Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Reputation Management for New Media Survey - How ready are you? (Paul Dunay)

One of my goals this year was to do a study on reputation management. As we all factor in the effects of new media on our brands, I felt this was a topic with long-lasting appeal to every marketer.

My hypothesis going into the creation of these questions was that B2B marketers (including yours truly) just aren’t adequately prepared for an online reputation crisis. Dell wasn’t, Wal-Mart wasn’t. If those big B2C brands weren’t ready, I was betting we weren’t ready either. And I was right!

To be totally transparent with you, I wasn’t surprised by many of the responses to my survey. The bulk of you are monitoring your reputation in some way, shape or form. But are you poised to respond in the case of an online reputation crisis? 55% admitted you weren’t.

Perhaps you need stronger guidelines in place, like a blogging policy. Two-thirds of respondents don’t have one!

Many of you are do-it-yourselfers when it comes to monitoring your reputation. Is that perhaps because your company hasn’t made this a strategic priority? 53% admitted it wasn’t a strategic priority for you – yet!

My goal here is to give you the state of the union when it comes to monitoring reputations online. This data is bound to change, so I hope I get you thinking of ways to close the gap with your organization’s reputation!

Click here to download the free research report

Special thanks to my sponsors – Trackur.com, run by the renowned Andy Beal of the blog MarketingPilgrim.com, and Marketing Profs’ equally renowned Ann Handley for their support on this survey.