A Long Road Ahead

At some point in time we have found ourselves in an awkward situation having to come up with the best explanation to dig ourselves out of that hole. While explaining may be the easy part to some the universally hard part is whether or not those we are explaining ourselves to choose to believe us. How we are looked at amongst our peers holds major weight with us and to some people how they are viewed is the only thing in life they have that's precious to them, sad but true.

In business you always want to be the company that others admire, envy and desire to be. In order to stay atop that mountain you must have all aspects of your business in check. But as we all know nothing in life is perfect and few things are guaranteed. Eventually you will come across some unsatisfied customer and you will definitely have few rivals as friends that is just the nature of business competition. The customer can have a more damaging impact on your company than any rival could. Any infraction that occurs with a customer can hopefully be forgiven with proper press and time of course, but dealing with the internet keep in mind that it won't go away....ever!!! As a business your best bet is to take advantage of any Online Reputation Management available to you. Just letting things die down is not a sound strategy and in some cases has done much more harm than good. Some things are out of your control and if not acted on immediately can snowball into a bigger disaster than it started out as.

Reputation Management can not only help with just online searches but dealing with Social Media as well. Living in a global society you'd be surprised how much of an impact you can have on a country all the way across the world. If you choose not to properly deal with your issues at home when you go abroad they will be even bigger because of the image you have given your brand as one who doesn't care about it's customer. Dealing with any issue head on is always the best way to approach any customer related situation. After all customers talk and when the negative words get out about your company you will most certainly suffer the consequences. While the negative press won't go away automatically the effort you show in making sure you're providing the best service possible can only benefit you in the long run and after all the long run tells more than the short run.

Lost In Space

The power of Social Media can be used for good or evil depending on the situation. The good we are in constant connection with our friends and family updating them on every detail of our lives. As good as that is there is also a bad side to Social Media connection, more recently many people have gotten caught up in sexting or having personal messages end up in the hands of the wrong person and find them on some gossip site or underground website.

What these actions have exposed is the loose restrictions that Social Media operates under. Yes they do ban lewd or obscene content but not all is caught, and when that happens it leads to much controversy about how much of a role Social Media plays in our lives and are we in fact indulging in it too much. More often than not teenagers are the victims of this action. They become victims of their own immaturity and poor judgment when it comes to Social Media. Having thousands of friends on any Social Media network is a wonderful thing but the moment you find yourself caught up in any scandal or the wrong picture gets out believe that those thousands of friends will get the picture. The fact that a teen would take or even trust anyone with this kind of content is very troubling and shows a flaw in the relationship between them and their parents.

Parents should oversee any activity that their child participates in when it comes to Social Media. They cannot leave it up to Social Media moderators to protect their children from the creeps that scour the internet looking for easy targets to get caught up. Educating your child on the pitfalls of Social Media is imperative and in today's society has become a lesson plan in parenting. Proper education can be the difference between your child falling for some scam and them not falling for one. They have to know that what they do will follow them all over, the internet doesn't totally discard your dirty work and all it takes is a couple clicks to find any picture you thought was long forgotten about. Our reputations never leave us whether it’s in person or online and when something like sexting tarnishes that it takes years of hard work to repair our reputations because this type of damage can spread globally and impact you in ways you didn't think could. Preparation and education are two of the best ways to avoid these pitfalls.

Ready Or Not, Here Comes The Penguin

Whether we like it or not, all things have to change. From the weather to your favorite sports team, we just hope the change is for the better. When it comes to technology, change comes more often than any other part of life. Look at almost any OS and you will see an update right on schedule about every two months or so. Though it may seem tedious, it is needed in order to ensure the best quality product for the user. We may not want to automatically embrace the change, but we soon get used to it after some time spent using the product. We finally give in to the fact that what used to be in one place is now in another, or possibly gone, replaced by another useful product.

When it comes to reputation management, change is expected. After all, its purpose is to change how your brand or company is viewed when searched online. As a business owner, it would be in your best interest to take on the change and master it. It can only be a benefit to you. Systems that don't change can become easy targets for hackers who can master the algorithm of how it is designed and from there make life miserable for everyone. The updating of a system also benefits you in a structured way. You might be breaking a rule by having a direct or indirect relationship with a site or link that delivers spam. When the system is updated, you are alerted of this and immediate action is taken to ensure you are no longer in contact with those malicious links who may have been contributing to your negative online reputation.

The biggest part of completing a change from the ordinary is getting your team on board with it. When your team can adapt easily to a change, it make your life easier and the company keeps flowing without missing a beat. When your team resists change or isn't able to quickly adapt to every function, business slows down. You are now faced with the task of not only getting everyone on board, but as a company, trying to make up for lost time and lost profit. The best way to avoid this situation is to prepare your team ahead of time. Tell them about the change. Offer any tutorial classes or workshops that can explain everything that needs to be known about the system change. When you're proactive when it comes to major changes like this, it can only benefit you, your team and, most importantly, your company. From there, you can continue to provide top notch customer service.