and what do you do?

In this case, there is a need to set the record straight. While concerned about the current economic climate, the Gile Companies, which includes Gile Office Solutions, web and IT firm WSG.net, GileToys.com and a number of other ventures, is well-positioned to weather the storm and even grow in a down economy.  When people think your business is in trouble, they can easily be less inclined to do business with you. 

A news article painting that picture is a problem, as would be unflattering blog postings or comments, chatter in forums, or anything online, where the barrier of publishing is essentially non-existent.  The easier it is to publish content, the more you have to watch it.  This is a little thing called user generated content, or consumer generated media. Wikipedia has a pretty good page on this topic for those who want to drill down into more detail. 

Anyone can write anything about anyone, and they don't even have to put their name behind it.  You must pay attention.  Read Pete Blackshaw's book
Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000 or Brian Solis' PR 2.0.

1. Listen and look.  To keep this post to a readable length, look to Lifehacker or ReadWriteWeb for some posts on how to do this.  Google News Alerts, Technorati, Bloglines and may other services can help you do this.

2. React.  Remember that this is about the user's experience, so try to avoid getting into a spitting contest.  This is customer service.  Hotels do a good job of finding complaint-related content, tracking down the root cause of a guest's bad experience, and making it right.

3. Be proactive.  Reputation management is quite a broad discipline, and has traditionally been the job of PR firms and departments.  Start asking what your customers think about you, what your employees and investors think about you, and to what degree your company is socially responsible.  How do people view your products and services?

From this week's radio appearance on Talk 1300 - Why the Uber Blog will be Uber in 2009.

From this week's radio appearance on Talk 1300 - Why the Uber Blog will be Uber in 2009.

Listeners of my/our weekly appearance with Paul Vandenburgh know of Paul's interest in how the newspaper industry, and old media in general, are surviving in the internet age.  The recent bankruptcy filing by the Tribune company and the NY Times financial woes show us they aren't doing so well.  2009 figures to see the continuance of this trend.  One posting I read this week put it in quite well: Inquisitir's declaration that 2009 will be the year of the Uber Blog.  (Definition of Uber at this link)

Inquisitr defines an Uber Blog as "a blog that combines different content streams into one large blog, with one primary top level url."  The Huffington Post is a good example of this, as are sites like LifeHacker, the Silicon Alley Insider, and Valleywag.  An Uber Blog is less a collection of content streams and more a combination.  An UB can encompass a bunch of different areas of content or expand on a niche area.  To simplify the reasons why it works so well, it brings increased traffic, which makes ad sales easier.  The reason it brings more traffic is that an UB has much more high-quality content, which search engines and users like it. 

Look at the blog page on the Times Union site and compare it to the sites linked above.  Which format are you more likely to visit and re-visit? The TU page, for all it's diverse content, looks like a directory, and has no over-arching theme to bring it all together.  Just a collection of pages.  LifeHacker, in contrast, is the place you go for tech and non-tech ways to make your life better.  Guess which one I read on a daily basis.

As far as predictions go for 2009, look to some people smarter than me.  You can start with the 1196 respondents who provided their opinions for he Pew Internet & American Life report on the 2008 Predictions Survey. The group - comprised of about half Internet activists, builders, and commentators and half stakeholders, was asked to envision the internet in 2020.  The report on the whole is worth a read, and here are the parts I found to be most interesting.  

The Evolution of the Internet User Interface

The Evolving Concept of Time for Work, Leisure

The Evolution of Privacy, Identity, and Forgiveness

Also of note is ReadWriteWeb's predictions for 2009 and ALA TechSource's Year in Review.

From today's show on Talk1300.com

Here's what happened on our weekly radio appearance on Talk 1300 this morning with Paul Vandenburgh.

WSG VP Jim Gile joined me to talk GileToys.com Christmas and holiday offering.  Jim's offering free local delivery if visitors enter coupon code "CRIBA" at checkout to take advantage of this offer.

  This is the Toshiba Portege tablet PC i carry.  It's a great tool for meetings.  We sell them, by the way.  Hint hint.  Paul referenced it, and I'm at the Rensselaer Rail Station typing on it now.

We also talked about our CRIBA event on Wednesday.  

Leaving the laptop behind, or putting it in the palm of your hand

The Wall Street Journal has a good article today about mobile computing, and how to scale down from carrying a laptop.  I'm a Blackberry addict, but couldn't really get along without my laptop too.  I also think the WSJ should have an updated photo of a Blackberry.  Scroll down in the article and you'll see an image two generations old.  

Want to be behind the curve? Use Staples...

Regular readers of this blog already know that WSG's G-Serve network support and IT consulting service leverages remote monitoring, support and reporting.  We use a product called N-Able, and have been for quite some time. 

Well, look who thought what we were doing was a good idea.  Staples, a competitor of our parent company, Gile Office Solutions, has acquired Thrive Networks in Boston.  Besides the fact that Staples' move is just another example of a faceless corporation trying to purchase expertise rather than possessing or developing their own, Thrive uses - you guessed it - N-Able.  

To Staples, we say - nice try.  We were here first, and the party's going just fine without you.  

And by the way, if you're trying to tell the world you are better than the rest, and are technically savvy, you might just try fixing your web page.  See the below image of Thrive's /Staples page.

Don't mess with Johnny-Come-Lately.  Call us today at 518-435-0682, or email us to schedule your free G-Serve network and IT evaluation.

We're about to review the CRIBA Blog @ SBMU

In a few minutes, we'll be reviewing CRIBABlog.org, and how to improve it at the Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference here in Columbus, Ohio.  Jog over to my Twitter feed to see what's been happening here.

Visit CribaBlog.org for Updates on Today's Event

Visit CribaBlog.org for updates on today's big event featuring Stacy Mitchell.  I'll be live blogging the goings-on.

Three words from me to you: Use Social Media

That is today's message, folks.  Three words - Use social media.  And then three words after that - Use it right.  Facebook, YouTube, blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, Delicious, and even Digg.  How do you know what to use, or how to use it, or if it is working?  

All good questions.  Valid points.  But you can't see how it feels to swim by dipping your toe in the pool, or by watching other people swim.  You have to get in the pool - dive in, ease in, come slowly down the ladder, whatever.  If your competition is involved with social media, and you are not, it is as if they have taken an ad out in the yellow pages, and you have not.  It is as if you are not on the playing field, or are at least on the sidelines, if not outside the arena altogether.