the(new)mediaslut

the(new)mediaslut reader, Brian of harmlessbananas.blogspot.com, asked this blogger how do you stop an online impostor.

It is almost impossible, I say. But there are ways in which you can make use of web2.0 communication tools to counter an impostor.

It is important to do so as quickly as you can before it becomes a liability to your brand.

Before I continue, I would like to highlight that this post is in respond to the one I made earlier about how Nuffnang can make use of the 3Rs (Regret, Reason and Remedy) to counter a crisis.

Yes, the(new)mediaslut would like to apologise to Nuffnang. You were a victim of an online impostor.

I created the post as a suggestion to how Nuffnang can use the 3Rs that I have learn to improve your communications with bloggers especially in dealing with such a crisis.

This experience has not affected my faith in the blogosphere and it could be possible I will fall victim to another online impostor. However, what I can do is make an afternote of it and possibly offer a suggestion or solution to deal with the online impostor.

Hence, this post is dedicated to Nuffnang.

So how do you use communication to handle a online impostor making a comment on your company’s behalf? You may responded to that particular blog, but there are steps that you can take to further halt the damage caused the impostor.

First of all, if you have a blog, create a post to highlight that an impostor out there and is misrepresenting the company.

In that post, link to that blog’s post with the impostor’s comment.

A blog is not just a site for you to post what your company has to offer. It can also be used to communicate such issues at hand. Also, it provides you with the content to put into the blog.

If you Web2.0 savvy enough, don’t just add text to your blog. Take out your company’s webcam and get your spokesperson to do a video. Post it up to Youtube and embed the code into your blog.

In this video, you can use the same text that you have entered in your blog. The difference, however, is that the video puts a human face to the post.

If you have a email newsletter that is send out regularly, make use of it. Send out a breaking newsletter alert and highlight that an impostor has responded on your company behalf.

Communicating it via your email newsletter is also effective as it reaches out to your stakeholders.

And, and a big AND, if you want to show how PR savvy you are, draft a press release to the media to inform them that there is an impostor out there and the ways you have communicated to your stakeholders about addressing this impostor.

Since you already have blog about it and got your spokesperson to do do a video, put the links in the press release to show the media community what you have done to address this impostor.

However, sending out the press release doesn’t mean immediate coverage or the journalist will call you for a story because of that press release.

It, however, becomes an information that the journalist can digest and can be used for later stories the journalist might want to write about online impostors.

If that press release becomes a story, then count your lucky stars but don’t get it to your head that all press releases becomes a story in main stream media.

Now, if you start dealing with one impostor, it also means you have to deal with the others. And if you have to deal with 10000000 impostors, then do it. You already have a template, all you need is to give it a different approach.

This reminds a piece I read in Freakonomics. A subway station in the US was always covered with graffiti. The intial intention was to leave it alone, but more graffiti started to appear.

So they decided to paint over the graffiti whenever they appear.

Initially that didn’t stop the vandals, and new graffiti would start to appear.

But after repeating the process of painting over the graffiti, the vandalism soon stopped permantly.

Why? It takes equal amount of effort from the vandals to create that graffiti as to paint them over.

So the vandals just gave up as they knew that if they put up their hard painted graffiti on the walls, it will be soon be painted over and no one can appreciate their work.

There are going to be 1000000 online impostors out there and you can’t literally stop it, but if you put in an action plan to address it, it will hinder the impostors.

To Brian, I may not have answer your question as I really don’t have the answers, but I hope the suggested communication tactics help.