Living in London and taking public transport to work has given me a little extra time in the mornings to catch up on the London news. I recently came across a rather interesting article that really helped highlight the importance of Online Reputation Management (ORM).

A while ago the BBC News business editor, Robert Peston, decided to air his views on the current credit crunch. To quote his closing thoughts:

“...confidence in one or more British banks may continue to ebb away, to a potentially lethal extent - or so the banks fear.”

He published this post an hour before markets opened and according to the article, is now said to have caused over ₤17 billion worth of damage.

To put these figures into perspective, at that stage the Royal Bank of Scotland is said to have lost ₤10 billion alone, with HBOS close behind losing an easy ₤5 billion. Now while Peston's post can't be held solely accountable for all this damage, it is entirely believable that it did impact on investor’s confidence and in turn share prices. Robert Peston is considered a credible source and when he states that “major banks have been in secret crisis talks with Alistair Darling” people take him seriously.

If the banks had been using ORM software (like BrandsEye for example), they would have been made aware of Robert Peston’s statements in real time. They could then have issued press statements immediately – before the markets opened - and hopefully minimised the damage. In another recent example a member of the public wrote in a blog post that Steve Jobs had died from a heart attack. Over that weekend Apple’s stock dropped by a massive 10%.

 When confidence in you, your product or even your bank relies on public perception – which lets be honest is almost always the case – you have to keep an eye on what people are saying and believing. With the instant worldwide distribution that the Internet facilitates you simply have to keep an eye on your brand at all times.