Reputation has to do with standing, status, repute and character. Every brand must embrace the truth in the saying that says “learn from yesterday, live today and strategize and hope for tomorrow’. Reputation like integrity is a social capital that can be spent tomorrow and especially during recession. But it seems many brands here do not care about such stuff as long as long as they make their money and enjoy patronage. They care less about the fate of their target that spends millions on them weekly.

Interestingly, google is not sleeping. Google is a good information keeper. Google never forget. Google is a good Librarian who keeps information for ages. One day the information can be recalled and used. I am not sure many brands-corporate, personal –are aware of this. If they do they will watch against what is being said about them and protect their hard earned social capital. Today, major brands have not learnt from yesterday in our clime. An issue like ‘DELL HELL’ is still fresh in the mind of that great corporation. A casual neglect of a supposed ‘mere insignificant’ mentioned of DELL Corporation activities sparked a destructive fire for that corporation- I hear someone says ‘that is where internet is king and consumers’ rights are protected’.

A major telecom here associated with YHell may also be going towards seeing hell because of their online reputation. There are about two hackers’ websites that are associated with its game show and their brand management team seems not to care a hoot despite the fact that we have alerted them. One expects they will make this known publicly to their valued customers. They did replied our mail but beyond that we have not seen advert to warn many unsuspecting publics that may fall prey. These set of people may put their experiences online and that may spark a fire.

Based on the above story, I have decided to raise brand owners awareness on  how to manage their brands’ reputation at the two major platforms we have now.

1. Physical Space reputation management: This has to do with every platform that anyone can feel, see, and touch etc. This include logo on a paper, car, stationery items, business cards, press releases, advert, magazines, cars, office environment, internal brand’s attitude etc. Proper or inadequate management of this platform may either affect brand’s reputation in the mind of the target audience.

2. Cyber, online space reputation management: Many brands have continued to ignore what is done on the cyber platform because they feel we are not there yet. Interestingly the few that are online are talking, interacting in forums, social media, online ‘think tank’, websites, blogs etc. We have noticed few hackers’ websites that are purported to be owned by the major brands which exist on the cyber space now. Yet these major brands could not detect them early until someone alerts them. Today there are basic internet software that can be used to track mere mention of the brand’s name on the net not to now talk of having a website that carry the brand’s name, logo, disclaimer notice among others. This software can be operated by a designated employee who works as a community manager. This allows easy and early detection. This we have noted in some of our earlier posts.

Does your brand care about its reputation? Are your employees empowered to enhance your brand’s reputation? If you can not answer these questions in affirmative, send your internal brands to PERSONAL BRANDING AND CORPORATE SUCCESS SEMINAR holding in Lagos Nigeria in April 17-18, 2009. For enquiries send text, cal or mail -07029778785, info@michaelsage.org, tunde@michaelsage.org

In our earlier discussion on brand’s content marketing, we did mention that survival of brands during this time is dependent on content marketing which discusses brand’s relevance and education. We did conclude that great content is not only enough but its spread holds the key to its success. For content marketing to be successful or any other online marketing in this instance, there is need to identify each audience, understand the influence individual group wields and properly managed all the stakeholders. 

Like any other platforms, online consumers have influencers, active, inactive stakeholders. Reaching every group begins with different approaches, tactics, strategies. Individual brand must identify appropriate groups to reach, watch how active members of those groups are, research group types and ensure the brand befriend the group’s admins. This will be a discussion for another day, meanwhile let us first identify brand’s online audience; what their influences are and how they can aid the spread of brand’s content and marketing. There are several propositions in this regard, but the best that caught my attention for now and which I strongly buy into is the Charlene Li’s division of US adult online consumers. Charlene Li identifies about six levels or groups of online brand audience, consumers. They are as follow:

1. The creators: This level of online audience is web savvy. I also called them digital natives as they breath, sleep and are consumed by happenings on the internet. This set of audience publishes or maintains blog, upload videos. They are active bloggers, twitters, podcasters , vbloggers . They read others’ blogs, get involved in communities, forums and sometimes they are administrators of some online groups. This group wields a great influence online and some of them command great followings. It is a great advantage for any brand to have the most influential of them in their niche as friends and canvassers. Charlene says this group is about 13% of the online audience. Most of them enjoy strong coverage from the traditional/mainstream media. But if we consider 80/20 percent rule. They are worth given attention

2. Critics: This set of online audience does not maintain blogs in most cases. Few have but they do not maintain them or give the blogs adequate attention. They are not passionate about content spreading. Most of their efforts are concentrated on comments on blogs, posting of ratings and reviews as well as having an account on a medium that catches their attention. They are assumed to be 19% of online audience

3. Collectors: this category of online audience collects materials from the above users; they engage RSS and tag web pages. This category is said to be about15% of the online audience.

The above audience are most active than the other three levels of audience that we are going to discuss below.

4. Joiners: This set of online audience only use social networking sites. A peculiar line of thought associated with them though is that some of them do not come near these accounts for weeks but most ensure they open, check the account once a  month. This group is estimated to be 19% of online audience

5. Spectators: This set of internet audience reads blogs, watch peer generated videos, listen to podcasts and often use their mouths or links to spread whatever they consumed. They are about 33% of the internet audience

6. Inactives: This set care less about what goes on. This set6 of audience is about 55% of the online users. This may be good news to those brands that have neglected the online audience. It must be noted however that this survey is focused on adult online consumers. When we compare teenage or young adult’s data, the result can be shocking. But let assume this is what we have, any brand that is involved in content or online marketing should now have a clear idea of where to concentrate effort, and how best to develop strategy to reach the inactives. For those who do not like long lists, we can group online audiences into three namely: digital natives, spectators and inactives.