I’m writing to you from Sydney, Australia and firstly wanted to say I’m a big fan of the show and have been listening to it for much of my PR life. I’ve been with a small agency, Sefiani Communications, in Sydney for just over two years now but it has been very interesting to notice the shift in communications emphasis in the last 4-5 months here in Australia. Many businesses are interested in learning how to best communicate bad news with their employees, whether that be poor results or redundancies, and communications professionals are taking on a new responsibility of ensuring the correct steps are taken to ensure that, in amidst the doom and gloom, the business comes through with reputation in tact.

However, my question to you is particularly related to online reputation management as I noticed a study from Weber Shandwick (http://www.online-reputations.com/DLS/RiskyBusiness_WhitePaper_US.pdf) last week stating that many senior executives don’t monitor online discussion of their business and I’m of the opinion that this will (if it isn’t already) become a major factor over the coming year as more and more employees are made redundant and, sometimes, left with a bad impression of their employer.

I wrote a quick post on this myself but I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts on how businesses can effectively manage their reputation – both on and offline – in the downturn when there is likely to be greater negative online discussion about them. Also, what steps should they follow in order to ensure the best possible outcome when delivering bad news?

Thanks for your expertise – I’m a big fan of the show and looking forward to celebrating Martin’s one year anniversary soon. Keep up the good work!

Cheers,
Roger