<_< ----- I'll respectfully ask you again sir, are you employed by American Airlines, or one of the consulting firms hired by aa?----- 😉
Interesting article:
They watch what you say-News Article
They watch what you say
By PETE ALFANO
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
Every weekday morning when Billy Sanez arrives at American Airlines corporate headquarters, he powers up his computer and logs on to the Internet for an hour or so. But he isn’t idly surfing the Net on company time. This is part of his job.
Sanez, who speaks five languages, visits various Web sites and search engines such as Google and Yahoo. He receives e-mail alerts. He peeks into chat rooms, checks on bloggers and peruses bulletin boards in a routine that might be likened to a global version of Neighborhood Watch.
His mission is to see what people around the world are saying about American and to flag anything the airline might have to address.
It is part of what’s called online reputation management.
Because dissatisfied customers, or sometimes activists and interest groups with an agenda, are now able to vent their displeasure to a global audience through blogs, chat rooms, bulletin boards and Web sites, a growing number of corporations are responding.
With their brand and reputation at stake, they are enlisting public-relations firms that specialize in developing marketing strategies for the Internet and are allocating their own resources to monitoring and addressing what is being said about them in cyberspace.
The objectives: Put out fires started by angry bloggers before they spread, tackle issues head-on and saturate the Internet with positive news to push the negatives off the first page of search engines.
“There is a race going on that is no less critical than the Oklahoma land rush, and the question is who can control the message,†said Richard Levick of Levick Strategic Communications Llc. in Washington, D.C.
Venting in public
Bad news travels fast, and on the Web it goes both fast and far. Whether well-intentioned, or motivated by anger, revenge, vindictiveness, or mischief, the disgruntled are making themselves heard.
No one is immune. Celebrities as well as average people can be vilified in public or have their personal lives exposed.
There is a Web site, for example, called Don’tDateHimGirl.com where women name men they say have done them wrong. Reasons may include being cheated on, dumped, lied to or, more ominously, swindled or physically abused.
And last summer, Danny Presley, the principal of Carroll High School in Southlake, was notified by police that his name and photo were posted on the popular MySpace along with comments about him. The page was eventually removed.
In San Antonio, an assistant high school principal sued students and their parents for writing online about her sexual orientation.
Sometimes an employee or former employee seeks revenge on the Internet. Last spring a flight attendant posted a portion of an American Airlines training video on YouTube, a video-sharing Web site. The video showed how flight attendants deal with unruly passengers.
According to the airline’s spokesmen, the video snippet was taken out of context and gave a misleading view of how the misbehaving passengers are dealt with.
American took legal action to have it removed.
“It was a segment that could be interpreted the wrong way,†said Sanez, who spends 20 percent of his workweek monitoring the Internet. “It was also copyrighted material, so we asked that it be taken down.â€
Other corporations are coming to realize that the Internet can sentence someone to lasting infamy.
“When there is something in print or on TV, it eventually goes away. On the Internet, it’s there for the duration,†said Sally Falkow, president of Expansion Plus, an online reputation-management firm in Los Angeles.
“If you have any kind of visibility, it is possible people are talking about you,†Falkow said. “It’s no different than the guys who stand on a soapbox in the park and express free speech. These are people ranting in the park, but on an enormous scale.â€
Some of the Internet postings serve the public interest.
Bloggers, for example, have become the new watchdogs in American society, particularly when they are viewed as concerned citizens policing large corporations.
“It’s a way of performing a public service by exposing people who don’t always tell the truth,†said Don Middleberg of Middleberg Communications in New York City, who has written books on Internet marketing strategy.
Middleberg, who estimates that there are now 55 million blogs, acknowledges that it can be difficult separating fact from fiction on the Web. “In a blog, people can say virtually anything, and it becomes opinion and gossip,†he said. “They are not held accountable. And many reputable media . . . will reference blogs and use rumors from blogs and give them credence.â€
But he added, “On balance, the scales are strongly weighed to the positive.â€
Apparently in recognition of the influence of bloggers, companies sometimes enlist them to post on their behalf, or hire PR firms to create positive blogs, sometimes without full disclosure. Wal-Mart was accused of using this tactic when it enlisted the high-powered Edelman agency to create Wal-Marting Across America, a blog supposedly written by a family traveling the country in a recreational vehicle, parking overnight in Wal-Mart parking lots and saying lots of nice things about Wal-Mart.
That kind of approach is widely seen as likely to backfire and result in even more bad publicity.
“Not identifying yourself as representing an organization is against the code of ethics,†said Douglas Newsom, professor and director of graduate studies in journalism at Texas Christian University. “The standard practice for public relations people is to identify your connection with the source. With digital media, it’s easier to conceal that.â€
Playing catch-up
Communications experts interviewed agreed that many American companies are late to the game in monitoring what is said about them on the Internet.
A routine online search produces plenty of examples of bad publicity for corporations big and small.
Fort-Worth based RadioShack, for example, was granted an injunction against a Web site called RadioShack $ucks, which was started by a former salesperson. Most of the complaints on such sites are similar to those customer-service departments routinely hear every day, but the effect is magnified when they are posted online.
It hasn’t helped either that RadioShack has been getting bad publicity offline; its chief executive resigned this year after he was found to have lied on his resume, and the company notified 400 employees of layoffs by e-mail.
A spokeswoman for RadioShack said the company is focusing on driving fourth-quarter business and would not comment.
One source of complaints about another Fort Worth company — D.R. Horton, which builds houses in 27 states — is a Web site called ConsumerAffairs.com that lists homeowner dissatisfaction with plumbing, drainage, crumbling rock walls and basic unresponsiveness.
In the big picture, of course, these complainants represent a small percentage of customers. But complaints take on a life of their own on the Internet, and communications experts say that they should be addressed if a theme emerges.
A Horton spokeswoman said its chief executive was traveling and would be unavailable to address the issue.
Experts say facing critics is the best strategy. “Companies are in big trouble and feeling the pain,†said Newsom of TCU. “You have to pay attention to what people are saying, and if there is a shred of truth to it, you have to respond.â€
Levick said that only about 16 percent of corporate chief executives track bloggers.
American Airlines may be one of the more forward-looking companies with respect to its online reputation. Tim Smith, the director of media relations, says that the airline monitors the Internet at several levels, which includes employing the PR agency Weber-Shandwick and in-house staff such as Sanez, and having other employees on the lookout for potentially harmful or inaccurate information online.
But not all criticism becomes a crisis-management problem. “We look at the volume of the statement, how often it is being repeated and agreed with, and its source and life span,†Smith said.
Reactions must be quick
When dealing with the Internet, companies can’t take time to formulate a strategy as they once did with traditional media. Every hour lost responding to a serious allegation makes it more difficult to turn the tide of public opinion.
“You have to anticipate what might be said about you and be in that process all of the time,†Levick said. “When companies take 10 days to respond, they’ve lost.â€
Although legal action is an option in serious cases, communications experts say it is often difficult to find a blogger or Web site, and in the process the company may look like Goliath going after David.
“Remember, sending a legal letter can backfire because the letter will be posted,†Middleberg said.
So monitoring the Internet may be a daunting task, but it is no longer a luxury for those who value their name, image and brand.
The new catchphrase in corporate boardrooms may be, “Have you Googled today?â€
“Creating opportunities for people to communicate will not slow down but accelerate,†Middleberg said. “How can you be a CEO and not be conversant with the Internet world?
“The older generation had better adapt and adjust fast, or they will be history.â€
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Pete Alfano, 817-390-7985
palfano@star-telegram.com
