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Fear and Threats to Corporate Reputation in the Blogosphere

I came across this survey on PR and Blog relations thanks to Business Weeks' Blogspotting.  Although, as Stephen Baker points out, there is no trending information in this survey, it's still interesting to look at any new info available on how PR views blogging. The survey was conducted by Matthew Lynn and Hugh Fraser, two British business journalists who have experience working for media organizations including Bloomberg, the BBC and the Sunday Times.  They write on their Angel blog that the most striking conclusion is that PR Pros see blogs as posing a significant threat to corporate reputations. 64% agree that a disgruntled employee or a dissatisfied customer could use a blog to ignite a full blown crisis. And 58% of respondents agree that businesses have not yet woken up to the threat posed by blogs.  Although I don't have specific numbers, many of the PR professionals from Fortune 1000 companies that we speak with at Cymfony initially come to us out of fear or possible threats to their reputation.

They want to find out how to best capture all of the information that is being discussed online about their company and brands.  As these firms soon discover there is much more intelligence that can be gathered and many ways look at the blogosphere - which is not all negative.  At this point, monitoring consumer generated media or content should be a no-brainer for the pr professional.  A dissatisfied customer or disgruntled employee can have serious ramifications that can damage brand equity quickly even if its not necessarily accurate.  Yet, there are also pages and pages of information available that can be used for the positive or seen as an opportunity.   And the opportunity is not just for the PR or communications departments, it's also for the marketing, CI, research and branding or consumer insight departments as well.

What our clients come to learn is that gathering unfiltered opinions, preferences, employee's concerns, competitors strengths and weaknesses as well as emerging threats and opportunities can be utilized in many ways.  Some key areas we look at include:

  • yes, reputation management
  • but also, customer behavior analysis - when, for instance, are mom's talking about buying that new Dyson vacuum vs. when they actually buy and where
  • Product launches - Apple ipod, need i say more?
  • and what about product monitoring and analysis - might be interesting for Dell to learn that teen aged girls are using their Dell DJ's in Dad's new car (cross-marketing promotion perhaps?)
  • or campaign and event analysis - we all know that GM's employee discount campaign took off, early indicators can show when a message is going to stick or flop.
  • Competitive Intelligence - as more and more companies are becoming transparent there is more and more information at our fingertips.

As the survey reveals, fear and threats to corporate reputation may be the driver for PR professionals to start to look at consumer generated media - but that's not the only reason to dive in.

Posted by Cymfony on September 27, 2005 at 10:53 AM | Email this post Permalink

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Noticed a couple of references online, in print and on blogs to research looking at some of the reasons PR professionals (and their clients) look to blogs. As my client contact at Cymfony points out fear and threat awareness might be an initial motiv... [Read More]

Tracked on Sep 29, 2005 2:41:16 PM

Comments

Howdy,

I am the "dissatisfied customer" of note in the post. The link leads to the first post of an ongoing saga of how VW is botching the opportunity of turning me from ditractor to promoter. I have posted 3 other posts to date and there might be one or two more.

A couple of points. First, I'm no longer upset with VW - now I'm just using it as a negative case study.

Second, I am not a dissatisfied "customer" as I never bought the product. I am a disssatified "prospect". I think this is important in that the risk of negative buzz starts much earlier in the process than the point of sale. Marketers are on the hook from the moment of engagement.

Great post and thanks for the mention.

-Matt

Posted by: Matt Galloway | Sep 29, 2005 4:09:12 AM

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