Internet Shaming and Reputation Management

The video below is about an Internet Shaming incident involving Jennifer Connell - who has since changed her name and her identity because no amount of internet reputation management is going to fix her problem.



What happened to Jennifer Connell is fascinating and horrible.

Her wrist was injured while attending her nephew's birthday party and he gave he an exuberant hug, which caused her to fall and hurt her wrist.

Unfortunately in the state she lived in, homeowners liability insurance wouldn't cover her injury unless she sued her nephew in court - which she did, for the sum of $127,000 to cover medical costs, lost wages and lawyer fees. So she had no choice but to sue her nephew.

So she didn't do anything wrong. It is the law in New York State which is weird, requiring that this actually goes to court and that the nephew has to be the defendant named in the court case.

Unfortunately the media got a hold of the story and didn't understand the circumstances. All they saw was a woman from New York who was suing her nephew for $127,000 he didn't have. They completely missed the most important part, that the costs would be born by the insurance company and that the law in New York State required that people file a lawsuit in order to get a settlement.

I suspect the insurance company leaked the case to the media on purpose and misled the reporters on why precisely the aunt was suing the nephew. This way when Jennifer Connell later lost her case, largely due to losing in the court of public opinion, the insurance company didn't have to pay out on what normally would have been a cut and dry case.

So how bad is the situation for Jennifer Connell that she ended up having to change her name?

Well lets check the top 10 Google rankings.

Why Jennifer Connell's case against her nephew was a lost cause ...
https://www.today.com/.../nothing-personal-why-jennifer-connell-sued-her-nephew-w...

If you sensed something off about the story of the woman who sued ...
https://qz.com/.../if-you-sensed-something-off-about-the-story-of-the-woman-who-su...

Jennifer Connell says she had to sue nephew before insurance would ...
www.dailymail.co.uk/.../Jury-rejects-New-York-aunt-s-127-000-bid-sue-nephew-brea...

Jennifer Connell: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know | Heavy.com
https://heavy.com/.../jennifer-connell-aunt-suing-nephew-sean-tarala-birthday-party-i...

Jennifer Connell: Aunt who tried to sue 12-year-old nephew says she ...
www.independent.co.uk › News › World › Americas

Top 25 Jennifer Connell profiles | LinkedIn
https://ca.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Jennifer/Connell

100+ Jennifer Connell profiles | LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Jennifer/Connell

Jennifer Connell - IMDb
www.imdb.com/name/nm7821374/

Jennifer Connell Profiles | Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/public/Jennifer-Connell

Jennifer Connell Design: Home
https://www.jenniferconnelldesign.com/

So the top 5 posts are all news media sites about Jennifer Connell's legal case against her nephew. Followed by two pages of LinkedIn with people with identical names. Someone on IMDb with an identical name, a list of people with the same name on Facebook, and an interior designer from New Jersey with the same name.

Also for statistics purposes, there was 19.9 million results for Jennifer Connell (no quotations).

With quotations, 34,800 results.

So good news and bad news.

The good news is that Jennifer Connell is a popular name. Lots of people out there with the same name.

The bad news is that so many of the top 100 posts (I checked more than just the first page) is news media articles about Jennifer Connell's legal case.

So did Jennifer Connell make the right decision in changing her name, her hair and her identity? Maybe. It was probably the easiest solution.

What she really needs is to sue every newspaper involved for a retraction and to remove the articles in question. But that would be super expensive.

Could Internet Reputation Management fix Jennifer Connell's Problem?

Potentially, but it would be expensive.

The best solution would be to boost the ambiguous pages to the top, so the pages of people with the same name on LinkedIn, Facebook, etc get boosted up while the news media posts get pushed down.

Furthermore there would need to be an effort to get the truth out there. The YouTube video by the New York Times is an effort in the right direction.

So how much would it cost to fix this problem?

Well, $3,000 would be a good push in the right direction. That would enough to make 120 quality posts about Jennifer Connell which tells the truth about what happened to her.

You do the 120 posts, wait a few months and then check how many of those 120 posts are now in the top 100 Google results. If 70 of the top 100 are now positive or ambiguous results, that is a measurable increase to solving the problem.

If 80 of the top 100 are positive, even better.

At present 61 of the top 100 is ambiguous, but the negative ones still dominate the top 10.

So then you repeat the process. Until at least 90% of the top 100 posts are either positive or ambiguous. After that I wouldn't really worry about the other 10%, because then the point has been made. There are other people named Jennifer Connell, and for that one special person - she doesn't deserve the infamy she received from being Internet Shamed by a mob of people who didn't understand the case.

So for reputation management purposes, your goal is to flood the top 100 with positive pages, with links promoting the best performing of those to push them into the top 10.

Since we already have a 61% ambiguous result in the top 100, your goal during the first round of Reputation Management is to see how much of a difference you can make and then measure the result.

So after 3 months, you check again and it is now 78% positive. It has gone up 17 points. With any luck another round and it might be in the 90 to 95% positive range.

So Jennifer Connell's internet reputation is not impossible to fix.

It might cost $6,000 or more to fix, but it is doable.

Or she could spend that money on changing her name and getting plastic surgery so that nobody recognizes her. Really depends on what her priorities are.

Jennifer Connell has since dyed her hair and changed her name.

At present she has changed her name and dyed her hair. Is that enough? Quite possibly.

And maybe she doesn't miss using her own name. Now she gets to pretend that she is in Witness Protection.

After all, whats in a name?

But for those people who want to keep their own name and want the reputation cleaned up, that is what Reputation Management services are for.

Speaking for those of us who like our names, it is good to know that it is possible to fix one's reputation online - even if they are the subject of an Internet Shaming scandal. That to me suggests that no matter how infamous a person is, it is still possible to keep your name, have your cake, and eat it too.

Good night and remember to control your media presence online.

Good luck!

Why Female Models help advertise to both Men and Women

When constructing an advertising campaign, at some point you may need to promote your business using images displaying a model who is shown using your product or providing the service.

At which point you need to decide something.

Should the model be male or female?

Take the image above as an example.

The logo looks like it possibly male, but the model in the image is female. The business in question is a Toronto business which is offering archery lessons, to both men and women. (See http://www.cardiotrek.ca/p/archery-lessons.html to learn more.)

So why would this image work for advertising to both men and women?

#1. The women identify with the female model, seeing this as a potential version of themselves - and how awesome they could potentially be.

#2. Heterosexual men seeing the image see the woman as a potential mate, and imagine themselves meeting a woman while doing archery with a similar appearance. So lonely men are essentially motivated by feelings of love/lust. The image in this case isn't even remotely sexual either, as the woman's back is turned and you cannot even see her face. The "Male Gaze" leaves the men left to their imagination as to what she looks like.

More notes...

#3. Even married heterosexual men would find the image attractive, and be thinking "Gee, my wife and I should get into archery. That looks pretty awesome!"

#4. The image itself is not complicated. Just the image of the woman, the logo, and the website address is in a distinctive yet easy to read font.

#5. There is only the visual call to action... It is saying - without words - "This is awesome. You should do this." So the viewer is left with the suggestion to go to that website and learn more.

The one thing missing from the image is the words "archery lessons Toronto" or something like that, which means that when using the image they need to be writing that in text somewhere on the websites they are using to promote it.

And because the website name is in the image, including a link to the website is not really a necessity. The goal might simply be to build word of mouth. Having links for SEO purposes are not always a necessity.

Facebook dumps reach and what this means for your Social Media Strategy

Facebook recently announced a big change in how Facebook works.

They have gotten rid of something known as "reach" which tracks how many people view a particular post.

So for example lets say you sell kitty litter and on your Facebook business page you regularly post photos of cats and kittens in an effort to get more people to see your product.

Every time you go back and view an old posting, you will see a statistic beneath it showing how many people have viewed your posting, along with the Likes, Reactions and so forth.

This is probably connected to the fact that "reach" has been declining on Facebook in recent years anyway. The average user's number of daily posts is also down, from 4.5 posts per day in June 2016 down to 1.3 in April 2017. The downward trend has become a big thing since August 2016.

So people are posting on Facebook less often than years ago, and Facebook has become "flooded" with brands competing for reach.

Meanwhile some people are doing a "Facebook Purge" in an effort to limit the amount of time they waste on Facebook.

And some people, like two people I went to university with, are going one step further and deleting their Facebook accounts entirely. Their reasoning? They have a baby and don't have the extra time to be wasting time on Facebook when they should be spending that time with their baby.

So could that explain Facebook's decline in recent years in daily posts? People are getting older, having kids and just have less time to waste on Facebook? Maybe so. Maybe so.

Another Big Change

Facebook is de-emphasizing business pages / advertising and putting more emphasis on the posts of friends and family.

"But recently we’ve gotten feedback from our community that public content — posts from businesses, brands and media — is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other. […] Based on this, we’re making a major change to how we build Facebook. […] you can expect to see more from your friends, family and groups. […] you’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media." - Mark Zuckerberg.

So people will end up seeing less of your kitty litter / cat photos, and also less of business pages and advertising in general.

But how will Facebook make money off of this?

Well, now your business page posts won't show up in people's feeds for free any more. Instead people will have to PAY if they want to promote a post and get additional clicks / attention.

Which means reach isn't so much gone as they are changing the focus to people paying for clicks.

Which means more profit for Facebook in the long run. More people paying for advertising, no more free advertising.

And for regular Facebook users, it means (or should mean) less looking at advertising.

Coupled with Facebook's continual growth in popularity, this means they should expect more income in the future as there are more and more people to advertise to via Facebook - if you are willing to pay for it.

Special Note

Facebook doesn't even make most of their money off of advertising. That is really a side gig for them. Facebook's real revenue stream is from selling off personal data to advertisers can use to create more sophisticated advertising campaigns. That is where the real money is.

This is why when you sign up for Facebook your email account later sees a rise in spam. People are buying your personal data, learn about your interests, and then send you spam on topics they think you might buy.

So what does this all mean for Advertisers?

Making a Facebook page for your business now is basically useless unless you are also willing to spend money advertising your Facebook page.

Facebook has effectively killed "organic reach" on their website. The only way you will reach potential customers with your posts is if you pay for it.

That means your Social Media Strategy needs to have advertising money behind it, otherwise you are just wasting your time.

Money + Advertising = Reaching Potential Customers

No Money + Posting for Free = Zero Customers

This is a win-win for Facebook.

It allows them to appear to crack down on businesses so that people who enjoy Facebook will be able to enjoy it for seeing their friends and family more.

And it allows them to increase their advertising revenue by forcing businesses to pay up instead of trying to get free advertising.

10 SEO Tips for 2018

Here are some SEO tips that were relevant for 2018:

1. Mobile Optimization: Ensure your website is mobile-friendly and optimized for mobile devices. Mobile responsiveness is crucial for both user experience and search engine rankings.

2. Page Speed: Improve your website's loading speed. Faster loading times lead to better user experience and higher search engine rankings. Optimize images, use caching, and minimize code to enhance page speed.

3. High-Quality Content: Create valuable, informative, and unique content that is relevant to your target audience. Focus on providing solutions, answering questions, and delivering a great user experience. Content should be well-written, comprehensive, and shareable.

4. Keyword Research: Perform thorough keyword research to identify relevant keywords and phrases. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner to find high-volume keywords with low competition. Incorporate these keywords naturally into your content, titles, headings, and meta tags.

5. On-Page Optimization: Optimize your website's on-page elements. Use descriptive title tags, relevant meta descriptions, and headers that include keywords. Ensure your URL structure is user-friendly and includes targeted keywords.

6. User Experience: Enhance the overall user experience on your website. Make navigation intuitive and user-friendly. Improve the site's architecture, internal linking, and menu structure. Use descriptive anchor text for internal links.

7. Backlink Building: Earn high-quality backlinks from reputable websites. Focus on acquiring links from relevant sources within your industry. Create valuable content that naturally attracts backlinks. Guest posting, social media promotion, and influencer outreach can also help in building backlinks.

8. Social Media Engagement: Leverage social media platforms to engage with your audience, build brand awareness, and generate traffic to your website. Encourage social sharing of your content and make it easy for users to share through social media buttons.

9. Local SEO: If you have a local business, optimize your website for local search. Include your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) on your website and in local directories. Encourage customer reviews and ratings.

10. Monitoring and Analytics: Regularly monitor your website's performance using tools like Google Analytics. Analyze visitor behavior, traffic sources, and keyword performance. Use this data to make informed decisions and optimize your SEO strategy.