# Managing your brand in a digital world

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2013/03/15/managing-your-brand-digital-world/
- Published: 2013-03-15T12:36:17+00:00
- Author: Vicky Reeves

**I went to a very enjoyable breakfast seminar by CharityComms about managing risk
and reputation. There were two great speakers with Jill McCall, Senior Brand Manager
at Cadbury’s and Adrian Thomas, Head of External Relations from the British Red 
Cross.**

I found it especially interesting as it is increasingly challenging to manage your
organisation’s brand within the social media world we are now in. As Adrian said“
Brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room” – That room is 
online and widely accessible to anyone and everyone who wants to listen or join 
in!

There was a lot of great content shared by the speakers, but there were a few key
summary points I took away and wanted to share are below:

## Advertisement

 

## On your brand

 * Keep your product at the heart of your marketing and brandIt’s important to remember
   why people buy from you or support you. This can get lost sometimes. The whole
   horsemeat scandal has happened because the product owners got too far removed
   from their product
 * Have clear brand values
 * What does your organisation or your product stand for?
 *  Build an open & diverse culture
    - Brand values should not live just on a powerpoint created by marketing team.
      The values need to go all the way down the chain. Everyone in the organisation,
      plus volunteers, suppliers and other parties involved all need to live the
      brand values. It’s important that staff also feel comfortable to highlight
      risks or issues.
 *  

## Handling negative issues from via social media

When handling an issue it’s important to follow the 3 key rules: Be 1. Open, 2. 
Honest, 3. Responsive. With social media and the press it can be easy for something
to snowball out of proportion. Therefore when responding it’s important to:

 * Be responsive not defensive
     
 * Be transparent
     
 * Use humour if appropriate
     
 * Apologise, if you are to blame
     
 * Know your audience

All organisations are open to their reputations being challenged, it doesn’t matter
whether it’s a charity or a commercial organisation.

There is a [storify](http://storify.com/londonkirsty/brand-breakfast-managing-risk-and-reputation)
kindly put together by [@LondonKirsty](http://twitter.com/LondonKirsty) from the
seminar for those who’d like to read more from the seminar.

 

_Vicky Reeves is MD of charity sector digital communications agency [Chameleon](http://www.chameleon.eu)_

 

 

 

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 * **[Why running it like a business is no longer an option for charities](https://fundraising.co.uk/2016/04/29/running-like-business-no-longer-option-charities/)**(
   29 April 2016)