Reputation

Before I leap into today’s blog post – I owe you an apology. Our AHA blog hasn’t been as active as usual and it completely falls on my shoulders. It’s been busy in our office and our focus has been on working with our clients to meet some tight, challenging deadlines. We’re loving every minute of it – we live for challenges and deadlines – but our blog and Fast Take Fridays have suffered. My apologies. I am committed to getting back on track starting today and going back to our writing, videotaping and posting schedule. I know if we had a client who went off track, I would be giving them a little grief with some nudging to get them back into the schedule. So, I had the same talk with myself this morning – and here I am back at it. (I can be quite persuasive when I want to be!)

I was reading a piece in the New York Times about people who write fake book reviews. And it really struck a nerve with me. I learned a long time ago not to trust all the reviews online – especially about books and for travel.  There is an entire growing industry that will write reviews on books, products or services – and just about anything you can think of – for a price. That’s not a review; it’s advertising or advertorial or promotion, but it’s not a review. And in my mind – it is unethical.

Public relations is about authenticity and transparency – and not disclosing that you have been paid to do something is about as far away from that as you can get. It doesn’t mean people can’t get paid for checking things out for organizations. In my opinion, Chris Brogan is a perfect example of approaching this with integrity. He discloses when he has been given something – the product, a payment or he gets an affiliate referral fee when you click from his email or website and buy something. I also trust Chris; he has proven time and time again that he won’t lie to me about a product just because he got paid to review it. I am good with that approach; just tell me your relationship with what you are reviewing.

This New York Times article is worth a read. It may open your eyes to the fact that a lot of information that we are being fed online just isn’t true – and, in fact, some of it is downright dishonest. We’re still working out the ethics and values of the Internet. And I think it’s going to take some time.

When you do check out reviews online, put the review and reviewer in context. Check out their other reviews. I almost didn’t stay at a hotel because there was a scathing review of it from someone. At the last minute, I checked out what else this person had reviewed – and he had reviewed a lot. He hated everything. He had over 200 reviews on TripAdvisor and not one of them was positive.

Often the first five to ten reviews for a book or product are from friends, families or employees of the company. Unless they disclose their association or affiliation, I wouldn’t trust them. And especially with people who have self-published or are from a smaller company promoting their book, products and services – you will often see a small group of people who write reviews for each other. There is a little circle of promotion that happens that is pretty easy to identify. Put reviews in context. Don’t take them as face value.

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Over the weekend, I had dinner with friends and the talk turned to the ethics of public relations. Their son is in grade 10 and he wants to be a journalist, so we often have discussions about public relations, journalism and the shift that both fields are going through right now. We got onto the topic of the importance of ethics in a person’s life. Then it turned to what happens when an organization has an issue – how they are able to be ethical and manage their reputation.



The values of an organization and the ethics of the senior team are key drivers in how the organization does business. Having solid values and ethics doesn’t mean that they will never face an issue or a crisis, but it does mean that they will likely deal with it in a respectful, productive, transparent manner. As a communicator, our role is to communicate internally and externally about what is being done. Often, we are brought into the planning because we can provide the perspective of stakeholders and ask the tough questions that need to be asked.



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I have been travelling across the country this week for client meetings. Contrary to what some believe, this doesn’t mean that I saunter into meetings at 10 a.m., that we break for lunch at noon and then in the evening, drink good wine and eat fabulous meals. It does mean I get up early (earlier than usual… which is already pretty early!) and that I watch a lot of television news shows and read even more newspapers than usual. (Hey – if they are going to make the effort to deliver it to my hotel room door, I am going to read it.)

I have been following several big stories this week, including the tragic Trayvon Martin case and the Jet Blue pilot who had to be subdued by passengers (two of the biggest stories). Both traditional media coverage and social media play a big role in what the public is learning in both these cases.

That got me thinking about context and how it impacts what we take in. I have been as interested in comments on news pieces and the social media discussions as I have been in the traditional media coverage itself. The comments and discussions provide insight and context and that is important. Our world has become more complicated – we have access to many opinions and perspectives. That’s important. It can help us to put information into context and to understand what the actions and reactions mean relevant to social norms and expectations. This gives us a broader scope of understanding, I believe.

However, because so many people have the ability and opportunity to participate in discussions, it’s also important to put the comments and opinions into context. In another completely random – and yet surprisingly related – moment, I was on Amazon.com looking for a book. I was reading reviews and there was one review that was really negative. It stood out from the other good to great reviews. So I checked out the person’s other reviews. She hated everything she read. That allowed me to put the review into context, and in this case, discount her opinion because, for me, she lost credibility. It’s important to keep the comments and discussions in context as well. Don’t take them at face value; make sure you understand the context of the information and of the person making the statements. It might change what you think about a specific topic, subject or issue.

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