Community Development

It’s ok to admit that you have been keeping up with the Kardashians. Between the magazine covers, the reality TV show and their social media activity, it can be pretty hard not to. Ever since Kim brought the Kardashian name back into the spotlight, all eyes have been on the entire family. But what does all of this have to do with reputation management? Believe it or not, Kim is pretty darn good at reputation management. If you watch closely, you will see how well she manages her reputation in the dog eat dog world of Hollywood. Don’t believe me? Here are five lessons you can learn from Kim Kardashian herself.

1. Monitor Your Reputation

Monitoring your reputation is more than important. How can you possibly expect to manage your reputation when you don’t know what it is? It is important to use tools, both online and offline, to monitor sentiment and conversations about your brand. What do people really think of you? Kim is an expert at monitoring her reputation. Unlike many celebrities who are put off by the stories they read about themselves in magazines, she keeps a close eye on the media. She admits to frequently reading gossip magazines, fan forums and random tweets to get a better idea of how people see her.

While there is a certain amount of personal gratification in becoming influential in the social networking realm, there can be a few extra perks involved. How does a free flight sound? Virgin America is among the first brands to recognize that there is more than a little mutual benefit in rewarding those social network users who have climbed the ladder of influence. In fact, they have geared several contests towards those top users in their latest social media strategy. Announced in mid-2010, Virgin America offered a free flight to top Twitter influencers in Toronto and San Francisco, based upon their Klout ratings. While the winning users were not strictly required to tweet about their flight or the free wireless access onboard, it was still modeled as a company promotion of their new daily flight plan from LAX and SFO to Toronto. The giveaway was a herald to Virgin America's launch in Toronto, and they likened the contest to receiving a sample while shopping at the grocery store. While it may seem counterintuitive to offer such opulent rewards and require so little of entrants, it's not as strange as it sounds. In social media theory, it's less about marketing and a lot more about customer engagement. It can sound forced to require a promotional tweet from the winner, something that might have negative repercussions on the brand. On the other hand, to simply bank on their excitement in winning the contest all but guarantees more than a few mentions of the brand to their followers.