Personal Reputation Management – a shared responsibility

I had a new follower this morning – the account name was BrigitteHaney42. I immediately noted the number of followers was well over a thousand and the last tweet was clearly written by a greasy person looking to make money from some form of adult content site. I have since blocked this account and I have reported the account to lawenforcement@twitter.com after drilling into Twitter’s contact us section of their web site. What I find disturbing is Twitter does not appear to offer any form of Report Abuse button, right on someone’s profiles.

There is no doubt that the women in the profile is not Brigitte Haney. The account holder has simply hijacked this person’s identity for their own gain. Where is Twitter in all this? Do they have a shared responsibility to help manage people’s reputation? Can they honestly afford to stand by and let people’s reputation be tarnished?  I for one think they do have a duty of care to help preserve one’s online brand.

Here is what they should do:

1) Under the Actions section, they should have a link that says, Report Likely Fraud.

Why the strong language?  Fraud is defined as an act of deceiving or misrepresenting. In this case, I have no doubt that the women in the photo, has nothing to do with the account holder. If I am wrong, then Rome is burning…get me out of here.

2) Investigate the user that was reported. In this case, Twitter could create their own fake followers and start interacting with BrigitteHaney42. Within minutes, Twitter can find out exactly how truthful the account holder is being. As soon as BrigitteHaney42 starts sending links that link off to porn sites, they close the account and report the IP address to the authorities. Such a method would be faster than having the account holder fax in a copy of government ID with a picture…that can be photoshoped.

This particular Fraud is very disturbing. If someone posted the photo on an Interstate billboard, the advertiser would be severely fined or hopefully, put in jail.

Twitter and other sites with weak user provisioning cannot shirk their responsibilities and blame the world wild web so to speak. Being a good netizen means reporting abuse and fraud and taking action. In this case, Twitter could simply add the button and pay some interns to track, monitor and act on fraudulent, misrepresentation. The women in the photo deserves such a duty of care.

Personal branding requires careful attention to what photos you share with the world. That being said,  Twitter should take on greater responsibility. PLEASE RETWEET and vote with your mouse.

Follow me at @goandychurch…but please, only real people interested in personal branding!

What goes around comes around…a key rule of thumb

Before the advent of web, our parents would warn us, be careful what you say when talking about someone or something. The lesson was, your words can get twisted and reshaped…innocent remarks or commentary about how someone behaved or what was said, could get completed twisted around. That said, the impact of an intentional or unintentional swipe had limited impact on someone’s personal brand…

Today’s social media tools and outlets have given us immense communications and branding capabilities. They also carry risks. Here is a key lesson learned.

A public relations consultant by the name of James Andrew was on his way to a large client in Memphis.

Some simple rules to follow with respect to your online reputation

Louis Freeman, a veteran PR professional is getting an online spanking on Techcrunch. I do feel for bloggers that get bombarded with messages that are off-base, off-target or simply inappropriate. Combing through hundreds of these emails is a waste of productive time and can distract one from real news.

PR people are also increasingly under pressure to deliver coverage, and keep lowering their cost of deliver. The net impact? Stakeholder relationship management practices get sloppy or worse, PR people simply start carpet bombing email lists they pull from Cision without doing any research on a person’s current beat or interest.

In this case, it got very personal and the details of the emails back and forth simply got posted on Techcrunch – the email from Louis is not pretty. She made the mistake of lashing out at someone that gets 5% of daily Internet Traffic.

Regardless of who is write or wrong, there is a key lesson to be learned when it comes to email etiquette…especially, when you are frustrated or angry. Follow these simply rules:

- assume everything you ever write could be on the front page of a large newspaper or a website visited by millions of people;

- if you would be reluctant to say in person, what you have written in your email, chances are, the email is in pour taste and will likely haunt you downstream;

- if sending the email to your mother would make her say hummmm…then think again.

There is a reason Google developed Mail Googles for late night emails to former lover – it forces you to do math in your head, and take your mind out of the emotional zone…hoping it will distract you long enough to reconsider or delete the email altogether.