IN THEAGEOFTWITTERANDFACEBOOK,
NEGATIVECOMMENTS
TRAVET
FAST.HOWTOWATCHTHEWEBANDFIGHTBACK
H E N B ARRY SCHW ARTZ LOGGED ON TO TW IT -
ter on Jan. zT,hehad 20 messageswaiting for
him. all with unwelcome news: Someone was
impersonating his company on the social net-
work. Schwartz runs RustyBrick, a r5-employee,
$z million Web development company in Suffern,
N.Y.,and useshis company's name as his Twitter
handle. The impostor had set up a profile using a
slight variation of his company's name and start-
ed following Schwartz's 4,ooo-plus contacts,which included cli-
ents. Those folks who in turn followed the impostor saw a Web link
with a messagereminiscent of spam: "Hey guys, you have to get this
new Twitter SuccessGuide. It's price-
less." Schwartz, who doesn't use Twit-
ter for sales promotion, was chagrined. BYRACHAET
KIiIG
56 B USINESSWEEK 20O 9
SMALLBIJZUNE/ J ULY
"The last thing I want is to have people thinking that I'm following
them and [that] I'm selling a Twitter SuccessGuide," he says.
With the growing popularity of blogs, social networks, and cus-
tomer review sites, the job of managing a company's online reputa-
tion is becoming ever more complex. And it's not only strangers
who pose a threat. With the viral nature of social media, it's now
possible for an unhappy customer or a disgruntled former employ-
ee to reach thousands of people with the click of a mouse. Clint
Page,cno of Dotster, a 10o-employee,g5o million Internet service
provider in Vancouver, Wash., says his company regularly patrols
the Web looking for negative comments. 'A comment left un-
challenged becomes perception, and perception becomes reality,"
he says.
You don't have to handle all this your-
self. There are plenty ofservices that can

:elp you monitor, and ifnecessary rehabilitate, your business'
:eputation online. You could choose a full-service solution, which
:an easily cost thousands ofdollars, but there are plenty offree tools
:hat will at least help you keep tabs on what's being said. From
:here, you'll have to develop a strategy for any response,then use a
:'ewwell-tested techniques to bury unfavorable links in search en-
rine results.
Ifyou've got a particularly thorny problem, you might pay $r,ooo
,rr more a month to retain a full-service public-relations and mar-
ketingfirm such as International Reputation Management in Wash-
ington, D.C. They'll handle the immediate crisis and also develop
new Web pagesthat will force the unflatteringones to the bottom of
searchengine results. ReputationDefender of Redwood City, Calif.,
produces reports detailing what has been said about you online for
314.95per month. For 929.95per item, the company offers an addi
tional service called Destroy that tries to delete (often, through ne-
gotiation tactics with a Webmaster or the person who created the
content) an inaccurate record or an outdated or unfavorable blog or
forum post.
A number of free tools also can help you scout the Web, social
networks, and online forums for mentions of your company, brand,
or products (chart). Google Alerts, for instance, will send an e-mail
each time your name shows up in Google searches."One of the
most important steps is to do an audit of what people are saying
about your business," says Andy Beal, a reputation management
consultant at Marketing Pilgrim in Raleigh, N.C. He suggests do-
ing a monthly Google search to seewhat shows up in the top zo re-
sults, which might callup a customer's comment or review on sites
such as Yelp, CitySearch, or TripAdvisor. You might be dismayed
to see unflattering results high in your Google search. "Google is
ambivalent to the tone of the results-it doesn't care if it's positive
or negative, only if it's relevant," Beal says. If
you do see a negative comment, it's best to re-
spond as soon as you can, within the first z4-48
hours ifpossible. Use a nondefensive tone and
ask for more information, offer to help resolve
the problem, or offer your perspective or an
apology ifwarranted. Then, to push those neg-
ative results further down in a search, create
some new content. Ifyou haven't done so al-
ready, start a blog (with your company's name
in the title), set up a profile on social network-
ing sites such as Linkedln or Facebook, or tag
images with your company name on Flickr,
Beal says.
Creating that relevant content can also help
distinguish you or your business from others
with a similar name. As president of manage-
ment consulting firm Metcalf & Associates in
Columbus, Ohio, Maureen Metcalf has estab-
iished her Internet presence by launching a
blog on leadership, publishing papers online,
and posting a detailed profile of her firm on
Linkedln, where she has collected recommen-
dations from former colleagues, clients, and
students. On Twitter, she posts links to inter-
esting articles, lists upcoming classes she's
teaching, and talks about her nonprofit work.
"Ifsomeone does a search, I better show up as
someone who has intellectual horsepower,"
says Metcalf, whose firm has about g3oo,ooo
TECH
in yearly revenue. Most important, she's trying to distinguish her-
self from another Maureen Metcalf in a different industry, So far
that strategy is working, and the first few pages ofresults ofa
Google search on her name mostly turn up information about Met-
calfs consulting business.
Sometimes you need to take more direct action. Peter VanRys-
dam, of interactive marketing firm 3Sz Media Group, found that
was the casea few months ago when the $g.5million company laid
offan employee."She was active on Facebookand Twitter, and im-
mediately after being let go, she posted on Twitter that we had just
lost our best asset,"says VanRysdam, vice-president of marketing,
who thought it was a knee-jerk reaction becauseshe was upset. Be-
cause the 43-person company had offered her contract work, they
asked her to edit that post or take it down if she still wanted the
work. She complied. "We don't always have that to hold over some-
one's head," saysVanRysdam.
FIRST,
APOTOGIZE
U ST O M ER C OM PLAIN T S, O F C O U R SE, H AVE TO BE
approached a bit differently. "If you made an honest mistake
or delivered a product that has a flaw, then apologize," says
Beal. In somecases,the customer may have made a mistake,
but if so, it's still wise to step in and clear up the situation if you can.
For example, Dotster often encounters customers complain-
ing online about technical difficulties, but some of those custom-
ers are simply confused about the process of setting up a Web
site. "Most customers are shocked that we actually respond to
them," says cEo Page.If a customer complains on Twitter, for ex-
ample, someone from Dotster will tweet back, asking if they
can help. Often those same customers go on to publicize how re-
sponsive and helpful Dotster is. Ofcourse, a constant string of
apologies or excuses on a site such as TripAd-
visor, for instance, won't do much good un-
less you've worked to fix the problem. "You'll
be forgiven once or twice, but customers will
look to see if [you've] learned anything," says
Beal, before deciding ifthey can trust your busi-
nessagain.
As for Schwartz, he wrote a blog post ex-
plaining his predicament as a means of dam-
age control. He then contacted Twitter, which
shut down the impostor account that same day.
Schwartz never found out the true identity of
the impostor. Still, this is the second time he
has been impersonated on the Web. In October
2006, someone registered web.rustybrick@
gmail.com and started mass e-mailing people,
trying to sell search engine optimization ser-
vices under his company's name. "The mes-
sageswere in broken English and it lookedbad
for us," says Schwartz. He e-mailed the culprit
and discovered it was a young person in India,
who stopped sending the messagesimmediate-
ly. In both ofthese instances, acquaintances
alerted him right away, but Schwartz has since
become vigilant about monitoring his compa-
ny's brand online, using Google Alerts and
Twitter search. Says Schwartz: "Thankfully
there are a lot ofgreat tools to help you track
what people are saying about you"-be it
around the globe or in your backyard. E
B U S I N E S S WE
SEMKA T T B IJZU N E / J U2LO
Y O9 57