A Bad Review Is Forever: How to Counter Online Complaints
From the New York Times: For the California restaurateur Andrew Gruel, poor online reviews demand rapid responses. One of his new Slapfish restaurants, serving sustainable seafood, was hit this year with dozens of bad reviews that complained about its prices (too high) and portions (too small). So Mr. Gruel pulled out all the stops. He […]
Florida Bar Laughs Off Nonsensical ‘Bar Complaint’
From TechDirt.com: Remember Patrick Zarrelli? Of course you do. He’s the dude bro, who claimed to run a “reputation management” service, who was hired by an attorney named Gary Ostrow to “clean up” his Google mentions. At issue were a bunch of blog posts from blogging lawyers mocking Ostrow’s ridiculous press release. Zarrelli seemed to […]
3 Ghosts of Crises Past — and Lessons Left Behind
[By Thom Fladung, Hennes Communications] Communications crises don’t take a holiday. We can’t predict what crises will break in the short time left in 2015, but is anyone willing to bet that there won’t be at least a few? And someone’s crisis probably will arrive at a profoundly inopportune time – say, the night of […]
Youthful Mistakes – and the Journalists Who Leap Upon Them
This is a memory I’ve successfully suppressed for years, but it came flooding back to me last week. When I was a college junior I submitted one of my short stories to the New Yorker. I don’t recall the specific story, but I remember it being well-received by my colleagues in our undergraduate workshop, which […]
7 Dos and Don’ts Following a Social Media Mishap
Social media is so powerful that a single post can make or break a brand’s reputation. This is why it’s important to think before you post, either as yourself or on your business’s behalf. Still, sometimes things don’t go as planned. What seemed like a good status may turn out to be offensive or insensitive […]
The New Normal: Amid a Crisis, Check Twitter
[By Thom Fladung, Hennes Communications] The terrorist attacks in France were yet another reminder – as if we needed one – that when big stuff happens, more people are turning to one particular outlet for news and information: Twitter. That has to mean something to the folks charged with communicating during a crisis. The Harvard […]
5 Crisis Management Tips for Your Brand
Creating a brand used to take years. Companies often started locally or regionally, developed loyal customers and built a market identity — supplemented by print or electronic advertising as brands grew. In addition to taking a long time, brand-building also took a great deal of money. Flash-forward to today: While it’s still possible to build a […]
The U.S. is Losing the Social Media War
From Time Magazine: Our adversaries are using our own technology against us—while we’re not allowed to use it to defend ourselves. Cyber or information-environment security is often in the news, yet most of our focus has been on theft of intellectual property, denial of service attacks, and assaults on personal privacy. Far less attention has […]
When an Icon Crashes, Is an Apology Enough?
[By Nora Jacobs, Hennes Communications] The first car I ever owned was a ’57 Volkswagen that I bought for $100. Its most memorable features were a cloth sunroof and turn signals that flipped out of the side pillars like miniature wings. It was almost as fanciful as the Morris Minor I learned to drive on, […]
Why Saying ‘Sorry’ is the Right – and Smart – Thing To Do
[By Thom Fladung, Hennes Communications] Saying “I’m sorry” can pay off – psychologically, because it’s the right thing to do, and literally, because it may get you or your business out of a tough spot while saving money and your reputation. Last month, I wrote about how an organization’s apologies also say a lot about […]