Reputation

Today, the fledgling social network Path was forced to issue an apology based on how it used contact data from its users. That’s an oversimplification of course but you can find plenty of places where the incidentals have been explained. Even Path investors like Michael Arrington’s CrunchFund had to call out the company.

We think that most people understand the fact that once you do something online it can be very difficult to make it go away. Just ask Bruce Clay about his issues recently around trying to take a site down in time for people to not tear it apart. The “magic” of the Internet has created numerous ways to still bring that site up even though it is no longer in existence. Ooooops.

The Integer Group and the Coca-Cola Retailing Research Council understand the importance of social networking in marketing. That’s why they’ve dedicated themselves to making sense of it all, beginning with a five-part series called entitled Untangling the Social Web: Insights for Users, Brands and Retailers.

This post was created by our Reputation Channel sponsor Webimax. Numbers reflecting user participation on social sites were issued recently, stirring the interest of marketers and brands leveraging popular sites like Facebook and Twitter. Out of 2,000 U.S. web users asked, an astounding 85% had Facebook accounts. About three-quarters of the population use the social platform daily, and over half of those asked have at least a hundred friends. Wow, the opportunity to engage markets is there.

This post comes from our Reputation Channel sponsor WebiMax. As online marketers, we celebrate the application of SEO. Quality, search engine optimization tactics help align a brand’s Web pages with particular keywords and phrases. However, the steady process takes time to solidify. A brand may benefit, perhaps reaching some goals more quickly, by engaging in other areas of online marketing. SEO unites user queries with a brand; a diligent brand executive can do the same. Consider the following

Amazon should be pretty happy with the results from the, get ready because this is a mouthful, National Retail Federation Foundation / American Express Customers’ Choice Awards. In the age where reputation can make or break your operation Amazon and its subsidiary, Zappos, took 1st and 3rd place respectively. Of course, one has to assume that these results were arrived at before Zappos had their own brush with a potential reputation crusher of being hacked over this past weekend.

70% of consumers said they wouldn’t buy a product from a company they didn’t like. That may sound like I’m stating the obvious, but let’s run with it for a moment. The statement comes from a new Weber Shandwick report called “The Company behind the Brand: In Reputation We Trust.” The report is focused on big companies with multiple brands, but the information is just as relevant for the small business owner.

We hear so much about social media. It’s the this and the that and all things in between of business. You can reach more, do more sell more, relate more etc.etc etc. It’s hard to argue this line of thinking. It makes sense and it is real but is it overshadowing what appears to be a much bigger concern which is less sexy but possibly much more important which is the security of the online space?

If there is one organization that is usually held up as the poster child for how you should run an online company (or any compnay at all for that matter) it is Zappos. CEO Tony Hsieh gets interviewed it seems like on a daily basis to discuss the best practices that the online shoe and clothing selling machine uses to run its operation. Not the least of which is their laser beam focus on customer service as noted in their logo on the web site.