As we continue to build out resources on ReputationManagement.com, people reach out from time to time looking for advice on their own reputation management issues. Unfortunately, well over half of the emails we now receive are from people who are listed on mug shot websites. These types of sites have been around for a couple of years but have really heated up as of late, with presently roughly 100 mug shot distribution sites on the web. To understand how they work, in roughly 15 states, mug shots are posted on their respective county police website each day or week. The mentioned ‘mug shot sites’ then build a script to scrape those fresh mug shots every day and post them on a new page on their sites, which tend to rank well in the engines. However, the exact purpose of these sites tend to elicit quite a bit of debate.

On one hand, if you commit a crime, you should have to pay the consequences. If a person in my neighborhood were arrested for abusing children, I would want to be able to readily find that information online. On the other hand, if you were arrested for driving under the influence nine years ago, should your mug shot be shown on 12 different sites which take up all of the page one results on Google?

One important thing to understand on the ethics of the sites is they do not show people convicted of a crime. Rather, they admit that they simply show mug shots. If I were 100% falsely accused of a crime and was exonerated, the photo would have still been a part of public records and would still be plastered all over the Internet.

Here in Cincinnati, a suit was filed in February in which a man who was guilty of a DUI two years ago found his mug shot on BustedMugShots.com. He was given the option to remove the photo for a simple payment of $119.95. However, after consulting with an attorney, he decided to pursue legal action against the site.

There have been plenty of other suits across the country that are presently going through the legal channels. The word you hear used most often is ‘extortion’. Many feel the mug shot sites are built strictly to get paid by people who just wish to bury their past, and will do so at any price. The legal process is painstakingly slow, so the industry continues to grow as the cases go through the courts.

The first mover in the space, Florida.Arrests.org, now hosts over four million unique mug shot images. The owner of the site, Rob Wiggen, doesn’t take issue with the role his site plays. He sees himself as an entrepreneur, getting free content online and then monetizing it using Google’s Adsense program to promote attorneys, bondsmen, and other services related to people being arrested. He states that the majority of his revenue comes from advertising and not through removal fees.

More often than not, people feel as if they have been backed into a corner and have to pay one of these sites just to remove the photo and be done with it. The issue is that some of these sites are actually networks of mug shot sites, and once they see you are willing to pay one time, the image can get distributed to other sites, which then soon rank high in the engines. This creates a cycle of continuing to make decisions on whether it makes sense to continue to pay these sites to clear your name.

The problem with this new business model is that there is no black and white answer. On one side, if you don’t want your face plastered on the Internet, don’t get arrested. If you are an employer and look up a potential hire to find out he/she was charged with domestic battery, it may make sense to look to the next candidate.

On the flip side, the practice looks an awful lot like extortion. The companies are putting up humiliating photos but then profiting when removing them with payment. You can’t with a straight face say they are trying to perform a service to the community when they are more than happy to remove the photo of a criminal if someone opens their wallet.

So what is the answer? Personally, I would have to agree with a great piece written in Search Engine Journal a couple of months ago. Our best chance, to if not eliminate, then shrink this industry, is with the assistance of Google. There is no question the mug shot sites rank well in Google. You are dealing with terms that have such a small search volume (a name) that there isn’t much competition at all, and these sites are robust and optimized, so of course the pages rank quite well.

That said, Google has always frowned upon duplicate content, and in many cases remove sites that simply scrape content from the original source. In this instance, if the mug shot and descriptions were already listed on the various public county sites, if Google elected to take action against the mug shot sites, they wouldn’t appear in the results. While that sounds easy, Google doesn’t want to get in the business of being a moral compass either. They are out there simply to rank sites. They can, however, decide which sites are able to advertise in their paid AdWords program, and have begun to take action to not allow sites in this industry to advertise.

After the SEJ piece was released, a representative from Google did share their thoughts:

“We share the author’s general concerns with the business model of these sites. We have AdWords and AdSense policies on user safety and sensitive content and regularly take action against sites that violate those policies, as the author notes.<

Google’s search results are a reflection of the content that’s available on the web. With very narrow exceptions, we take down as little as possible from search and have resources available for both users and webmasters to stay informed about content removal policies.“

Of course, people looking for employment or going out on a date aren’t happy that they can’t move on from their pasts, but there is an ancillary victim in the new industry as well. The actual practice of online reputation management is being dragged through the mud. Upon performing some research, at the very least, it appears that some ORM firms have close relationships with the mug shot sites, and at worst, they own some of these mug shot sites. To be clear, I am stating that “some” businesses are involved in this, but of course, and understandably, the media wants to paint the industry with a broad brush and thinks every reputation management company is involved in these types of practices. I’ve met plenty of people in this industry who would never engage in such practices and want to build the trust of their clients to not only maintain them as a client, but utilize that client for a referral source down the road because their company provided excellent work.

The web seems to evolve every day, and this practice isn’t great for that evolution. No matter your stance on whether these sites constitute free speech or if they are nothing but extortion, the practice is not only damaging people’s names on the web, but also damaging the Reputation Management industry as a whole.

The post Mug Shot Sites: The Growing Reputation Management Craze appeared first on Reputation Management.

Whoever runs the Facebook page for Amy’s Baking Company, located in Scottsdale, Arizona, is currently having an awe-inspiring, full-scale meltdown. Publicly. On Facebook. It’s kind of amazing.

Let me back up. Amy’s Baking Company received some notoriety for appearing on an episode of Kitchen Nightmares, the Gordon Ramsay reality show where the famous chef visits struggling restaurants and whips them into shape. The owner of the establishment, Amy Bouzaglo, has an ugly past when it comes to social media and online reviews. The Phoenix New Times reported before the Kitchen Nightmares taping that Bouzaglo responded to a negative one-star Yelp review by berating the customer who left it, calling her “ugly, a “loser,” and a “moron,” among other things. When a food website picked up the story, Bouzaglo argued with readers and posted even more angry comments.

Needless to say, the Kitchen Nightmares taping did not go well. Gordon Ramsay himself threw his hands up and waved the white flag of surrender, tired of having to deal with owners who have astronomical staff turnover and treat their customers like crap. Bouzaglo seems to hate interacting with human beings and is so vitriolic and unfriendly, you’ve got to scratch your head and wonder why the hell she’s even in the restaurant business.

After the episode aired, Amy’s Baking Company’s Yelp rating took a nosedive as viewers and customers left negative reviews for the establishment. Some folks turned to the establishment’s Facebook page to rant about how rude Bouzaglo is, and she responded by going batpoop crazy.

First of all, I have to point out Ms. Bouzaglo didn’t seem to have a clue how to use social media properly. She shared the aforementioned Phoenix New Times article about Amy’s Baking Company five times in nine minutes:

Thus, a social media unsavvy business owner who also seems to have a short temper and doesn’t take criticism well is not a good combination. Bouzaglo busted out the big guns when allegations that Amy’s Baking Company buys pre-made baked goods and passes them off as their own. And by “big guns,” I mean “capslocked shouting” (warning, language):

You get the idea. Now, you could argue that this is a great way to grow a business’s Facebook page since Bouzaglo’s comments have attracted over 30,000 fans and hundreds of likes and shares. But I personally would prefer to have a positive fan base vs. the “rubberneck at a car crash” type of popularity, and I’m sure most other small businesses would agree.

As of now, the above Facebook updates have been removed and a new update has been posted stating the following:

“Obviously our Facebook, YELP, Twitter and Website have been hacked. We are working with the local authorities as well as the FBI computer crimes unit to ensure this does not happen again. We did not post those horrible things. Thank You Amy &Samy”

I’m not entirely convinced given how poorly the business’s page was being managed prior to the meltdown — even if the page were hacked, previous status updates and shares indicate the couple doesn’t understand how to use Facebook properly. Yes, it’s important to secure your business name on as many social media sites as possible so you can exert more control over your brand and better influence your search results. However, if you don’t have a solid grasp of each particular platform, I think it’s best to just set up basic information and leave the page dormant until you can either educate yourself on how to use the site or you can bring someone in who knows what they’re doing.

The Bouzaglos, in addition to running their restaurant poorly and treating staff and customers disrespectfully, clearly don’t know how to use Facebook to positively aid their business. They used the platform when they were emotionally vulnerable and ended up airing their dirty laundry in public, which only caused more people to hop on the ridicule bandwagon and pull up a seat to watch the train wreck get worse.

If you’re thinking of setting up a Facebook page for your business, you absolutely need to adhere to the following guidelines:

• Know what you’re doing. Small businesses struggle with marketing since they’re often juggling multiple balls at once. They run the business, handle accounting and paperwork, manage marketing efforts, and have to set up and maintain various social media accounts. Many entrepreneurs don’t know how to do it all and have to learn as they go. Familiarize yourself with the major social media accounts and figure out where it makes sense to have a presence. Learn how each website is different and core features/functionality so you’re familiar with the platform.
• Put your emotions aside. Never update your pages when you’re angry, depressed, or emotional enough that your message will be negatively affected. You need to learn to either separate your personal feelings from your brand’s updates or wait and stay quiet until you’re comfortable enough to publish something. It’s inevitable for you to come across a negative review or a customer complaint on your social media pages. No matter how angry or frustrated you may be, you need to stay professional and level-headed when making public statements or you’ll come across as being erratic, emotional, and immature.
• Update only when it makes sense. When in doubt, stay quiet. Don’t feel as if you need to be constantly updating your profiles just for the sake of pushing out content. If you’ve got nothing to say, don’t say anything! Your fans would rather see important or interesting stuff from you sporadically than a barrage of random information that’s a mix of mundane and relevant.
• Don’t fall back on the “I got hacked” excuse. It’s a common knee-jerk reaction to lamely say your pages got hacked in hopes of sweeping the whole ugly mess under the rug. But people aren’t buying that excuse nowadays. Besides, saying you got hacked, whether false or real, tells people you have weak security measures, and that’s unprofessional, too. It’s an “out of the frying pan and into the fire” kind of scenario.
• Know when you’re wrong. The best businesses are the ones who aren’t afraid to apologize when they know they’ve made a mistake. Entrepreneurs need to be stubborn and tenacious, yes, but they should also acknowledge their weaknesses. People like brands that have human qualities to them because it makes them more relatable. If you goofed, say so. A certain degree of transparency builds trust between your business and its customers.

The Amy’s Baking Company Facebook meltdown has been entertaining and has created quite a media buzz, but let’s not get caught up in the humor and absurdity of the ordeal and forget that there are some very valuable reputation management lessons to be gleaned from it. Take this instance as a very cautionary tale of how not to handle criticism and that social media requires a certain level of savviness, education, and common sense.

The post Needless to Say, Hotheads Should Not Handle Social Media Accounts appeared first on Reputation Management.

A female sportscaster, Susannah Collins, who was employed by Comcast Sportsnet Chicago, was on after a Blackhawks game on April 30, and had the following comical slip up:

When I saw that online, I giggled, moved on, and basically forgot about it. Susannah’s employers didn’t treat it the same way, as she was fired within 48 hours of her on air mistake. After that little video clip traveled around the web, some other results appeared under Susannah Collins. One in particular was a web series that she took part of in back in 2009 called Sports Nutz. The satirical series did have some off-color jokes, but sure didn’t seem all that bad. In fact, Comcast Sportsnet was aware of the series when Collins was hired.

However, as average users began searching for her name online to see the funny ‘having tons of sex’ slip up shown above, they were also coming across the Sports Nutz videos. It was then brought to light that the owner of the Blackhawks, Rocky Wirtz, upon seeing the Sports Nutz clip, reached out to Comcast saying he wanted Collins off of their broadcasts immediately. Comcast CSN relented and let her go. Susannah has been a fan favorite on the telecasts, not just because of her good looks, but the way she handles celebrities with ease, such as Jim Belushi and Mr. T.

Susannah has completely taken the high road since the termination, releasing the following statement:

As most of you know by now, I had a slip-up last week on the air while covering the Blackhawks playoff series. As a result of the attention it received, an old web-based sports comedy series I participated in several years ago came to light. The intention of that show was to present a satirical, tongue-in-cheek approach to sports but, unfortunately, some of the material it contained was off-color and offensive. I understand why some may have been offended by it and for this I am truly sorry. To be clear, that show in no way reflects my personal opinions.

It has always been my dream to cover my hometown teams on the network I loved watching. I have worked tirelessly to develop my skills as a sports reporter, anchor and host, and I want to thank the city of Chicago for allowing me that opportunity. The outpouring of support I have received is overwhelming and it will remain in my heart, as will Chicago.  Always.

–Susannah

A semi-racy online comedy series pales in comparison to what happened with the owner of the Chicago Rush, the local arena football team. Arena football was a growing business in the 1990s and scaled to 17 teams by 2007. However, when the economy tanked in 2008, the league went into a tailspin and eventually folded. The idea, however, was to gradually attempt to bring the league back to its heyday.

This February, the Rush was purchased by a 34-year old Chicagoan named David Staral for an undisclosed amount. He informed the fans that he grew up a huge Chicago Bears fan, had some connections with the Bears, and was looking for a minority owner to take the team to the next level. The fans had some high hopes after a few introductory press conferences announced big plans.

Those hopes were dashed when the Chicago Sun Times put out an extensive piece on May 6. It turns out Mr. Staral filed for bankruptcy protection just a month before purchasing the Rush. He is also a three -time convicted felon who is still on probation, and he bounced two $50,000 checks to the AllState Arena, which were intended to secure home games for the Rush. When the news broke, Staral was quickly forced out as the Rush owner and the team is now being once again managed by the league.

While these two pieces differ greatly, they illustrate the power of the web. In the case of Susannah Collins, something she had fun with four years ago is forever online and ultimately caused her to lose her job. I find it rather hypocritical that Comcast SportsNet knew everything about Collin’s former positions but decided to cut ties with her only when that past was brought up to the public. I’m not the only one who shares that opinion, either. Since it was Rocky Wirtz, the owner of the Blackhawks, who demanded Collins get kicked off the Blackhawks telecasts, more than a few people have asked that Club Ambassador Bobby Hull be fired for his colored past of domestic violence, which no one in their right mind would think is worse than what Collins was involved in.

For the Arena Football League, a huge embarrassment could have been avoided with a simple Google search of David Staral. I have a feeling the league was more than happy to take on anyone who said they could scratch a check, but the ordeal ended up costing them a pretty severe tarnishing of their reputation because they couldn’t even perform a five second search.

At the end of the day, these examples are another indication as to how much the web affects our daily life. Unfortunately, something done for comedy years ago could cost you your reputation as well as your employment. On the flip side, from a hiring perspective, not doing some simple research when the tools are right at your fingertips could result in some humiliation or worse.

The post Chicago’s Been Busy with Reputation Management Issues appeared first on Reputation Management.

Monday’s big news of 34-year old professional basketball player Jason Collins announcing he was gay created an interesting bet. Who would be the first pro athlete to write something homophobic on Twitter after the news broke? Well, it didn’t take long to find a winner!  Within about an hour, Mike Wallace, the newly acquired wide receiver for the Miami Dolphins who just signed a $60M contract, was the first to lend his insight into the rather historic announcement:

Frankly, I don’t the tweet as being “that bad,” but of course the media wants to find something to play up the story and decipher exactly how an openly gay athlete will be treated by his peers. Soon, the Wallace tweet was all over the major news sites as a perfect vehicle to say that “not all athletes are ready for a gay teammate.”  Of course, what happened next was standard practice: the tweet was deleted, Wallace was forced to issue an apology, and the Miami Dolphins then had to issue a statement condemning the opinions of Mike Wallace:

“Mike Wallace has apologized for his comments, and we have addressed the matter with him. Mike’s comments do not reflect the views of the Miami Dolphins. We believe in a culture of inclusiveness and respect, and any statements to the contrary are in no way acceptable to our organization.”

Now because of Wallace attempting to either make a joke, kiss up to women, or just be ignorant, he will be labeled as a homophobe and will have to answer endless questions from reporters about the statement. Was it really worth it?

Obviously Twitter has created a medium in which famous people can interact directly with their fans. As of today, Lady Gaga has nearly 37 million followers, and the platform could be used for her stance on anti-bullying, to promote a concert, etc.  So there are positives out there for a person with fame to communicate with their followers.

However, for a professional athlete, I frankly don’t see the appeal. Whereas Lady Gaga may be communicating in an effort to either shill tickets or CDs, what is there to gain for a pro athlete? They have a contract in which they get paid a salary by the said organization who employs them, regardless of how many tickets are sold for this weekend’s game. Also, along those same lines, they are not an independent contractor per se, like a musician; rather, they have to answer to a boss. Which is exactly what we saw with Wallace being chastised by Dolphins brass for his big mouth.

I’m not condemning our first amendment right of freedom of speech by any means, but you have to weigh the positives and negatives of your actions. While folks like Tiger Woods or LeBron James make far more money through endorsements than what they earn on their respective playing field, they are the exception and not the rule. There’s probably less than 5% of athletes in the three major sports that have a six figure income from endorsements, while the average salary for an NFL player is $1.9M, Major League Baseball $3.4M, and the NBA checks in at $5.1M. Although baseball and basketball contracts are guaranteed, the NFL reserves the right to release a player for any reason whatsoever. Is putting yourself on a platform like Twitter that requires offers no buffer the best choice when it could  jeopardize your current contract or your ability to sign another contract?

There are plenty of athletes out there who use their notoriety and their Twitter followers to generate interest in charitable endeavors. As an example, Boston Celtic Paul Pierce uses social media  to pass along information about the charities that he is involved in, but more times than not, it is someone like Alameda Ta’amu, who is a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Ta’amu was caught driving drunk and attempting to flee police in October, and was let off the hook with only 18 months probation. During the first week of April, he decided it would be a good idea to tweet out the below photo, which shows him driving around while his buddy is posing with a bottle of alcohol.

Like clockwork, the tweet was then deleted and Ta’amu explained it was an old photo that was sent out by accident.

I know this may seem over the top, but if I were an agent of a professional athlete, I would require that all tweets sent out are reviewed by myself or someone at my office. There is simply too much of a risk to the downside in our politically sensitive society to put yourself in a situation where you could lose your livelihood. The same standards should hold true for the other 99.9% of us out there who are not a professional athlete. While we don’t have the luxury of an agent reviewing each of our tweets, each item put out there on the web for the world to see should be looked at twice before hitting that ‘post’ button.  What you may think is funny at the time could backfire and ruin your reputation for good.

The post What Do Professional Athletes Even Gain From Twitter? appeared first on Reputation Management.

The job market is changing year by year. Some changes are good, some are bad, but the landscape is much different now than it was a couple of generations ago. As World War II came to a close in 1945, many men came back from war, applied for a job, and punched the clock at that same company every day until they were ready to retire.

Over 80% of American males were employed in 1950 while only 65% are employed today. The average tenure at a single place of employment is less than 25% of what it was in those days and is getting shorter every year. In many ways this can be used as an advantage for people in the workforce today, but it forces you to always be one step ahead and be prepared if and when an opportunity presents itself.  To understand this further, in a survey done by Future Workforce, a Millennial (someone born between 1977 and 1997) is now expected to have between 15-20 jobs in their lifetime — a far cry from receiving that gold watch after 50 years of service.

The shift of our country has gone away from a base of manufacturing jobs and skilled labor to more professional and service roles. A mason had good reason to stay at a job for years and years if he was happy in his role and could dedicate his life to his craft, but today’s “project manager” is developing skills that can be used across many fields. Opportunities can be available if you know where to look, so it’s imperative to always be ready.

The single best way to prepare yourself for a potential job move to be active on LinkedIn. The social site allows you to network with people in your field, as well as host an updated resume. As we have covered before, 85% of recruiters look favorably on a positive online presence for a candidate. No matter how loyal of a person you feel you may be, it’s in your best interest to look out for yourself first.

Let’s face it, the number one goal of any public company is to increase shareholder wealth. If that requires cutting staff, so be it. Therefore, it makes sense to look at yourself as more of an independent contractor in your life’s employment journey. Being attached to a company or position for too long of a duration could result in reducing your earning potential, and more importantly your happiness. That said, it doesn’t mean you should be jumping from job to job every six months as employers most certainly do not look favorably at this tactic.

In our Reputation Management for College Grads guide, we outlined some tips on how to portray yourself in the best light possible on LinkedIn. These steps apply to any business professional, whether you’ve just graduated from college or have been in the job market for several years. By no means does this list only apply to people who are looking for a new job — it’s also a great method to ensure you’re equipped if a position arises that you simply can’t pass up, and it can also be looked at as an “in case of emergency” plan. If an event takes place and you feel as if you have to leave your current place of employment, it’s always better to be proactive than reactive.

Check out our recommendations on how to take advantage of your LinkedIn profile. These tips aren’t going to take days and days to set up and monitor; rather, they’re simple steps you can take on LinkedIn to ensure you’re well equipped if and when an opportunity does present itself.

The post This Isn’t Your Grandfather’s Job Market appeared first on Reputation Management.

The site has since returned to normal, but this little hiccup did not go unnoticed across the web. Not only did the “hacked” website get submitted to reddit’s /r/funny section, it got covered in AdWeek as well. And Fitness SF had to do some serious damage control after a mix of amusing and critical comments and reviews got posted on their Facebook page and their Yelp listing. They denied they were stiffing the web designer but ultimately settled with him. Meanwhile, the designer gave details of the “takeover” to Social Times — it’s a handy timeline of events if you’re curious.

To be clear, the website designer hired by Fitness SF did not “hack” into the website. He accessed it using the login credentials he was given for the project. Where Fitness SF stumbled was in trusting a contractor to have full reign of their website and then not paying him or providing him with necessary materials to perform the tasks he was hired to tackle. This is a risk for any business, but especially for small businesses who can’t afford to staff a full-time web designer or developer.

Small business owners can’t afford to have their web presence negatively compromised or held hostage. They’re likely a tiny operation with few resources at their disposal. They’re operating not only as the owners of their business, but the accountant, the customer service representative, the marketer, and the websmaster. And a lot of small business owners don’t know a ton about how to successfully maintain a website, which is why they entrust a third party to help them build or design something for them.

If you’re a small business owner, or even a larger, successful business, and you want to hire a contractor to perform services for your website, you need to take extreme caution to ensure you’re protecting your company in case things go south:

• Get a referral from a trusted colleague or try to make sure the person you’re hiring has a trusted, positive track record with clients.
• Don’t bring anyone on without drafting up a contract first.
• Clearly outline expectations, deadlines, and contingencies in your contract.
• Clearly outline the pay structure — don’t pay everything up front! Offer a small but fair amount to start and then divide the rest into chunks as different deliverables get accomplished.
• Don’t provide access to your website’s back end until a wireframe or mockup has been delivered and approved.
• If you have an internal dev team to incorporate your contractor’s design, deploy in-house. Otherwise, make sure you’re all paid up, your contracted web designer/developer knows what he’s doing, and have the new site built on a test server so you can try and work out any major kinks or bugs before it goes live.
• Try to deploy at a quiet business time so you can deal with any emergencies that arise with a new site launch.
• Make sure each step and each payment stage has been completed to both parties’ satisfaction before moving along or before handing over any logins.

I’m not saying you can’t trust contractors with your website, but you need to protect your assets as much as possible so you don’t run into the situation Fitness SF encountered. Don’t give someone the keys to your kingdom and then be surprised when the gates are promptly slammed shut in your face.

The post Just a Friendly Reminder: Don’t Screw Over Your Website Designer appeared first on Reputation Management.

I’ve been playing golf from an early age, and last weekend I experienced a lifelong dream of attending The Masters tournament in Augusta, Georgia. I couldn’t have been more excited to make the pilgrimage to what many people feel is the holy grail of golf. I drove from Cincinnati to Atlanta on Friday, and was sitting in a bar waiting for three friends to arrive from their flight when Tiger reached the 15th hole at Augusta National. His third shot looked to be less than 100 yards away. What happened next changed the course of the weekend, and many think it changed Tiger’s career forever. The shot in question looked great off the club. However, it hit the flag stick and spun back hard back into the water.

I may have scared the other people in the bar when I screamed in horror when this took place. By rule, Tiger would have to take a penalty stroke and play his next shot for his fifth stroke. Tiger then had three options as to how to play that fifth shot:

1. Utilize the drop area in front of the water hazard
2. Take a straight line from where the ball entered the hazard and the flag that is at least as far as the shot he attempted
3. Play from the exact location of the shot attempted which entered the hazard

What Tiger did was more of a combination of the second and third option, as he dropped about two yards further back from the spot of the shot that went in the water, which just about nobody knew at the time. He hit a great shot for his fifth and tapped in for a bogey six.

Fast forward to Saturday. We woke up at 6:00 am and make the two hour drive from Atlanta to Augusta. Just before we arrived at the course, I got a text from one of my friends back home that said, “is Tiger disqualified?” I brushed it off as someone’s sick humor trying to mess with me on my first trip to the Masters. I have plenty of applications on my phone that would have messaged me if Tiger Woods weren’t playing on the weekend at Augusta.

Augusta National has a strict rule that you cannot bring any form of a phone or camera onto the grounds, so we left everything in the car. As we were walking and gazing at the immaculate grounds, I heard someone in front of me say something that had both the words “Tiger” and “disqualified” in it. Now it was beginning to turn into a legitimate rumor. I think I instinctively grabbed for my phone approximately 89 times. I honestly can’t recall a time like this in the past, where I didn’t have immediate access to either turn on a television, make a phone call, or get on Twitter. It was completely bizarre as to how technology has changed the way we live our lives.

I found a marshall on the course and asked him what was going on. He told me he heard a rumor that Tiger was going to be disqualified, but it wasn’t confirmed and he really didn’t know what was going on. By this time, I was going crazy. I’m one of the few lucky people in the world to be attending the Masters, and everyone at home watching or with SportsCenter has more knowledge than I do.

What ended up happening was in a post-round press conference, Tiger said to reporters that he backed up two yards from the previous spot and hit again. When this was said, it opened up a can of worms with the media and they got in touch with the Powers That Be at Augusta, and on Saturday morning they assessed a two stroke penalty to Woods. Therefore, Tiger signed an incorrect scorecard stating he shot at 71, whereas with the two penalty strokes, he shot a 73.

In 2011 that would have been reason alone for an immediate disqualification. However, a new rule introduced a couple of years ago (Rule 33-7) states the following:

“a penalty of disqualification may in exceptional individual cases be waived, modified or imposed if the Committee considers such action warranted.”

Now, either you like golf or you just went to sleep, so let me explain why this minutia matters. Golf is known as the ultimate “Gentleman’s Game.” You are expected to call any penalty on yourself; there are no referees blowing whistles as in most other sports. There have been numerous stories of great integrity of people losing a tournament because they committed a rules infraction that nobody even saw. In 1968, a man named Roberto De Vicenzo signed his scorecard at the Masters that stated he shot a 66 when he actually shot a lower score (65), and he was disqualified. It is almost a badge of courage to do so, and those types of stories are many times remembered more than the actual winner of the respective tournament.

Therefore, many, many people on Saturday in the media decided that Tiger, since he realized he broke the rules and gained an advantage from his competitors, should disqualify himself and withdraw from the tournament. More than a few of his peers felt this way as well:

From Tiger’s perspective, the tournament officials did not disqualify him from the tournament. The new rule states he shouldn’t be disqualified, so why should he withdraw? The fact of the matter is the one shot turned into a four shot penalty, since he would have made the next putt, had the penalty stroke for being in the water, and then two more strokes for the mistake. That left Tiger to finish at 5 under par on when he finished the tournament on Sunday, while the leaders finished at 9 under par. Had this not happened, Tiger would have been in a playoff with a chance to win the Masters.

As for the legacy of Tiger Woods, he is the most polarizing athlete in the history of the sport. Whether it was his meteoric rise in the late 90s or his horrific fall from grace in 2008 due to a myriad of infidelities, this episode will not be assisting in him getting back in the good graces of fans or his fellow competitors. It will be very interesting to see how Tiger handles this situation in the upcoming weeks as the media scrutiny heats up. Tiger himself is a brand — almost all of his endorsement earnings were taken away after his discretions in 2008 — and he has been slowly building his reputation back up, both on the course and off. While opinions are mixed as to whether Woods should have packed up his clubs and left Augusta on Saturday without competing on the weekend, unfortunately, the way it played out is not going to help on his path of rehabilitation.

Outside of Tiger, there are a few things that are certain for me. Being without a smart phone for 12 hours is something I wasn’t used to, and Augusta National Golf Club is one of the most picturesque places on earth.

The post The Masters, Tiger, Social Media, and Damage Control appeared first on Reputation Management.

You’re a copywriter, and your eyes are glazing at the thought of writing yet another mundane description of a pair of gloves or a basic solid-colored t-shirt or a simple dress. You’re tired of describing the garment’s color as “grey” and are racking your brain to try and come up with a different shade to use. Slate? Stone? Stormy? Hmm, what about animals? Animals can be grey, and who doesn’t like animals? How about dolphin grey…wait, that’s a bit played out. Dolphins are too mainstream. Dolphins have been done to death. What’s similar to a dolphin in color but less popular? Your ‘Eureka’ moment strikes. A manatee! The cows of the sea! Fantastic, ‘manatee grey’ it is. But you don’t want to use that color for every product description — just sneak it into a few write ups for diversity’s sake. Okay, aaaaaaand done. You’ve sent the copy off to the dev team and begin working on coming up with 15 different ways to describe something red…

…until a less-than-pleased customer unhappily notices that your description of a “manatee grey” garment was paired not-so-appropriately with a plus-sized basic dress. And that its non-plus-sized counterpart isn’t also “manatee grey,” it’s just “dark heather gray.” And this less-than-pleased customer takes a screenshot of the two items and tweets it out to the masses. Now your efforts to spruce up some mundane copy are being noticed, but not for the reasons you hoped.

It’s a funny, Seinfeld-esque scenario, but this actually happened to Target recently. Check out the tweet:

What the. Plus sized women get “Manatee Grey” while standard sizes are “Dark Heather Grey.” @target #notbuyingit twitter.com/suZen/status/3…

— Susan Clemens (@suZen) April 3, 2013

And the product comparison:

Target was quick to apologize, saying they didn’t mean to offend any shoppers with the color description. It may very well have been an accident — the retail chain sells various products in “manatee grey,” not just plus-sized garments. Or it may have been the result of an immature web employee taking a crack at Target’s larger-sized clientele.

Let’s give Target the benefit of the doubt and assume it was an accident. Maybe the copywriter was just trying to spruce up a drab, boring product color. I remember watching an episode of Inside Edition where a cafeteria discovered it sold more soup when it renamed each batch to sound homier (e.g., “beef stew” was re-written to “Grandma’s Hearty Beef Stew,” and “chicken soup” became “Homestyle Chunky Chicken Soup”). Copy matters, and the more interestingly you can describe something, the better chance it has to attract someone’s attention.

Is it silly to get offended over a plus-sized dress that’s “manatee grey”? I think so, yes. But I’m not the type of person who buys plus-sized clothing, so I can’t relate to how that kind of customer would respond or react upon seeing a garment designed for them named after a chubby aquatic mammal. Maybe some women would laugh it off, but others might think they’re being made fun of, and we all know a person’s weight is a sensitive subject.

When you’re writing website or product copy, you’re tasked with trying to be witty or creative or inspiring or interesting in a way that’s engaging and makes you stand out amongst the competition. But you must also be mindful of how your copy is interpreted and whether it could possibly be misinterpreted. Are you overlooking a segment of users who may take offense to something on your website? Maybe your 404 page is cleverly designed and says “Oh noes, this page has gone retarded!”, but you didn’t think about users who are sensitive to the word “retarded” and would be offended if they saw you using the term so carelessly. Maybe you dropped a few swear words on your site before realizing your user base is more conservative than you thought. And maybe you described a dress as being “manatee grey” without thinking about how your plus-sized customers would react.

Before you sign off on that creative copy, try to run through a quick quality control checklist. You don’t have to scrutinize every single word, but train your staff to look for typos, sentence structure, readability, all the usual low-hanging fruit, and also try to approach the copy from an objective point of view. How will your different customers interpret this? Will they laugh? Will some find it offensive? Will they be confused?

I’m not saying Target’s “manatee grey” snafu could have been avoided had someone checked every single product copy. With as many products as they carry, they might just use code to randomly replace certain products’ “dark heather grey” color description with “manatee grey” for diversity’s sake. But as silly as this case study is, it is a good reminder to your company’s content creators to really think about the impact your content can have on your users. Because in the end, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

The post You Might Want to Re-Think That Clever Copy appeared first on Reputation Management.

http://news.yahoo.com/colleges-help-students-scrub-online-footprints-184052483.html – Associated Press article detailing the importance of online reputation management for college students

http://www.impacthiringsolutions.com/careerblog/2010/03/22/how-recruiters-search-using-linkedin-what-we-look-for/  - How Recruiters Use LinkedIn

http://www.right.com/news-and-events/press-releases/2012-press-releases/item24318.aspx – Survey regarding how many people are looking for work in 2013

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jennagoudreau/2012/12/13/how-to-get-a-new-job-in-2013/ – How to Land a Job in 2013

http://socialmediatoday.com/bradfriedman/1185486/5-must-haves-social-media-management – Five Must-Haves for Social Media Management

http://www.seoresearcher.com/distribution-of-clicks-on-googles-serps-and-eye-tracking-analysis.htm – SEO heat map showing the percentage of clicks to each listing on page one of Google

http://www.eurocompr.com/prfitem.asp?id=14921 – Article about how one in five companies are passing on a candidate from what they see on social media

http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/outside-voices-careers/2012/06/11/5-tricks-to-keep-facebook-from-hurting-your-job-search – Protecting Yourself in Social Media

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/224502# – Projecting a Professional Image on LinkedIn

http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/linkedin-mistakes-top-5-ways-to-kill-your-credibility.html – Killing your credibility on LinkedIn

http://www.inc.com/marla-tabaka/how-to-make-great-connections-on-linkedin.html – How to make great connections on LinkedIn

http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2012/02/08/everything-you-need-to-know-about-linkedin-recommendations/ – Everything you need to know about LinkedIn recommendations

http://theundercoverrecruiter.com/top-10-linkedin-groups-job-seekers-must-join/ – Ten LinkedIn Groups Job Seekers should join

http://www.careerbuilder.com/Article/CB-2452-Job-Search-Strategies-How-to-connect-with-an-employer-via-LinkedIn/ – How to connect with an employer via LinkedIn

http://www.jobsite.com/blog/6-mistakes-jobseekers-make-on-linkedin/ – Six Mistakes Job Seekers Make on LinkedIn

http://www.therecruiterslounge.com/2012/02/17/headhunters-lament-why-dont-job-seekers-use-linkedin-correctly/ – Why Don’t Job Seekers Use LinkedIn Correctly?

http://www.hingemarketing.com/blog/story/industry_specific_social_networking_for_professional_services_firms – Finding the Right Industry Specific Group

http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/3-steps-to-becoming-a-thought-leader-31673/ – Three steps to becoming a thought leader

http://recruiting.jobvite.com/resources/social-recruiting-reports-and-trends/ – Social recruiting trends in 2012

The post References appeared first on Reputation Management.

As you go through each of the steps laid out in this document, you aren’t done just yet. The results you see on Google are quite fluid. You should continue to monitor the search results for your name not only during the job search, but afterwards as well. People work very hard to protect their name, and the last thing you would want is for something to show up in the search engines that you were not even aware of.

“Search engines are a fluid environment and will forever be “in flux.” This is the nature of a sites participation in a search engine.” – Fernando Cuis – President, Cuis Interactive

Summary

While the steps detailed here may take a significant amount of time to accomplish, they shouldn’t just be looked at as a means to be seen by a recruiter or potential employer. You are developing important skills for the rest of your career, such as organizational skills by developing your social media profiles, writing skills by creating a topical blog or website, and improving your knowledge in your field of interest. Most importantly, you are developing the valuable trait of networking with people. Remember: the journey does not end with finding your first job. Instead, it’s just a series of steps you will take throughout your entire career.

The post Success and Monitor appeared first on Reputation Management.