Reputation Strategy and Analytics in a Hyper-Connected World

Chris Foster

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781119212713
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Communication
• Index: Business

Reputation management techniques that work amidst the unceasing flow of information

Reputation Strategy and Analytics in a Hyper-Connected World is a complete guide to corporate communications and reputation management. Covering a range of scenarios from ideal to catastrophic, this book provides a clear blueprint for preparation, execution, and beyond. The discussion focuses on data-driven, evidence-based strategies for the modern digital economy, providing actionable frameworks, practical roadmaps, and step-by-step blueprints for deploying advance analytics, predictive modeling, and big data techniques to successfully manage communications and reputation. You'll learn how the right tools and people get the job done quickly, effectively, and cost-effectively, and how to identify and acquire the ones you need. Coverage includes the latest technology and cutting-edge applications, bringing you up to speed on what excellence in communications can realistically be.

We live in an age of interconnectedness and transparency, and information travels at the speed of light to reach nearly every corner of the globe. This book shows you the key strategies and operational tactics required to respond successfully to financially damaging assaults on your company's reputation.

• Execute world-class corporate communications
• Prepare for best- and worst-possible case scenarios
• Manage organizational reputation in the digital economy
• Pick the right team and the right tools to get the job done

Stories, rumors, lies — there is no safe haven. Big data, cloud, and mobile technologies are fueling a perfect storm of immense proportions, overwhelming the capabilities of organizations and individuals attempting to manage their brands and reputations when hit with damaging information or harmful stories. Reputation Strategy and Analytics in a Hyper-Connected World shows you navigate the never-ending information stream to keep your company out of the undertow.

Chapter One
Welcome to the Networked Ecosystem

Executive Summary: In a digital networked ecosystem with no clear time or physical boundaries, traditional strategies and tactics deployed by communication professionals will not work, and might even be harmful. Newer and more agile methods based on careful data analysis and scientific reasoning are required.

These days, it seems as though every executive feels obligated to talk about the critical need for collecting data, managing data, analyzing data, storing data, and harvesting insights from data. All of those activities are important, but what’s even more important is creating a corporate culture in which data is respected, valued, and understood. From my perspective, the primary barrier to extracting value from data is culture, not technology.

The processes of data science are inherently collaborative and cross-disciplinary, which essentially means you cannot do data science in a vacuum. It cannot be relegated to the basement or to a back room. It’s a team sport. There are plenty of moving parts that require careful orchestration and dedicated leadership.

Too often I see data siloed in specialized groups or I hear people talking about using data to generate insights. Your organization can have all the insights in the world, but they will not help unless you have a culture that knows how to transform those insights into ideas and effective decisions.

In the twenty-first-century economy, data is the fuel we use to make better decisions. It’s the raw material from which we manufacture success. We have to use that data and then take action.

Changing the Culture

Saying that an organization is “data driven” doesn’t mean it’s being run by computers. It means that key decisions are informed and influenced by evidence, which is derived from data. Not every decision needs to be made by human beings—an increasing number of decisions can be delegated to software applications and other forms of automation. For example, you don’t need a human to decide whether to turn on the air conditioning in the summer. That kind of decision can and should be automated.

For the most part, we’re fine with delegating straightforward decisions to machines. But now there’s a widening area in which we’re not so sure how much decision-making power we really want to share with our software applications. For example, farmers used to decide when to water their crops. Now, exquisitely complex systems of machinery, software, mobile devices, and sensors—including cameras mounted on airborne drones and orbiting satellites—decide when it’s necessary to turn on the spigot.

The real question facing us is whether we want to use our increasingly sophisticated decision-making technology not just to grow better grapes and keep our shopping malls cool in the summer, but to improve the performance of our companies and organizations.

The question that executives should be asking is not about technology. For the most part, the technology you need to make better decisions is already available. The question executives need to ask is this: How do we transform our organizations into data-driven cultures?

The Digital Revolution Has Rewritten the Rules

It’s not exactly fresh news that digital information technologies have changed everything, but it’s worth repeating: Digital information technologies have changed everything.

On many levels, we all understand that we’re living through a revolution, but the reality has not fully set in. In the communications industry, for example, most of us pay lip service to “new media,” but few of us are genuinely comfortable operating within the digital environment, which now surrounds and envelops us so completely.

Some of my best friends still pine for “the good old days” when most of our business was done at lunches or over the phone. I also experience a twinge of nostalgia and fondness for the past. It’s only natural. In the past, everything was easier, simpler, and slower. Or at least, it seems that way.

What we had then, that we don’t have now, is a routine. There is no well-worn path or standard operating procedure—yet. For decades, we relied on a comparatively narrow set of reflexive responses to whatever challenges came our way. Table 1.1 is a gross simplification, but it will remind you of how we typically dealt with problems before everyone had a computer, a smartphone, and a Facebook account.

Table 1.1 Typical Responses of Functional Silos Operating within Traditional Organizations

Communications Function	Standard Response
Public relations	Write a press release
Media relations	Call a reporter
Corporate communications	Send a company-wide memo
Marketing communications	Write a brochure
Advertising	Place ads in traditional media (print, radio, TV, billboard)

Collaborating, Crowdsourcing, and Co-Creating

Modern digital technologies don’t merely help us manage larger amounts of information more quickly—they enable us to interact with the information we handle. We are no longer passive customers of information—we sample it, we modify it, and we share the results of our improvised tinkering across the social networks that we help to create. Today, everyone is a publisher.

In the past, developing and distributing content required significant upfront investments of capital. You needed lots of money to buy printing presses and television transmitters. And you needed even more money to hire people with the skills, talent, and experience necessary to create content that you could distribute profitably to a large audience. Publishing and broadcasting companies were run like factories—products were manufactured from component materials and then distributed through various channels to customers.

Digital information technologies have liberated content creation from that industrial model. Some would argue that content creation has been democratized. To some extent, that is true. But I think it would be more accurate to say that content is increasingly created through collaboration and crowdsourcing. At any given hour of any given day, we are interacting with content and co-creating new content.

Why is that relevant to all of us in the communications industry? It’s relevant because it means we need a new playbook. The rules have changed. The game has changed. We need to change.

Constant Change Is the New Normal: Welcome to the “Always On” Era

In hindsight, it seems as though we had been living in a placid universe when events unfolded with predictable linearity. Suddenly, and without warning, we find ourselves thrust into a turbulent universe in which events occur in unpredictable patterns at lightning speed.

In this new universe, no one gets to dictate the terms of engagement. Dynamism is the new reality. Constant change is the new normal. In a universe in which every customer is “always on,” instantly able to find the lowest price, the best deal, and the fastest mode of delivery, no brand can afford to be “sort of on” and count on customer loyalty for very long.

The old playbook assumed that brands would talk and customers would listen. The new playbook makes no such assumption. The new playbook is based on our awareness—and acceptance—of an empowered public, armed with all the tools and skills of the digital age. The empowered public doesn’t sit still, hates being categorized, and is always looking out for the next new wave. Engaging with them requires a new mindset, a different set of skills, and a deep understanding of their inherent dynamism. In the new universe, dynamic engagement drives communication strategy and generates real business outcomes.

Dynamic Engagement versus Traditional Communication

Unlike traditional approaches to communication, dynamic engagement assumes that tactics must be adapted to the situation. Context is everything. Just because Plan A worked for Client B last year doesn’t guarantee that it will magically work for Client C this year. Data can point the way toward applying previously successful solutions, adapting them to a new situation, or finding an altogether new solution.

Dynamic engagement is like cooking—people get bored when you serve the same meal, and they can always tell when you don’t use fresh ingredients.

Traditional strategies were a blend of art and science, with the emphasis strongly on art. There was a general belief in the power of instinct—“gut feelings”—over the power of process. In this book, we will argue in favor of a more balanced and carefully reasoned approach.

Our argument is based on the simple truth that in today’s digitally connected hyper-reactive global culture, events unfold so rapidly that relying primarily on our gut feelings to solve complex problems would be the height of arrogance.

And since we all know that pride comes before a fall, let’s agree to ditch the arrogance and accept the reality that we can no longer control the message. The genie is out of the bottle, the ship has sailed, and the die is cast.

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway warns Jay Gatsby, “You can’t repeat the past,” and yet sometimes it seems as though many people in our industry are trying to do exactly that—repeat the past. Why? I think that the need to be “always on” in today’s media world leads many of us to want to react immediately, and the simplest way to ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Welcome to the Networked Ecosystem
• Chapter 2: Progress through the Revolutionary Storm: Why Data Science Matters
• Chapter 3: The Digital Media Revolution Creates Completely New Business Models
• Chapter 4: Breaking the Branding Sound Barrier: The Role of Reputation Strategy
• Chapter 5: Reputation and Your Brand’s DNA
• Chapter 6: The Economics of Reputation
• Chapter 7: Co-Creation Is Essential for Aligning Brands and Customers
• Chapter 8: The Data Safety Net: Leveraging Evidence in the Midst of Crisis
• Chapter 9: Reputational Partnering
• Chapter 10: The Reputation Culture
• Chapter 11: The Reputation Payoff: The High Stakes of Crisis Leadership
• Chapter 12: The Future of Reputation Strategy
• Recommended Reading
• About the Book
• Index
• EULA