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How Negative Publicity (Shaming) Can Impact Your Company and More

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How Negative Publicity (Shaming) Can Impact Your Company and More

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By now everyone knows you never get a second chance to make a first impression, today that initial first glance is usually your virtual one.

A recent national survey, which was conducted online by Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder, revealed that 71 percent of U.S. workers would not apply to a company experiencing negative press.

"In today's 24/7 news cycle and social media world, earning and maintaining a good reputation can be a challenge," said Rosemary Haefner, chief human resources officer at CareerBuilder. "It's easier than ever before for job seekers to research potential employers. Employers that value transparency and take a proactive approach to issues or complaints will have a better chance of securing trust and loyalty and maintaining a positive reputation that can strengthen their recruitment and retention strategies."

Women were more likely not to apply to companies experiencing bad publicity than men according to this survey. In the recent PEW Research survey, 70 percent of women also viewed online harassment as a major problem verses 54 percent of men believe it's an issue. Especially young women experienced sexualized forms of abuse online at much higher rates than men. Some 21 percent of women ages 18 to 29 report being sexually harassed online.

As we witness a time in our country when incivility is on the rise, 75 percent of Americans believe it's up to us to change the tides according to the Civility in America survey.

From watching major corporations take on celebrities in tweetstorms, to a restaurant attempting to adjust to new legislation, social media can take on a life of its' own and your company can be left lifeless.
The shame factor and the bottom line.
The CareerBuilders survey noted that more than a quarter of employers (26 percent) say their company has experienced negative publicity, resulting in a hit to their hiring process as well as other areas. Bad press and online shaming impacts employee morale, higher voluntary employee turnover and a decline in sales. Businesses with negative publicity turns off candidates from applying, so companies will risk losing potentially good applicants due to a smear campaign or other forms of unflattering content online. The loss of revenue is why employers must address these issues immediately or may potentially risk going out of business.

Today 90 percent of people rely on reviews posted online before they purchase or use a service, yet shockingly, 1 in 5 people will admit to writing false reviews of products or services they have never used according to a YouGov survey. The bottom line is, your online reviews can literally cripple your company.
Being proactive, being positive.
While negative news travels faster in our social world, companies should share their positive news to strengthen their company overall. This is what online reputation management is about and why people need to learn to maintain it regularly. When [if] a digital disaster does occur, you are already prepared for it.

In my upcoming book, Shame Nation: The Global Epidemic of Online Hate, we discussed with Rich Matta, CEO of ReputationDefender, the rise of online attacks towards businesses. "We're seeing an enormous rise [in] online attacks for three main reasons," he says. "First, attackers now understand that online attacks have significant potential to negatively impact their intended targets-and they're growing more sophisticated, selecting approaches that maximize damage. " You can read his entire interview in Shame Nation being released on October 3rd, 2017.

Previously a CareerBuilders survey shared how social media can impact your chances of landing a job. In reality everyone has social liability they need to be responsible for - both the employer and the potential employee.

When corporations encounter negative publicity or you have been through cyber-warfare online, it's important to address digital disasters swiftly and professionally. As with many trolls, arguing with them can only fuel the fire and increase your exposure. It's imperative to be proactive, not reactive in these situations.

Being proactive means building your social authority online of your brand with positive outreach to people. If your audience knows you and what you stand for, they will be less likely to be influenced by a ban of pesky trolls.

CareerBuilders survey determined nearly 4 in 5 employers who have experienced positive press have seen beneficial impacts such as:

42 percent higher morale among the workplace

36 percent of employees were likely to share positive things about their company on social media

36 percent boost in sales

32 percent more job applications

22 percent more job candidate referrals from current employees

21 percent more jobs being accepted

19 percent lower voluntary employer turnover

If you're a company facing a tweetstorm or social media meltdown it's important to attempt to take it offline as quickly as possible.

You're best line of defense is being prepared before the cyber-bullets arrive. Building your digital platform, encouraging your current clients (customers) for reviews, keeping your blogs and websites up-to-date and using your keypad with respect and responsibility towards everyone - even if they aren't your customer.

It might be a time of incivility and uncertainty in our country, but it can be that time you can shine online. Be the person (business) that takes this shame nation to a sane nation - one keystroke or post at a time.

Follow me on Twitter and join me on Facebook.

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How Negative Publicity (Shaming) Can Impact Your Company and More

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By now everyone knows you never get a second chance to make a first impression, today that initial first glance is usually your virtual one. A recent national survey, which was conducted online by Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder, revealed that 71 percent of U.S.

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What do people-finder sites know about you?

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What do people-finder sites know about you?

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In January, my worried Facebook friends circulated a link for a genealogy site called FamilyTreeNow.com that presents itself as a free resource with tabs titled "Build Your Family Tree" and "Discover Your Past." My friends were creeped out, as was the writer of this Washington Post article. Digital expert Kim Komando even posted a web tutorial for deleting your information.

When I searched my own name, I found my birth year, current and past addresses, possible relatives, and possible associates, including two people who had lived in the downstairs apartment unit from me in the mid-'90s. The other names I didn't know. Past addresses went back to the early 1990s to include a house I'd rented a room in, where I'd never had bills or a rental agreement in my name. Not exactly family tree material. And, in fact, this site is not a genealogy site. It's a people-finder site. What makes it creepy is the amount of information available for free.

As ominous as FamilyTreeNow seems, people-finder and data broker sites are nothing new and they're not illegal. Whitepages, Intelius, PeekYou, Spokeo and many more "crawl" the information of all kinds of public records everywhere, and they aggregate large sums of information that seems personal to us but in reality isn't that personal, says Rich Matta, CEO of Reputation Defender, a service that protects consumer privacy and online reputations.

The three primary reasons for information collection, he says, are: "First, to sell your information to third-party marketing organizations so they can better target you. Second, to sell your information directly to other individuals online that might want to know more about you, or third, simply to dangle your information for free as a way of attracting visitors to their websites and displaying online ads to them." Indeed, ads related to your online searches will pop up on FamilyTreeNow.

Because public record information is public, it contains few, if any, restrictions on collection, making it a gold mine for direct marketers. Common public record information includes property records, court records, driver's license files, voting records, birth certificates, marriage certificates, death certificates and tax liens. Thankfully, minors typically aren't traceable. (FamilyTreeNow didn't have records for my teens ... yet.)

What's the threat level?

So how big a deal are these sites? Can they hurt you? I'm one of those people who tend not to worry about them, but Matta says it's worth paying attention to them to protect yourself from the possibility of cyberstalking, identity theft or even in-person stalking. "You can't completely eliminate all types of information about yourself because some of it is public record, but you can make yourself harder to find, and you become less interesting to online attackers," Matta says. "They're going to go for whoever's easiest to find with plenty of information associated with them."

Most of these sites will let you opt out on request, but the problem consumers face is the sheer number of sites and the opt-out hoops they require. However, even taking a few steps will make you less obvious. Your information won't be completely inaccessible, but it will be less accessible. Here's what Matta recommends:

Perform an online search of your name periodically to see what pops up, and be sure to troll into the third and fourth page.

Set up a Google alert for your name and your family's names to monitor what appears in Google.

Opt out of the people-finder/data broker sites, as much as you can. This article includes detailed instructions for 10 sites, and StopDataMining.me provides an opt-out list of top data brokers.

Use strong passwords for your social media accounts and change them often.

Ensure your social media privacy settings align with the level of exposure you intend.

To take extra-cautious steps, you can also visit your county clerk to alter or redact certain elements of personal information from public records, Matta says.

The same day I talked to Matta, I opted out of FamilyTreeNow, Whitepages and Spokeo; all had user-friendly forms, and now my records are gone. Others take more time. Persopo requires you to send your listing's information to them in an email, and they promise to have it removed within 10 to 12 business days. It took one day for mine. Intelius requires a form of identification, such as a driver's license with the photo and license number blacked out.

If you want someone to take a deeper look at your public profile and scrub it, you can pay a subscription fee for a service like Abine or Reputation Defender, which also offers a free tool. But for most people, the free tips above will help you be less visible. Additionally, active social media accounts, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other legitimate links associated with you can crowd out the people-finder sites, dropping them to page two or three of Google. Just make sure your Facebook page isn't leaking all over the Internet.

Keep in mind that deleted records may pop up again on these sites. You'll need to make monitoring your privacy a regular thing - just like going to the dentist.

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What do people-finder sites know about you?

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In January, my worried Facebook friends circulated a link for a genealogy site called FamilyTreeNow.com that presents itself as a free resource with tabs titled "Build Your Family Tree" and "Discover Your Past." My friends were creeped out, as was the writer of this Washington Post article.

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Executive Personal Information: The Latest Tool In Corporate Cyberattacks

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Executive Personal Information: The Latest Tool In Corporate Cyberattacks

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The internet is better and more engaging than ever, but it's also creepier than ever. Social networks, data brokers and people search sites are buying and selling vast swaths of our personal information on a daily basis. Unfortunately, today's hackers know exactly how to find and utilize this information to personalize their phishing and social engineering scams for maximum damage.

At ReputationDefender, we've been fighting this threat on behalf of individual consumers and executives for years. But there's a new twist: Lately, we've been hearing not only from individuals but also from the cybersecurity teams that protect them at work.

As hackers have increasingly turned their sights to executive personal information as a weapon to dupe, phish and impersonate their way into sensitive corporate systems, the protection of online privacy -- once considered to be purely a personal matter -- has moved firmly into the purview of enterprise cybersecurity groups.

According to a 2016 study commissioned by Agari (via ), some 60% of companies surveyed had been breached by a social engineering attack in the previous year. Figures from the FBI contextualize the extent of the damage, with $2.3 billion in losses to American companies from email scams alone between late 2013 and early 2016.

In a sense, this phenomenon is a testament to the success of traditional cybersecurity approaches, which have rendered software exploits and brute-force hacking much less effective than they once were. Cybercriminals will always target the weakest link -- and that link now happens to be your company's personnel.

Yet it's not the generic phishing emails in your spam folder that are the most dangerous problem. The biggest threat comes from highly personalized, executive spear-phishing schemes. Executives offer hackers that balance between effort and reward that is so attractive when planning an attack.

Low-level employees don't have the system access necessary to be worth the effort it takes to personalize a phishing email. On the other hand, IT staff with broad system access tend to be very disciplined in their behaviors, making them harder to compromise. Executives, however, have access to key systems, touch many aspects of a business, need to move quickly, and frequently delegate tasks to subordinates. This makes them appealing targets for social engineers.

For executive spear-phishing attacks to work, however, they need to be personalized and believable. And that's where privacy -- or rather, the lack thereof -- comes in. For example, a new type of spear-phishing technique that has become more ubiquitous in 2017 is the fake flight confirmation email . These emails use the actual details of an executive's upcoming trip to trick the target into opening a malicious attachment or link.

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Executive Personal Information: The Latest Tool In Corporate Cyberattacks

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The internet is better and more engaging than ever, but it's also creepier than ever. Social networks, data brokers and people search sites are buying and selling vast swaths of our personal information on a daily basis. Unfortunately, today's hackers know exactly how to find and utilize this information to personalize their phishing and social engineering scams for maximum damage.

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Online Privacy Tips | ReputationDefender

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Online Privacy Tips | ReputationDefender

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"Big Data" brokers make a handsome profit by compiling your info and selling it to others. Through this process, your information has become an invaluable resource for retailers, advertising firms, marketing databases-and unfortunately also for identity thieves, stalkers, and other unsavory characters.

That said, there is a lot you can do to protect your online privacy, and ReputationDefender also offers tools to automate and maximize that protection.

Everything you need to know about how online privacy works.

How does personal information get online?

There's no single source, and a lot of your personal information gets online without you doing anything. For instance, a lot of public records have been digitized. If you've ever bought real estate, donated to a political campaign, or had a run-in with the law, that information is likely available online. If you've ever used a grocery store discount card, chances are your purchase information is also part of some online consumer marketing database.

In addition, when you surf the Web, you leave a trail of personal information behind you. The links that you click on and the sites you visit record information about you. Many sites track your complete browser history: the total list of all the sites you've visited since you last cleared your cache (most people never clear their browser cache). Social media sites also collect detailed information about how you interact with their services and what kind of links you click on.

What exactly is out there?

At a minimum, data brokers will usually have:

Home addresses

Landline phone numbers

Cell phone numbers

Job information

Relatives' names

Past addresses

On more sophisticated sites, you'll find even more:

Home values and photographs

Email addresses

Marriage and divorce records

Photos and videos

Social media profiles

Dating site profiles

Religious information

Projected annual income

What everyone should do to protect their online privacy.

Review social media privacy settings. If you haven't checked your privacy settings in awhile, do so now. Social media sites change their privacy policies all the time, and you may not be as protected as you thought you were.

Limit past posts on Facebook. Facebook has a feature called the Activity Log where you can review past posts and tags. From the Activity Log, you can click on "Limit Past Posts" to retroactively prevent posts from the past from showing up.

Be wary of questionnaires. When you're asked to fill out a loyalty club form in a store or provide your ZIP code at checkout, provide the minimum information possible. Every time you offer up a piece of personal information, it will likely end up in an online database.

Find out and opt out. ReputationDefender provides a free tool to help you locate your information online. Once you've found a source, check their policies to see if there's a way to opt out of the service. Most data brokers will allow you to remove your information, although you may need to submit a form or provide proof of your identity.

Enable "Do Not Track" on your browser. There are a number of built-in and third-party "do not track" add-ons for the most popular Web browsers. Install and enable them. While they don't provide perfect protection, they do prevent a lot of personal information from being sent out from your computer or phone.

Check regularly. Even if you've opted out of every online data broker, your personal information could still end up online. Whenever a new variation on your information appears in their databases, they may re-add you. For instance, if they see "J. Doe" instead of "John Doe", or a different format for your home address, you may need to start the entire process over again.

Automate the process. It can be tedious to keep on top of your online privacy. That's why ReputationDefender offers a suite of privacy protection tools, from fully automatic to white-glove service. Contact us to find out more.

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Online Privacy Tips | ReputationDefender

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"Big Data" brokers make a handsome profit by compiling your info and selling it to others. Through this process, your information has become an invaluable resource for retailers, advertising firms, marketing databases-and unfortunately also for identity thieves, stalkers, and other unsavory characters.