We are excited to invite Larry Smith, Senior Consultant with the Institute for Crisis Management, to share over 30 years of experience with our online reputation management blog. ICM is an international crisis communication and management consulting company specializing in helping organizations avoid crises, and when a crisis cannot be prevented, helps them communicate with key audiences, including employees and the media. He spent 35 years as a reporter, editor, TV anchor and news director and served as press secretary to then-Senator Dan Quayle before joining ICM in 1994. Larry is co-author of three books on crisis management, a Batten Fellow at the Darden Graduate School of Business, UVA, and has taught public speaking and media/spokesperson training for 30 years. [Read more…]
Archives for December 2012
Making Sense of the Petraeus Sex Scandal
America loves a good sex scandal. It’s almost our national pastime, although I’m still a little more partial to baseball. This Fall we had a little of both. Though it’s hard to imagine anything overshadowing the 2012 Presidential election, one day after President Barack Obama scored a second term, the face on the cover of newspapers and magazines across the country was… General David Petraeus? Let’s run through a quick catch up on this made for TV soap opera that has tarnished the reputation of the individuals involved as well as the U.S. Army, CIA and FBI.
November 7 – No Time for President Obama to Celebrate –CIA Chief David Petraeus Resigns
On November 7, 2012 the Petraeus scandal broke, although it appears the investigation into General Petraeus began long before November 2012 and FBI director, Robert Mueller decided to hold the news of the scandal until after the Presidential election. The news, as expected, riveted the nation and glued people to their laptops, tablets and television screens to watch our most decorated soldier, spymaster and potential future Presidential candidate’s fall from grace. [Read more…]
Free Google Business Tools You Need to Know
How important is Google for your business? Let me count the ways. Google led the U.S. search market in November with 67 percent market share, followed by Microsoft with 16.2 percent and Yahoo! with 12.1 percent. I wanted to highlight a few free tools Google offers that can help your business grow online.
Find Out What People are Saying About Your Business
Google Alerts are email notifications sent to you when Google discovers new results across the real-time Web, such as web pages, newspaper articles, or blogs — that match a specific search term. You can use Google Alerts to monitor anything on the Internet. You can use Google Alerts to monitor what is being said online about your company or your competitors, track industry trends and developments, follow online mentions of your brand or key executives. Google Alerts is a great tool for online reputation management. [Read more…]
Global Trust in Advertising Survey Shows the Power of Earned Media
While advertisers and big businesses slap down millions and billions to pay for glitzy ads in traditional media such as television and print, “earned media” such as word-of-mouth and recommendations from peers, are more believable and appear to be more important factors in buying decisions, “…above all other forms of advertising,” according to a recent report from Nielsen surveying over 28,000 Internet respondents in 56 countries.
The Nielsen study found that trust associated with “word of mouth” and “peer recommendations” have increased 18 percent since 2007, and online consumer reviews are the second most trusted form of advertising. This is an interesting state to contrast with results from a recent Gartner study noting a proliferation of fake or paid reviews.
Sites such as Yelp or Angie’s List where customers consistently rate and review their favorite beauty salons, automobile repair shops, plumbers, and more will be essential for small businesses who have not been early adopters of such mediums. [Read more…]
