Comments on: Are You Building Brand Instead of Reputation?

By: Elliot Travers

Elliot Travers — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 20:24:50 +0000

The comcastcares twitter account is a great example, you’re right. Essentially it is important to have both these days. A successful brand along with a good reputation. They go hand in hand.

By: george

george — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 23:43:24 +0000

ShoeMoney is probably the best example of someone who understands both reputation and brand and unlike many experts he has built multimillionaire dollar companies

By: Ari Herzog

Ari Herzog — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 08:25:49 +0000

Twitter followers mean squat today, in the age of lists and RSS feeds of users. I don’t have to “follow you” to read you or even reply/retweet you. Ditto with companies; I don’t need to buy a dongle to see the dongle in action.

By: Louis Durocher

Louis Durocher — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:56:11 +0000

First comment here. Excellent article. I like the subtle/not-so-subtle distinction between brand and reputation.

At the individual level, it’s also true that suddenly a lot of people seem to build strong online brands, doing nothing… except being online building their brand.

The brand is the seed but the reputation is the tree.

By: Andrea Costantine

Andrea Costantine — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:49:31 +0000

I’m always questioning whether someone’s updates are a bunch of social media fluff or the real truth. This is a great post and hope that people understand the difference. Since I always teach about alignment – talking a bunch of fluff that isn’t true, won’t bring you more customers, it’ll just keep you out of alignment and falling down the rabbit hole!

By: Nick Gowdy

Nick Gowdy — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:04:38 +0000

“In 2010, no one is going to be concerned with the brand you think you created. Your brand may open the door but you’re being judged on your reputation.”

I have to disagree when it comes to larger brands like Comcast. A small personal brand might not have the resources to patch reputation holes with brand caulk, but a large enough online brand has the power to gag just about any bad reputation. Call me a cynic, but I don’t think that’s going to change in 2010. The sustainability of this power comes down to how (un)critical of an audience you have, and how good you are at mitigating the reputation hit caused by your more vocal detractors. If these detractors become more sophisticated, more united in 2010, so to will the counter-measures.

Getting back to Comcast — they’ve got it down to a science. They built their brand offline for decades with a combination of misdirection and an ultimate eye for the bottom-line. They’re just carrying those same practices over into a Carebear Twitter account and a few other goodies to smokescreen their bad online rep with feigned or ineffectual interest. If they can keep their audience appeased or apathetic, they can keep raking in revenue hand-over-fist without actually fixing any expensive problems. To them, that’s a victory. Calling them out on this, unfortunately, only really exposes them to people who either already know or simply don’t care enough to do anything other than maybe mumble under their breath or shake their fist in the air… moments before they sign up for the service anyway.

This month alone, Comcast has upped their dividends 40% while at the same time picking up 51% of NBC — so either they’re batshit insane, or what they’re doing (unfortunately) seems to be working for them in the bigger picture. Some companies can better afford to be a shade of evil.

By: Data Entry Services

Data Entry Services — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:21:15 +0000

Thanks Lisa. Given me something to think about even in my small business way.

By: Dan Schawbel

Dan Schawbel — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 21:06:26 +0000

A great discussion and I do agree that if you’re all talk and no action, that you won’t be successful. You may get revenue from blogging and speaking, but the consulting part of your business won’t be successful, which will then cause everything else to fall apart as well.

I believe reputation and a personal band differ slightly. A reputation is what you’ve done in the past and a personal brand is a promise for the future.

By: Caitlin

Caitlin — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 18:41:50 +0000

I like that your post points to a rampant problem for companies using social media – you can’t just sit on Twitter all day looking smart you have to do something with your online channels.
At the end of the day you have to back up your clever tweets and posts with the proof that you’re building something true about your brand.
Good post!

By: cory huff

cory huff — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 18:28:47 +0000

but it’s so easy to gain a bunch of followers and start talking like a big shot!

In all seriousness, it can be really frustrating to see so many people having (apparently) the time of their lives building a profitable business when you know that they aren’t providing any real value, and in fact they are going to hurt the industry because they are going to leave so many people with a bad taste in their mouth.