How to destroy your (brand) name online

Reading the HuffingtonPost one morning I came across a YouTube clip of WifeSwap, the famous American television program where two families swap their wife/mum with another family. As you would expect from a ‘reality’ TV show, the two families in question could not be more different… Typically you’re presented with your successful city slicker well-to-do yuppie and their counterpart down to earth country bumpkin. The experiment lasts two weeks. The first week the swapped wife/mum gets to know her new family and lives according to its rules and then in the second, she sets the rules. The idea is that both parties will grow from the experience. What invariably ensues are a series of personality/cultural clashes which make for great trash TV.

And so it was I came across a tubby kid rebelling against his new mom. It was a glorious moment of very bad television. New mom was objecting to the kid’s diet and was preventing him from indulging in one of his favourite morning foods; bacon! But I digress… Where this got interesting is that it led me to another WifeSwap clip and to the story of a man called Stephen Fowler.

Getting Owned by Social Media – the New Online Reality

Notice I didn’t add a link to the man’s name. I wouldn’t want to add to his considerable notoriety. I’ll leave you to Google his name and to take it from there – for our purposes we’ll label him Mr. X.

Discovering Social Media – How it Can Hijack Your (Brand) Name

So Mr. X and his well to do San Francisco family agreed to take part in the riveting social experiment known as WifeSwap. He’s a British bio-fuel entrepreneur and his wife is a personal self-help guru – both partners holding many degrees (although I don’t know how ‘accredited’ the wife’s degrees are…)

So here’s where it gets interesting: Country mum shows up for the swap and very quickly (oh surprise!) there’s friction. Mr. X resents her presence and begins to denigrate her character, personality, education, background… you name it! It’s classic WifeSwap goodness!

Managing Your Reputation – Remember It Starts Online

As he’s ripping into her, I’m thinking: “Is this guy for real?” In today’s world, I give this clip about 2 hours before it hits YouTube and goes viral. Beyond the millions watching this debacle on TV, millions upon millions will soon join them online. And sure enough… that’s exactly what happened.

Social Media – Once up it lasts a while!

This story is now ancient history. It happened a while back as media cycles go (2/12/09 but it still has plenty of legs on the Web.

Social Media Highlights

Mr. X thought he was being clever, but what he failed to grasp was the social media clusterf**** that ensued – and it got nasty!

• A website was setup featuring his name and the word ‘sucks’ in the URL (that ranks number one on Google when you search for his name.
• Blogs and Forums tore into him – most interlinking with the afore mentioned site
• A Facebook group was created to further discuss Mr. X’s shortcomings
• Yahoo News ran the story under ‘the world’s worst dad?’ heading with links a plenty to the ongoing media sensation
• YouTube clips re-aired the story over and over…
• His wife’s business website was ‘baconned’ (an image of a slice of bacon was superimposed on the home page and obstructed the user’s view. No doubt to upset Mr. X’s vegetarian wife…)
• Etc

Social Media Damage Control

Yes, things got pretty much out of hand for Mr. X. He had to resign from two charity boards, his business and the environmental causes he supports likely didn’t win many fans, he hired security to keep vandals away from his home… and his ‘good name’ was completely trashed online. It was a complete fiasco.

Unfortunately for Mr. X, the contract he had signed with the WifeSwap prevented him from addressing the media to give his side of the story. He did issue a comprehensive apology on his wife’s site, but the damage was done.

Social Media – The Moral of the Story

And that’s the point of this post. It’s very hard to undo a coordinated social media onslaught once it’s begun. You could try to engage your attackers and explain your position, but odds are you would just fuel the hate.

Solutions to Cyber Bullying

One aspect of this story touches upon the phenomenon of cyberbullying, whereby anonymous online bullies seek to sully the reputation of their chosen victim online. Whether you think Mr. X deserved it or not, the tactics employed to denigrate his behaviour and character are reminiscent of the tactics employed by high school cyber bullies across this fair nation.

So what are the alternatives when your good name is being dragged through the mud online?

• Most people likely give up. It’s easier to let time do its work than engage in process centred around damaging you personally. But indexed pages have a way of staying around and hurting you…
• Prosecuting offenders is problematic as online trails aren’t necessarily easy to follow. Any legal proceedings might also attract more attention which could guarantee your little problem could grow to capture the attention of a much larger audience.
• Posting positive stories about yourself or creating a blog would help, but then again these positive stories may inadvertently draw attention to your past problems and keep negative entries about you around well past their shelf life.

Keys to Managing Your Online Brand

In the end, there’s no easy way out of this mess and so it pays to have a prominent (and positive) social media presence online. After all, if you already have a strong presence on many social media portals such as your Google (Account profile), LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and Twitter, or if you have your own blog, you can mitigate attempts by many cyberbullies to damage your brand.

Can you think of other ways you might protect your brand online? Send your responses in. Best one wins a can of V!