Summary of the Brand Care Conference and Brand Care Debates

We are about to launch the Brand Care Debates, starting on September 19, every Thursday at 9:00 PM. Before that, we would like to do what they do in films: a recap of the first part of the movie.

1) What was the objective of the event?

The Conference was born out of a need identified by onbranding and the various partner companies and institutions across these four areas (reputation, security, legal, and communication). For years, there has been a recognized need to improve the protection and care of both personal and commercial brands in the areas of online reputation, security, and digital legislation.

There is an inseparable triangle between reputation, security, and legality, and we wanted to bring this concept—already a reality and a pending issue for many companies and communication and social media professionals—closer to the communications sector. To improve the protection and care of both personal and commercial brands.

We target the conference series at different communication, security, and legal professionals, executives, and individuals:

• Communication professionals: social media managers, community managers, content curators, graphic designers, multimedia designers
• Private investigation professionals
• Legal professionals: lawyers specializing in online law and cyber and telematic crimes, lawyers specializing in intellectual property…
• Security and IT professionals: security managers, programmers
• Self-employed professionals, business owners, and SMEs: company directors, country managers, businesses that provide open or closed Wi-Fi for large numbers of people: shopping centers, cinemas, HORECA, training centers, campsites

2) What were the main points addressed?

We covered three main topics; we always refer to the inseparable triangle between Reputation, Security, and Legality. Within each topic, we mainly discussed the following points.

Can reputation be managed? Theoretical concepts

We highlighted: “Reputation management does not exist,” by Kathy Matilla, PhD in Reputation from Ramon Llull University. Kathy began with the phrase, “Reputation does not exist because it is a mental concept; it is inside our heads and hearts,” and then went on to explain that people label others without (often) accurate or reliable information, causing negative impressions about what they talk about. She also noted that organizations hide certain things to avoid making a bad impression and thus avoid a bad reputation, but that to prevent this, what must be done is to change it rather than hide it.

Online reputation? Or online as a medium

Selva Orejón, executive director of onbranding and founder of Brand Care, “Planning and action in ORM (Online Reputation Management).” We discussed planning the communication strategy in order to convey what we truly want, and to whom. I explained the steps that should be taken (strategy planning by audience, proactive listening and analysis, establishing a strategy, studying the channels where communication is most active, and creating a crisis plan). Key point: different audience types must be treated differently, categorized into four types: “Apostles” (loyal to the brand), “Internet-Aholics” (active but not as loyal), “Sleepers” (passive), and “Judases” (traitors; their goal is to cause harm).

Monitor the brand and its key assets in the online environment.

Monitoring led by Javi Olmo (project manager at onbranding and CEO of Entiak) with “Proactive Listening and Monitoring Systems.” “Reputation is what people say about you when you are not in front of them.” There are different tools, both free and paid, that help us measure, analyze, and produce reports on how we are perceived on the Internet. Notable: free services such as “Google Alerts,” “Whostalkin,” “tops”…

Content demotion

Jorge González (Koke), founder of Andrenalina and Clinic SEO, explained how we can “push down” results that may harm us or are not in our interest. Generate and rank positive content about what matters to us in line with the ORM Plan. Link building: seeking links that mention us and build “popularity.” Properly “tag” the content we upload to the Internet if we want it to be indexable. There are services that help us move up in search engines, such as “oDesk.”

Penalizable SEO and SEM techniques for Web and Mobile (AppStore, AndroidMarket, FB Ads, Twitter Ads, and AdWords)

When competitors work to make you lose positions in search engines, by Miguel Pascual, founder of Clinic SEO. He explained that to compete against this, we must identify what the problem is, because until we do, we will not stop losing positions. This means that understanding search engine algorithms is fundamental. He also introduced some Google tools such as “Google Panda International” to avoid duplicate pages, or “Google Penguin” to penalize websites that include false information (false keywords). Finally, he noted that there are “link packs” that competitors can buy with the aim of worsening our reputation and ranking.

In addition, the following topics were covered:

DIGITAL LEGALITY

• Reputation and Legal: “Content, Insults, Slander: rights and complaints”
• Intellectual property
• Telematic crimes

IT SECURITY

• Security, online communication, and devices: device security, Wi-Fi, sharing information, geolocation
• Security on social networks
• Black Hat techniques to improve rankings, win contests

3) Any special points to highlight in the talks or in audience participation?

We are finishing the whitepaper on Reputation, Security, and Legality in order to summarize the key points from each presentation.

4) In your opinion, what is the state of online reputation in Spain today?

It is difficult for me to analyze the state of reputation in Spain because we are truly very divided: the more marketing-oriented, the more radically hardline communication purists “with whom I strongly identify,” and those who have joined in because “it is fashionable.”

People talk about ORM, Reputation Management… very lightly, but they do not carry out an in-depth analysis of something as important as reputation.

It surprises me greatly that there are companies that hire monitoring services thinking that, after seeing the report results and paying an SEO to optimize their results properly, they will already be taking care of their reputation—regrettable.

As a country, Spain is known for our lack of concern for our brand. Every year, the MERCO report (the corporate reputation business monitor) is published; they also analyze the reputation of countries and cities. Spain does not rank particularly well, but the most important thing is to understand what is being done, what is being communicated, and with what values the country is being positioned—not only outwardly, but also inwardly.

Understanding that reputation is very important, regardless of whether it is reflected online or offline. Online is a megaphone. But the same people who are on the Internet are also out in the street. Therefore, what matters is understanding what perceptions we generate among each of our audiences. For example, what does public opinion think? And our European neighbors? Our financial circle? Our young people?

Using political terms such as polling, conversations should be monitored not only online but also offline to understand what is failing, and to see how close or far we are from where we would like to be, and to work to change and narrow these gaps.

Another point is to work positively. I am currently working for a government organization in a non-European country; the objective is to manage and improve its reputation, and the first step is to monitor, set objectives by audience, define a strategy, propose actions, and, most basic of all: generate positive content. It is about identifying positive support points and levers. Identifying obstacles and detractors, and working hard to improve the image we create.

5) Why was it said that online reputation cannot be managed?

We find it an interesting reflection! I agree with it 100%. As Kathy noted, contrasting two concepts such as “reputation” and “identity” takes me back to their foundation—that is, their definition. In these cases, I always arrive at the same concept:

Corporate reputation = the prestige, authority, or credibility a brand has, and corporate identity = the set of elements and attributes that singularize and objectively identify the reality of an organization and differentiate it from other organizations. We could say that corporate identity is the message that is sent, and reputation is the message that is received in the mind of each audience. We can manage what is within our reach until it leaves our hands, and I suppose that is why Dr. Matilla specifies that “reputation cannot be managed.” Even so, I consider that everything we work on at the level of corporate identity is intended to modify our audience’s perceptions—namely, to change the concept of reputation they hold in their minds about us. For this reason, I do not consider the concept of “managing reputation” to be wrong, since it is the ultimate purpose of any organizational communication process.

6) Will there be another event—when, and what will it be like?

We are a conference series; the next one will be in Madrid, we believe in October (late in the month), and the third in Zaragoza.

We would like to remind you that every Thursday we hold a Brand Care Debate via Hangout; the next one will be on the 19th at 9:00 PM, and the topic will be: The limits of Cyber Investigation: how far a Private Detective and an Ethical Hacker can go, and what should remain in the hands of a Digital Forensics Expert.