Manage Your Online Reputation. Tony Wilson

make this point at the very start of the book to emphasize the importance of social networking sites like Facebook, and online communications generally. I also tell this story because of the differing conclusions one could draw from my eldest niece posting my mom’s death on Facebook before the rest of the family knew about it.

      I’ve certainly heard the comment more than once, “How could your niece be so insensitive to post your mom’s death on Facebook before the rest of the family knew?” In terms of family dynamics, one could say posting my mom’s demise on Facebook may not have earned my niece many brownie points for good “online reputation management.”

      In fairness to her, I don’t think my niece was trying to be insensitive. My mom raised my two nieces from the time they were babies, so my mom (their grandmother) was the only mother they had ever really known. Losing her was like losing a “real” mother. My two nieces were in shock and grief, but rather than telephoning her friends (and one would have hoped, her uncle) to share the news and grieve one-on-one, my niece in Calgary did what many people younger than 30 might well have done in the same circumstances. She shared the news with her “online” family, as insensitive as that might appear to her “offline” family.

      This struck me as one of those eureka moments where a communication technology I wasn’t really familiar with, adopted fully by a particular group (in this case, people younger than 30), landed right in front of me with a big, loud thud. It was Death by Facebook.

      1. The Digital Tattoo: Why Maintaining Online Reputations Is Important

      The fact that everyone in the world can now be an author, photographer, videographer, and publisher (and I suppose, obituary writer), creates some interesting legal, business, and social issues.

      Some of these issues are for businesses, small and large. It’s the reason a good half of this book is targeted to business. The following are some questions people in business may want to consider:

      • What are people saying about my company, my business, my products, and my brand?

      • How can I monitor what people say about my company?

      • What should I do if people are saying uncomplimentary or even libelous or slanderous things online about me, my company, and my company’s products or services?

      • What do I do if someone puts an uncomplimentary video on YouTube about my company or its products?

      • What if someone creates a Facebook fan page dedicated to disparaging my brand? Can I sue? Should I sue?

      • Are there strategies to adopt to deal with my company’s online reputation?

      • What if some of the comments that are posted online are from my employees? Can I fire them?

      • What if the comments are from my customers?

      • If others mention my trademark, can I take legal action?

      • If others disclose copyrighted information, how can I stop it?

      • If everyone seems to be online these days, should my company have an online presence beyond a mere web page?

      • Should we have a Facebook fan page, a regular blog, or other online ways to promote the company, the brand, and the products?

      A good portion of this book will attempt to answer these questions, and at least half the book is geared for small-business people who need to understand they’re not in Kansas anymore. It is important to know what consumers, employees, and critics are saying about your business so that you can deal with it, either with better public relations or better products. You need to know that you could lose your reputation in the marketplace and all you’ve worked for in a nanosecond.

      This book isn’t just a “business book” for companies. Online reputation management also applies to individuals and their activities online. In many ways, online reputation management can be even more important to individuals, whose relationships with family, friends, and coworkers can be detrimentally affected by their online conduct. That conduct may have an affect on them in the job market where momentary lapses of online reason, really bad judgment, and, dare I say stupidity, can be seen by millions of people, especially current and future employers. Online communications, photographs, and videos, potentially read by millions of people, can damage personal reputations, especially the reputation of the person making the comments in the first place.

      This might not matter so much to people older than 30. This may be because “older” adults tend to share things with others in more private ways than the Internet, though there are always exceptions. As for those younger than 30, and particularly the 13- to 25-year-old age group that make up the mainstay of Facebook and other social media sites, it’s safe to say that there has never been a generation so willing to share its innermost feelings, not to mention outrageous opinions and inappropriate videos and photographs (again, there are always exceptions). The problem is that many of these people don’t seem to understand how the comments, photos, and videos posted online can be publicly accessible, profoundly inappropriate, defamatory to others, mind-numbingly stupid, career limiting, and, in some cases, criminal.

      From the 15-year-old high school student’s perspective, it might be a badge of honor to post photos of the weekend’s wayward drunken vodka bender on Facebook, knowing that, as his or her parents aren’t “friends” with the student, they won’t see what people said about the night in their status updates, or the posted and tagged photographs with all the bottles laying around the house. It might be cool to tell the world he or she belongs to groups that are sexually explicit, or that the person likes to swear like a truck driver on his or her “wall,” knowing only his or her “friends” will see it. Or it might be provocative to post (or allow to be posted) digital pictures that are sexually suggestive, or which might belong in Maxim magazine or in a Victoria’s Secret catalog.

      However, it’s disingenuous to think one’s parents, teachers, or the people close to them (or for that matter, one’s future employers), won’t one day see the inappropriate photos and comments if the teen or 20-something has 750 friends on Facebook. (How can anyone have 750 real friends?)

      The reality is that, despite amendments to Facebook’s worldwide privacy policies in 2009 and 2010 (thanks, in no small way to the actions of Canada’s Privacy Commissioner), it’s still possible to see and copy what many users have posted to Facebook. Maybe it’s because they haven’t figured out Facebook’s privacy policies. Despite activating some of those privacy settings, sometimes it’s still possible to access Facebook profiles through the “back door,” if someone has made comments or posts on public sites. (Who can figure it out? It changes every few months.) Maybe some people don’t care as much about privacy as older adults do. Maybe it’s like the old VCR machines that always flashed “12:00” because their owners didn’t know how to program them. Maybe Facebook’s privacy policy is so convoluted and so ever-changing, people give up on it or hope for the best.

      The truth is, if comments, photos, or videos are anywhere online, there’s a chance they can be (or already have been) accessed and saved by others. The more provocative the content, the more friends the user has as part of his or her network, and the more that person is tagged or makes comments on other sites with his or her Facebook account, the more likely the content will be accessible and recirculated to others, and, I should add, retained in the archives of search engines and data aggregators, or on someone else’s computer.

      What happens when the 16-year-old who’s made outrageous (and perhaps legally defamatory) comments online or has posted (or has allowed to be posted) sexually provocative photos of herself online, or photos of her drunk, is in the job market at 22, expecting to deal with clients of an employer, all of whom might be able to see what she posted (or allowed to be posted) five or six years earlier?

      I can only echo what I’ve been told most of the Deans of Canada’s law schools and business schools tell their new students each year. They are warned to watch what they say and do on social media and on their personal blogs or on