News

Keeping clean on the web

Companies work to repair their online reputation

by Laura Hipp, ABJ Staff
Austin Business Journal
May 2, 2008

Monitoring the reputation of Infoglide Corp. on the Internet wasn't even on Mike Shultz's mind.

But after learning that a former disgruntled worker savvy in the ways of Google algorithms had set up a sabotage, Shultz embraced checking the blogosphere and search engines as well as enlisting guerilla marketing tactics.

One link that kept cropping up at the top of a search for the company was a 2002 Austin Business Journal article about a lawsuit alleging bribery and corruption among Infoglide's leaders -- coming up even before Infoglide's corporate site. The allegations live on in cyberspace, despite the fact that the lawsuit was dismissed years ago.

"You get that sort of pop in the forehead [like] when they say you could have had a V-8," Shultz says.

The popularity of Google searches, blogs and customer comments have created a new worry for business executives and a new category of tech jargon: online reputation management.

Businesses must watch for attacks from competitors, ex-employees and angry customers, says Bill Leake, president and CEO of Apogee Search, an Austin-based search engine optimization firm.

Layoffs, management shake-ups and government investigations can easily wind up at the top of search engines, he says.

"Stuff out there on Google can just sit there for years and years and years," Leake says.

There are three areas that companies must focus on: search engine results, legal issues like use of trademarks and talk on the blogosphere.

Most companies are just waking up to the need for managing a company's reputation on the Web, says Leake, who noticed an uptick in his clients' requests for help in the positive news more than nine months ago.

However, there is little companies can do to avoid becoming targets, Leake says.

Leake suggests operating honestly and ethically when dealing with vendors, customers and employees. But even then, a company is not safe.

"No matter how good your business practice is, you'll run into an evil, crazy person," he says.

A company just has to move past the incident and make more good impressions, he says.

"No matter how long you've been in business, eventually you'll get the equivalent of a corporate pimple and the question is, how do you clear that blemish," Leake says. "You can't cover up an entire face full of pimples. But you can spot treat one pimple before you go out on the town."

Infoglide isn't the only Austin company to fall victim to Internet bad-mouthing. A Google search for Green Mountain Energy Co., a sustainable energy producer, results in a site calling for a boycott of the company.

Green Mountain officials declined to comment.

Round Rock-based Dell Inc. is one of the first large corporations to use social media to its advantage to combat such reputation issues. Each Monday, a team combs the Web for unhappy customers and tries to address their problems.

Dell has also launched blogs for chatting about everything from products to investors' concerns.

"We think we should be creating the forums to tell our story," says spokesman Bob Pearson. "We have open and transparent conversations about what's happening with partners."

The company launched its IdeaStorm site to allow customers to offer suggestions.

More than 9,000 ideas have been submitted, Pearson says. More than 50 of those ideas have been implemented, including loading computers with Linux operating systems and allowing Windows users to stick with Windows XP rather than upgrading to Vista.

Other Fortune 500 companies are paying attention. Starbucks recently began a program similar to IdeaStorm.

"The trend is real simple," Pearson says. "It's that the customer's view is really important."

In three years, its estimated that more than 2 billion people will be accessing the Internet, he says. Companies must communicate with those users and tell their own stories.

"Companies that do that will benefit greatly," he says.

At Austin's Buzz Corps LLC, Geoff Nelson and Chris Aarons help endear businesses to bloggers.

"They don't know how to reach these guys," Nelson says. "Corporations are trying to figure out bloggers."

Many companies take the traditional approach with newspapers and magazines by issuing press releases and offering executives for interviews. But bloggers want access to designers and engineers, not top management, Nelson says.

Reaching the most popular bloggers can spread a firm's message fast, but proven measures for business practices have not changed, he says.

"If you've got a bad product, no amount of reputation [management is] going to do anything," Nelson says.

At Infoglide, Shultz is frustrated by the anonymity the Internet allows and the lack of legal recourse. He assumes the Internet saboteur is a former employee unrelated to the court case in the story.

He tries to turn the experience into a positive by explaining the company's current accomplishments in the field of identity security. The company hosts a blog to spread its message.

"You can moan and cry and say something isn't right," he says. "This isn't new stuff. It's been going on forever. This just happens to be a very efficient medium to do that."