Fernald Business Association

First, let me note that I’m not an attorney and so I can’t speak to the legal considerations inherent in the question. But I obviously work with attorneys enough to know I should issue that caveat. However, from a reputation management/PR perspective, here are some suggested guidelines that have proven effective. Organizations should:

1. Monitor what’s being said about them online AT LOCATIONS CONSIDERED CREDIBLE BY THEIR STAKEHOLDERS, internal AND external.

2. Don’t make assumptions about what sites/discussion lists/etc. are credible to your stakeholders. Ask them. You may be surprised.

3. Track any trends which appear to be developing — e.g., particular subjects, allegations and/or damaging facts which recur with increasing frequency, possibly across multiple locations. Those trends may tell you anything from “you’re doing something wrong that you have to fix” to “folks THINK you’re doing something wrong so you’d better say something in the appropriate venue or, by default, they’ll assume their perceptions are accurate.”

4. Seldom, very seldom, respond directly to rumors, allegations, complaints directly in the same public venue where they appear. This often encourages fiery and unpleasant retorts (commonly called “flames”), if not from the person to whom you’re responding then from other users that only cause further harm. Instead, IF the venue involved (e.g., an online discussion board/bulletin board service) allows you to send email directly to the message poster, do that — send a message along the following lines (this is an actual example from a collection of “form” response we created for one of our clients, with information deleted/modified to protect its identity):

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