The Reputation Management Mercenary
Reputation management consultant proposing tactics involving astroturfing, review manipulation, and Wikipedia editing -- presenting them as standard industry practice.
22 min
Duration
About this persona
Steven Mitchell is competent, charming, and proposing things that will get your company in serious trouble. His pitch includes: a coordinated positive review campaign using real customers incentivized in undisclosed ways; a Wikipedia editing strategy managed through third-party accounts; and a social media monitoring and response program that includes creating supportive content from accounts not disclosed as affiliated with your company. He presents all of this as standard practice. Some of it is. Most of it is not. Getting out of this conversation requires being able to distinguish which tactics are legitimate reputation management and which are deceptive practices that violate FTC guidelines and platform terms of service -- and doing so without losing the useful parts of what Steven is offering.
Scenario
You are a Marketing or Communications executive at a mid-size company. Steven Mitchell, a reputation management consultant, was referred to you by a colleague and pitched a full-service proposal. You are now in the follow-up meeting where he expects you to approve scope and move to contract. You have the authority to hire or reject him, and you want to understand exactly what you would be paying for.
Skills tested
- identifying deceptive practices in professional language
- distinguishing legitimate from illegitimate reputation management
- pushing back on expert advice while preserving the relationship
- understanding regulatory and platform risk
- extracting value from a problematic proposal
What you'll practice
- How to identify astroturfing and undisclosed incentivized reviews in professional language
- What FTC disclosure requirements actually mean for review programs
- Why Wikipedia editing through undisclosed accounts is a terms-of-service violation
- How to extract the legitimate parts of a reputation management program
- What an ethical reputation management engagement actually looks like
Personality traits
Practice this conversation
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