Can You Go Overboard Trying to Monitor Your Online Reputation?

In a Wall Street Journal blog post, Kelly Spors wonders if some of the companies that are monitoring their online reputations are going overboard with the whole thing. The people mentioned in the post think it is very “Big Brother” of companies like Comcast to reach out to individual bloggers when they post negatively about the company. My question to them would be “If you are blogging, are you expecting anyone to read it?”. I think bloggers have gotten into the mindset that their blogs are a place for them to vent, and no one will ever read it.

Fortunately and unfortunately, PR reps know the power blogs have in the search engines, as well as the power of word-of-mouth. As time goes on, this type of contact will become more and more commonplace, and PR agencies will begin getting more work as online reputation managers. It may be perceived as a bit of a stunt now, but I congratulate Comcast for acknowledging the online community, and it’s power in influencing the online reputation of a company.