Jacquelyn Lynn, Business Writer, Speaker

Online Reputation Management: Lawsuit Resolution and Business Decisions

I told you about a company that sued me in small claims court for what I wrote on this blog. All of the posts related to this situation are listed under the category of “lawsuit” if you want to read them in chronological order.

I was fortunate to have the services of a great attorney, Dan Perry. From the very beginning he believed, as I did, that if this matter went to trial, I would prevail. However, it would cost me hundreds of dollars and several days of valuable time to travel from Florida to Boston to appear in court.

In an effort to avoid that, we made a business decision. He contacted the company’s attorney (who was not involved in the initial filing of the lawsuit) and made this offer: I would remove any reference to the company by name or description from my blog if they would dismiss the lawsuit.

Emotionally, it was not an easy decision, but it was a sound business decision. Everything I wrote about this company was accurate. If this company was suffering negative consequences, it was because of its own conduct, not because of what I wrote. But I simply did not want to spend the time or money to fight them. So I made a concession to make the issue go away.

I learned a lot from this process and I’ll be sharing those lessons with you in future articles. Stay tuned.

 

Jacquelyn Lynn 

Online Reputation Management: I got sued for a blog post

A couple of years ago, I wrote about a company that refused to accept responsibility when one of its representatives stole from a customer. I used the situation, which I learned about from an article by consumer columnist Greg Dawson in the Orlando Sentinel, to offer a few lessons on how a business should respond in a similar situation.

 

A few weeks later, I put up another post about that company. Dawson had reported that the company’s general manager was no longer employed there, and I was going to recognize that the company was taking at least some appropriate action. But before I could write that, Dawson corrected his report: the general manager was not only still there, but the company was gleeful about it. So my post repeated what had been published in the Orlando Sentinel.

 

A year or so after those first two posts went up, the company contacted me and asked me to take the post down because the information wasn’t true. I responded that they were giving me no evidence that it wasn’t true and offered to post their side of the story, but did not take the post down. But I did use the way they attempted to have me remove the post as an example of how not to approach online reputation management in another post.

 

I didn’t hear from this company again until May of 2009, when it sued me in Boston Small Claims Court.

 

Treat Social Media Like a Cocktail Party

When it comes to marketing, I think David Meerman Scott is a wise -- as in, really smart -- guy. I personally don't participate a lot on the various social networking sites. I have a Facebook page I don't do anything with, and a LinkedIn page that has helped me connect with a lot of colleagues, but I don't use it as much or as profitably as I could -- which is to say, I'm not a social networking expert, especially when it comes to using social networking as a marketing tool.

So don't take my advice, but do consider David's advice when he recommends treating social media like a cocktail party. Essentially, he says, don't do anything on a social media site that you wouldn't do face-to-face with someone over a drink and hors d’oeuvres. Don’t engage in pushy sales tactics. Be polite. Be helpful.

Click to read David’s blog post, “Social media is a cocktail party.”

Jacquelyn Lynn

Writing mistakes that are easy to make—and easier to avoid

I have two points to share in this post.

First, I apologize for not making regular posts lately. I have been buried under the deadline of my latest book. The manuscript is due to the publisher in two weeks, and after that, you should be hearing more from me.

Second, I saw a blog post about writing mistakes that I want to share. Author Brian Clark is targeting bloggers in his post, 5 Common Mistakes That Make You Look Dumb, but he’s on the mark with these mistakes no matter what you’re writing or who it’s for.

I especially chuckled when I read his closing note about knowing how to fix an incorrect sentence but having to ask his wife about what’s technically wrong with it. In our house/office, my husband provides that technical authority (and he tells me my most common mistake is splitting infinitives).

Seriously, if you’re running a business and your written messages include any of these basic mistakes, it’s going to make your customers wonder about the quality in other parts of your operation.

Jackie