With the growth of social media and the use of the Internet byconsumers, companies increasingly have to manage their onlinereputations. Companies promote their brand through the Internet,but they also have to manage the reputational risk that can resultfrom discontented members of the public, competitors and othersposting negative material about them and their products andservices.

A recentsurvey by Deloitte underscores the importance of managingreputational risks in social media. In finding that reputationalrisk is now the biggest risk concern for CEOs, the survey notedthat “given the speed and global reach of social media, companiestoday are at much greater risk of losing control over how they areperceived in the marketplace.” Even the government is using socialmedia to monitor product hazards. For example, the Food and DrugAdministration recently issueda solicitation for a company to monitor social media foremerging hazards concerning FDA regulated products, including earlydetection of adverse events and food borne illness.

Negative postings can appear in different forums, ranging fromthe company's website to social media forums like Facebook andTwitter, and to blogs and other websites that are forums forconsumer feedback, such as Yelp. Companies have to monitor thesecomments in real time and respond when appropriate. For the mostpart, companies can turn negative comments into more positiveexperiences for the consumer, or at least neutralize the impact ofthose comments. Depending on the forum in which the comments areposted, the companies may not know the identity of the personposting the negative comments. Some websites permit and encouragepeople to post anonymous postings, such as pissedconsumer.com andripoffreport.com. In most cases, there are real consumers behindthe postings who may have legitimate concerns that the company mustaddress.

Non-litigation options for addressing negative anonymouspostings

Companies have a range of options available for responding toanonymous postings. Many of these options involve the use of socialmedia to respond to the comments before they rise to the level of adefamatory posting and include administrative or other remediesoffered by social media outlets or other websites. There is alwaysthe option of litigation to unmask the identity of the anonymousposter, which will be discussed in part two of this three-partseries of articles. Litigation should be seen as a last resort asconsumers and others may view the efforts of a company to unmaskand sue a consumer or other person to be a heavy-handed tactic thatwill chill the use of anonymous postings in the future. Theremedies discussed below are, therefore, important to considerbefore filing suit.

Companies need to establish their own social media presence notonly to extend their brand and reputation, but to counteractnegative feedback form consumers and attacks by competitors.Companies also need to interact with their customers and othersusing the social media and to monitor those interactionsproactively to insure that critical comments are addressed at anearly stage. If a company is not active in social media anddevelops a problem that it attempts to address through socialmedia, it will not have the needed credibility to diffuse theissue. Conversely, if the company is interacting with its customersdaily, it can join the discussion, resolve issues quickly andprevent the escalation of issues into reputational harm.

Sometimes anonymous postings cannot be handled informallythrough a company's social media platform, or the postings may befalse and misleading and appear to be part of a larger concertedcampaign to harm the company's reputation. At that point, thecompany may want to consider the administrative remedies availablethrough the website where the negative comments were posted. Insome cases, the website may have procedures that can be used toremove or minimize the impact of defamatory comments.

As an initial matter, the terms of service or use of the websiteshould be reviewed to determine whether the comments are factualstatements, as opposed to opinion, that can be removed forviolating the terms of the website. The company should be preparedto show why the posting is false or otherwise unlawful. Forexample, Yelp's terms of service require that users agree not towrite fake or defamatory reviews and to not violate a third party'srights, including by a breach of a copyright, trademark or tradesecret. If the website will not remove the posting because it doesnot want to get involved in adjudicating the facts, the companyshould consider posting a response on the website. Most websites,like pissedconsumer.com and ripoffreport.com, permit the company topost a reply to the comment that addresses or rebuts the issuesraised. This can be an effective way to insert the company'sposition into social media as a way to neutralize the comments.

While some websites have policies against removing negativecomments, they may have other procedures that a company can use.For example, ripoffreport.com has an arbitration program in whichfalse statements of fact can be submitted to a neutral arbitratorwho will determine whether it is false. If it is found to be false,ripoffreport.com will redact it from the report.

Being prepared for anonymous negative comments on social mediaand knowing how to address them on key social media platforms cango a long way to minimizing reputational harm without resorting tolitigation. The next installment in this series will discuss how todeal with anonymous posters when litigation is necessary.