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Discretion is Key in Online Reputation Repair

Didit Editorial

By Steve Baldwin | January 7, 2014

Reputation management is a tough game. Human beings — whether they’re running their own online companies or camped out at a big brand — have a tendency to freak out when they learn that strangers are saying things about them online that may not be flattering. All too often, they — or the people who they hire to make things right — plunge into the fray without carefully thinking about their actions can make things worse.

Here’s where discretion — “the quality of behaving or speaking in such a way as to avoid social embarrassment or distress” — comes in. Discretion, which involves the application of prudence and judgment to a problem, is the very opposite of passion — which gets people into so much trouble online.

What follows are some discretionary rules that can make your job easier. They apply to cases in which you’re trying to repair your own online reputation, as well as cases in which you’re trying to assist someone else.

Rule 1: Do No Harm
When people are saying bad things about you online, the tendency is to DO something, or in military parlance, to “engage the enemy.” Rushing into the breach with your righteous sword of indignation at your side may feel great, but doing so just brings onlookers — call them “flame war junkies” — to your dispute. Don’t underestimate the damage that these third-parties, who have no “skin in the game” can do by upvoting and otherwise promoting your dispute. Before you make a single move, exercise discretion, take a step back, and think about the bigger picture.

Rule 2: Time Heals All Wounds (But May Not Wound All Heels)
The dispute in question — say it’s somebody complaining about the seriously substandard sushi you possibly served to him three weeks ago — may loom large in the Web’s mind right now, but that may only be true for a day or two. Time doesn’t tick on the Internet — it rushes forward like a thousand Tsunamis. In many cases, the incident in question may scroll so quickly off the mental tabula rasa of the Web that the best thing to do is simply forget about it, although you never had a chance to rebut the claims against you.

Rule 3: Mediate
Your online opponent may appear frightening and monster-like (especially because such opponents usually go by anonymized, sometimes mockingly named pseudonyms), but there is a real human being there, and this person may be secretly ambivalent about the war they’ve started against you.

Is it possible that you actually served bad sushi to your online critic on the day in question? Hey — it happens. Perhaps all you need to do is own up to the fact that you’re not perfect, discretely extend your hand in friendship, and offer a free meal in return. An offer like this doesn’t make you look weak — just reasonable, and “reasonability” often gets high marks in the court of public opinion because it’s so rare.

It’s very difficult to summon the will — especially while the arrows and errors are flying online — to de-escalate the conflict by simply owning up and behaving “like a mensch,” but this is often all that’s required. Try mediation — it’s not very warrior-like, but that’s its only real downside.

Rule 4: Delegate
Mediating an online dispute is only possible when your opponent is a rational actor, not a “Play Misty For Me” stalker-type who won’t rest until your business lies in ruins. Words — at least in the eyes of the law — have real consequences, and if the words that have been spoken/written online meet the threshold of slander/libel, you may have to bite the bullet and hire an attorney to start generating very scary looking paperwork to be served upon your opponent. Lawyers aren’t cheap, so this is obviously a step you’ll only take after exhausting the mediation possibilities. But lawyers can be very effective — getting a hard copy “C&D” (Cease and Desist) letter in the mail puts your opponent on notice that you’re serious, “this isn’t a silly online game,” and you’re prepared to take it to the next level if necessary.

Before your attorneys fire off any legal letters, understand that while a large sum lawsuit threat may intimidate some opponents into silence, committed opponents — especially those who believe they have “nothing to lose” — may be further emboldened. They may counter-sue you, and take steps to further drag your name into more negative territory. Do you really want more publicity about that bad sushi that you did or did not serve?

So Is My Online Reputation OK Now?
As long as you’re active in life (whether you serve sushi or not), and have some kind of online visibility, you’ll have to prepare for the fact that not everybody likes you, and that the First Amendment protects the right of individuals to speak their minds online about what you do.

The good news is that many online disputes simply fade away, with no “victory” claimed by either side. We don’t hear about these kinds of resolutions because they don’t make for good “stories” (what makes a good story is when things go wildly out of hand). But they happen every day, and these happy resolutions are first and foremost the result of discretion’s careful application of judgment, wisdom, prudence, and decorum.

Don’t underestimate discretion, because, it is “the better part of valor” when it comes resolving online disputes. The concept might not be sexy, glorious, or warrior-like (nobody ever said “I love the smell of discretion in the morning”), but it gets the job done.

Note: if you or your firm have a reputation management issue, Didit’s Online Reputation Management specialists would be very happy to discuss it with you and help you resolve it. Contact us to learn more.

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