Try this exercise: do a Google search on the term "I hate ___", replacing the blank with your company name. If your brand is well known, chances are you will find whole web pages dedicated to the topic. Trust me, this can be a depressing way for marketers to spend a few hours, but remember: this is the Internet, where someone hates everything. "I hate the Salvation Army" pulls up 87,000 hits; "I hate the Red Cross" 166,000. Even "I hate puppies" returns over 230,000 hits.

         You’re not fooling anyone.

So how do you protect your reputation online? When and how should you intervene if you spot negative commentary about your brand?

1. Track reactions to your brand online. To react to issues, first be aware of them. Your approach for tracking your online reputation can be as simple as running periodic search engine queries on your brand, or as advanced as setting up a social media dashboard. You can find some good options here. The technology matters less than the commitment to building this into your weekly schedule.
   

2. Sort the issues into categories. This is pretty easy and an important first step. Is this a product issue? A customer service complaint? An upset investor? Set up a few simple categories and assign "response owners" from your team. Make sure they understand what’s expected of them.
   

3. Determine whether the issue is timely. Don’t worry about putting out old fires. If you find a year-old comment thread where posters are discussing with great enthusiasm how much they hate your new product, let it go. Focus on current situations where you have a chance to insert yourself into the discussion and head off a bigger problem.
   

4. Determine whether the problem can easily be resolved. One of our software clients was criticized by a popular blogger for not offering online product documentation. After a quick email from the company pointing out the link to their user manual, he happily updated his original post and praised them for their responsiveness. Many times, frustrated customers are simply looking for information.
   

5. Decide whether you are at fault. Is the complaint justified – or is there at least a chance that it might be? Or is it a clear misunderstanding or distortion? If there is something to it, a gracious apology or commitment to investigate the issue can work wonders. If not, a polite but firm clarification or rebuttal is needed.

6. Respond to the loudest, most influential voices first. Focus on those bloggers or tweeters that get the most traffic and carry the greatest influence. Often, they won’t be the point of origin, but will simply be reposting something from another smaller blogger. Unless they have a clear agenda against your brand, they will usually try to deal fairly with you.
   

7. Engage personally. Most bloggers and many commenters offer their email addresses. Start by sending a friendly, polite message directly to the owner. If you are offering an apology, be specific as to what you will do to correct the situation. If you are responding or defending yourself, provide details to support your argument. Sign the email with your own name. Most bloggers will post your message on their site. If they ignore you, take your message to the other blogs that have picked up the story, and be sure to mention that you started at the source.
   

8. Maintain the right tone. It can be infuriating to watch someone run down your business online, but settle down. Never lose your courteous, gracious tone. And never seek to intimidate or threaten anyone into removing content; those threats will end up online and make a bad situation worse. Be very careful before proceeding to any legal action, even if justified that tends to do serious damage to your reputation online.
   

9. Close the loop. Live up to your commitments. If in the process of responding to a customer’s issue you promised to give her a replacement product, make sure it gets done. And then post an update to the site where the discussion took place.
   

10. Engage with brand champions. Don’t spend all your time reacting defensively and putting out brand fires. If you find a group of people online who enjoy your brand, find ways to keep them engaged. These can include a simple "thank you" email, discounts or special offers, or a chance to preview your new product before it comes out. You can’t be in all places at once, and these champions will be far more effective at building and defending your brand than you could be.
    

Remember to keep perspective: you can’t please everyone. You can, however, win over current customers and potential new ones with your responsiveness and willingness to meet them on their own ground.

First up: so you want to start a blog…

1. Tailor your blog to your audience and goals. Is your goal to reach investors? Current customers? To support new customer sales? Or to get user input on your products? The content needs to fit your audience. Answer the question: what does this audience care about?
2. Define who should be featured on your blog.  Never publish anonymous, voice-of-the-company blogs; everything needs an author. Should the primary author of the blog be your CEO or other executive? Or someone from your development team? Do you want to make the blog a fairly open channel with posts from people from across the company, or more of a focused communication from one or a few senior voices?
3. Provide useful content – not marketing. Companies that repackage their PR or marketing materials in blog form will not find an audience.
4. Post consistently. Many blogs are started, few are maintained. Appoint an internal or external resource to manage the blog and to create a content calendar. Sometimes called an editorial calendar, this lays out key themes and blog topics by date.
5. Set the right tone. The concept of voice or tone is critical. Too bland or “corporate” and you lose what is supposed to be a personal message, too edgy or playful and you lose credibility and risk alienating your customers. When in doubt, err towards showing more personality in your blog rather than less; no one will read or remember a boring blog.
6. Manage legal risks. Particularly important for an executive blog. Work with your legal counsel to define some “fine print” to minimize risk. Never post on financial results or comment negatively on competitors. You will also need a content approval process for all blogs.
7. Manage comments. You need to offer readers a chance to respond with comments – but plan on moderating them to keep off-topic and hostile comments off the blog.
8. Work to create an audience. Many corporate sites do not get significant customer traffic. If your site is one of those, your blog will need both compelling content and a sustained demand generation effort to get the awareness, attention, and repeat visits of customers.
9. Be patient. Don’t expect instant traffic or results… as any good communicator will tell you, it takes a while to build an audience. Maintain your commitment to corporate blogging and results will follow.
10. Add video and audio. Did your company just have a user conference? Did  you CEO give a major speech? Take any video or audio clips, extract out a few brief highlights, and post them on the blog with appropriate context. Your users will appreciate it.

Some good examples… The Nuts About Southwest blog is a long-running example of a loose, enthusiastic employee-driven blog. GM’s FastLane blog has been a great communications asset to the company during its recent turmoil. Google’s blog features posts from people at all levels across the company, and gives the company a good forum to discuss upcoming products and innovations.

Last tip: don’t be afraid to reach out for help. Creating and maintaining an effective, customer-focused blog is usually well worth the effort, but it does require substantial work and attention. While you should never outsource your communications completely, the right outside content experts can help you build an audience while still being true to your voice. When we work with clients, we build a process that gives them input and editorial control over all blog posts. For many companies, it’s a great way to get started in corporate blogging.

Happy blogging!