Online Reputation Management can feel daunting in a world of emerging threats like AI, bot farms, trolls, keyboard warriors for hire, cancel culture, citizen journalists, citizen scientists and the manosphere. You don’t have to spend long online to realise we’re not in Kansas anymore. (I promised myself I’d avoid saying  ‘24/7 news cycle’ and ‘fragmented media landscape’…pretty sure it doesn’t count in parentheses).  

Media monitoring and social listening still undoubtably matter, but without identifying and assessing threats that develop in monitoring blind spots, many reputational, legal, political, operational and financial risks remain unseen. 

Navigating a very different media landscape dictates a much more proactive, whole of organisation,  approach to risk and reputation management. 

The good news is when everyone’s on board with a clear strategy, you’re better placed to navigate these risks. You might even come through with your reputation enhanced. 

Do you know your reputational risks and threats? 

Online Reputation Starts With Comprehensive Monitoring 

To say media monitoring was like crack back in my parliamentary staffer days is an exaggeration…But only a small one. And it made sense, with a few exceptions, it took a voice in the media to significantly damage a reputation. 

When we started Preface, we pretty quickly invested in social listening software so our clients could tune into what’s being said about them online. We learned pretty quickly this was iceberg tip stuff. 

Using the arbitrary 80/20 rule, let’s say media monitoring plus social listening does a good job showing you the 80%…But the smaller voices in the 20% not captured by automated software can do just us much reputational harm. And coordinated misinformation campaigns, bad actors, fake profiles and opposition groups seem to prefer to mobilise in the darker corners of the internet. Who would’ve thunk it? 

What is Strategic Risk Intelligence? Surely Not a Job For Humans? 

So, what to do about these groups of smaller voices who are invisible to traditional monitoring?  We’ve seen time and time again the reputational and legal risks they can bring are anything but small. Believe it or not the answer is humans. Take that AI! 

Strategic Risk Intelligence relies on human skills like judgement, reading between the lines, following breadcrumbs, going down rabbit holes and possibly a few other tortured metaphors. It takes experience, understanding of social media behaviours/playbooks, how people connect online and the curiosity to look beneath the surface. 

Typically, it starts with an audit of online risk and requires regular monitoring and investigation to keep across emerging threats. In practical terms, Strategic Risk Intelligence gives leadership teams early warning of emerging threats and the evidence needed to act.  

Online Reputation Management is Everyone’s Business 

So, you’ve got your monitoring sorted and are using forensic digital to complete your online risk picture…Job done? Not quite but we’re getting there. 

Risk doesn’t have a preferred channel of choice so every department in the organisation needs to have a seat at the Online Reputation Management strategy table and already had the ‘what happens if…’ conversations.  

Strategic Risk Intelligence has become increasingly important to how legal teams act to mitigate risk. From the preservation of digital evidence to establishing the identify of anonymous trolls, it’s critical they’re working with processes and tools that will hold up in court. Given comments can be edited and deleted, screen shots don’t quite cut it. 

Reputation management naturally sits with communications teams, and with good reason, as they’re best placed to tackle misinformation with media, stakeholder comms and campaigns. Social media is in many ways a great equaliser giving smaller but determined voices the same platform as organisations without being restricted by policies and governance. The more comms teams understand what these smaller voices are up to, the more options they have to respond with authority. 

Early detection is equally important for operations. Whether it’s a protest at the AGM, coordinated campaigns or attempting to disrupt BAU, time to prepare beats reacting every time.  

Customer Service are also important yet often overlooked stakeholders. So often risks and detractors are born from customer experience frustrations. Monitoring reviews, complaints and customer sentiment helps identify these risks before they escalate. And when Customer Service are given the tools to quickly act on customer complaints and negative reviews, potential detractors will feel less inclined to go public.

Online threats are happening whether you see them or not.

Why After-Hours Community Management Matters 

Most brands have learned (some the hard way) why managing owned social media communities matters…so I’ll avoid shouting at that particular cloud. But for those not nodding along in knowing agreement, leaving problematic comments on your page unmoderated, opens up a raft of reputational and legal risks. It also misses an important opportunity to show what your brand stands for. 

I promised myself I’d avoid saying ‘social media doesn’t sleep’ and ‘an hour is a long time on social media’, but since I’ve already used my parentheses trick, I might have to break that promise. If an hour is a long time in social media, the time between 5pm and 9am tomorrow is a really long time. And the time between 5pm Friday and 9am Monday is even longer still. Don’t get me started on long weekends… 

Speaking from experience nothing ruins a Community Manager’s morning cup of coffee like logging on to find your CEO’s been defamed or that there’s 100s of hateful comments under you latest diversity post. Chances are the damage has already been done and by the time it’s hidden or corrected and there’s already screen shots on Reddit. 

So, if you haven’t already, look into after hours community management options. Your Community Managers will thank you…So will your brand, comms, operations and legal teams. Maybe even your CEO.