6 Steps to Protecting The Company Image
In this day and age where personal branding seems to gaining awareness, I can’t help but wonder, who’s watching out for the company brand?
Years in the real estate industry taught me how to protect a company’s image and reputation: from adhering to proper logo usage, corporate colors standards, to approved online postings and trademark guidelines. But in the onslaught of personal branding, it seems that today’s companies have stepped aside to allow self-appointed brand ambassadors, employees or independent contractors to control the company’s image.
If companies are going to invest thousands of dollars to claim their piece of the marketing pie, why would they allow their logo to be manipulated? Colors to be changed? Sloppy (or unedited) writing to be published? Only then to spend millions of dollars to protect themselves after-the-fact?
Over the years, I have adhered to these six guidelines on how to best represent a company in a professional manner:
- ALWAYS adhere to the logo, tagline standards.
- NEVER post anything derogatory (written, photo, video or audio) about any employees, members or clients.
- EVERYTHING posted is value based. Does it fit the company mission statement? Does it provide value to your sphere?
- NEVER reply to a negative comment in haste, but do reply quickly.
- EVERY employee is given copies of the company mission statement and corporate guidelines and expected to adhere.
- NOTHING published, copied or shared without (someone’s) approval. (This was the precautionary “second set of eyes”).
Companies need to make protecting their image and reputation a priority. Because, honestly, if they don’t do it — the masses will.
What would you add to this list? Leave a comment below to keep the conversation going. If, after reading this article, you would like to discuss your corporate branding, please reach out to me at Twitter.com/CWaterhouse
