Radical Transparency

Last Saturday our class was divided into groups and each was given a topic to report about the book Radically Transparent:Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online, written by Andy Beal and Judy Strauss. Our group covered Chapter 14, repairing your online reputation. We talked about how to handle an attack from your detractors, hiding it and how to prevent it from happening again.

Traditionally, our reputation is based on what we had achieved and experienced. Today, our reputation is based on what people say about us on the internet. Most of the people on the this internet era Googles our name or our company's name to know more about us, and most results come from blogs and social networking websites which may contain positive and negative information about us. We don't want negative information and gossips about us spread like fire so, we have to manage our online reputation, we have to be Radically Transparent.

Being radically transparent means having a good positive online reputation and being open to your stakeholders of what, when and how are your actions or decisions being done. Stakeholders are your costumers, readers or members that may give positive or negative insights about you or your company where your online reputation rely.

Based on the book, to be radically transparent you should learn to: (via)

• Navigate the new rules of engagement in a transparent world

• Define who you are and develop your personal or corporate brand

• Create positive PR buzz with your online content

• Gain visibility in web search results and harness SEO tools

• Understand the pros and cons of e-mail before you hit “send”

• Use the latest internet tracking methods and understand how information spreads online

• Apply solid strategies for online reputation repair when things go wrong

Navigate the new rules of engagement in a transparent world. By defining these new rules, your stakeholders will be able to see step by step the processes that are being taken therefore, there would be lesser possible complaints coming from them. In other instances, if the stakeholders see a possible mistake they can immediately say something about it and changes may be done as soon as possible. If the stakeholders voice out their opinions, the company should take the time to listen to their comments for they are their customers and if they disappoint a customer it is a possibility for them to lose a loyal stakeholder, which would lead to negative effect on the company.

Define who you are and develop your personal or corporate brand. When you define who you are or what your company does, you have to be straight to the point because it is one of the most important things in business. This way, your work can be segregated and put in the right label. A few examples would be if people are looking for fast food chicken they would immediately think of Kentuky Fried Chicken or if they are looking for toothpaste they would think of the brand Colgate. Your goal is for either you to be the household name or your company.

Create positive PR buzz with your online content. Your online content should always be updated. The advertisments that you give your products should have an effect to your stakeholders to ask for more. When you have a new product, your customers are excited to want to buy that product as soon as it comes out. The one thing that you have to make sure is that you do not create something that insults a competitor because that could cause a negative effect to you and to your customers. So, instead of gaining new stakeholders you increase the risk of losing them.

Gain visibility in web search results and harness SEO tools. If someone Googled you, your site should be at leat at the first three page results. Make a way that you appear there. Learn how to use proper tagging, meta tags and content tags. Use SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Tools. By doing this helps lessen search egines to categorize and classify your site. If it is among the first three page results then it would bring you more customers and therefore leads your company to more exposure. Submit your website to search egines, for example; Google, Yahoo or Bing, which in this case you wouldn’t have to wait for the search engine to come to you.

Understand the pros and cons of e-mail before you hit "send". You should double check your newsletters, announcements etc. because this may cause negative reactions. Try getting reactions from a smaller crowd before sending it to everybody. In that case, you lessen the risk for once again having fewer stakeholders because sending newsletters and announcements actually attracts more people now-a-days for the internet is common in our day to day lives.

Use the latest internet tracking methods and understand how information spreads online. Apply Google Analytics to your website. Find out more information about your online visitors; where are they from, how they found your site and what pages they looked at. In google analytics, you'll be able to trace how your visitors got to your site. From there you can improve your site and see its effect after every other update.

Apply solid strategies for online reputation repair when things go wrong. You should be able to repair your online reputation whenever it is being attack, you have to have strategies in how to cleaning up the mess. Know your facts, seek advice and estimate the damage. You should understand your detractors and respond to them legitimately. Use Google Alerts. Convert then to an evangelist, make friends with your enemies.