My business partner Yael K. Miller and I were meeting with the head of three companies regarding using social media to connect with the target markets of these companies.
Immediately after the meeting Yael and I talked with an employee. He showed us the website of one of the companies. Yael noticed there were porn links at the bottom of the site, which meant it had been hacked.
Yes, this employee said, the site had been hacked several times. He then showed Yael the dashboard of this WordPress site.
She immediately realized that perhaps the main reason the site continued to be hacked was that the plugins and the WordPress software itself had NOT been updated, leaving the site vulnerable to hacking.
When Yael pointed this out to the employee, he was unconcerned. The site was soon to be replaced, he said.
Yet, as we walked away, Yael couldn’t get over that the employee would care so little about the company’s reputation that he hadn’t immediately contacted whoever was responsible for the site in order to get it updated immediately and the porn links removed.
And what actually bothered her more was that the parent company (a prominent online company) would also care so little that it didn’t keep this site updated.
Why write a post about this?
It’s a cautionary tale about being complacent about your brand and your website. Just like your car or any other machine that has movable parts, your website needs continual vigilance to ensure its effective functioning.
You undoubtedly spend a lot of time working on your company’s reputation. Do NOT let that reputation be tarnished by ignoring the “little things.”
© 2010 Miller Mosaic, LLC
Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) and her business partner Yael K. Miller (@MillerMosaicLLC on Twitter) are committed to taking the mystery out of social media so that individuals and companies can utilize the power of social media to attract more business. See their Quick Start Social Media Track.
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