Are your employees damaging your reputation via social media sites?

Businesses must get over the idea that social networking sites are just for young people and realise that employees using these sites may be damaging the company’s brand, says James Griffin, founder of online risk management group SR7, says  

“It all goes back to the stigma that these sites have just young people using them and what’s said on there won’t affect your brand and company. But some organisations might be very surprised at what risks they stand for online.”

Griffin also says that companies need to be aware that employees use these sites to say damaging things or ruin the reputation of the company.

He points to the recent incident of two Domino’s Pizza employees un-hygienically handling food and then posting a video of their behaviour on YouTube (a link to this story is below).

“A lot of companies or risk managers in companies believe these users are just young people, but the sites actually have employees and staff using them to talk to friends and get out there…they may say things they wouldn’t at work.”

This practice has led to the rise of a new type of online service known as “reputation management”. General manager of internet marketing group WebSalad, Eric Wang, said last week that companies such as SR7 will continue to emerge over the next few years.

“In the US it’s been around for longer than it has over here, but it’s gaining a lot of prevalence from the amounts of focus that’s being driven towards places like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. They’re gaining users and gaining popularity,” he says.

SR7 is just one of the new companies offering reputation management services, such as web-marketing firm Amplify and US-based company Reputation Hawk.

Griffin says that the company organises an audit of several popular social networking sites to gauge the reputation of a client and then recommends the next step, which may even include terminating an employee.

“When we bring on a client, we conduct an audit of platforms across the blogosphere, then we put that into a report and flag any risk issues they have from that, and if they wish we can continue with a monitoring program.”

Griffin says that the recent Domino’s Pizza incident would have been caught by SR7 before traditional media picked up on the story, saving the company embarrassment.

“If we had the Domino’s brand plugged into a video software tracker, we would have viewed the video, got in touch with the client and said ‘this is the issue, these are the actions you can take’. So what we do is really a warning system.

“If there was a journalist who finds something, and you don’t know it’s there, you’re in for a lot of trouble. This is why companies need to be aware of these things.”

Griffin says the business was founded eight months ago after he noticed a number of large companies were having reputation issues on large social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

But Griffin dismisses criticism that his company is engaging in “spying”, and says that companies deserve to have their reputations protected in the digital arena.

“We’re not spying but looking after the brand online and discussions that surround that company. So there’s a distinct difference between spying and risk management.

“I’d argue it’s all well and good to bring up the privacy issue, but when it’s factually incorrect or it’s a lie and damaging to a brand that doesn’t deserve to have bad press, then people have to take responsibility for their actions.”

Related stories:

• The dangers of YouTube
• How’s your reputation and credibility?