Bell Pottinger’s Collapse Proves “Black Hat” ORM Strategies Won’t Cut It

The collapse of Bell Pottinger shows PR/Crisis Management firms can’t use black hat ORM strategies and win.

Bell Pottinger, a notorious British PR/Crisis Management firm, entered into administration on September 12, collapsing after nearly 20 years in business. The firm had recently been expelled from the U.K.’s PR trade body for its controversial work for the Gupta family in South Africa and accusations that it helped stoke racial tensions in the area. The firm has a long history of taking on controversial clients like former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s foundation, and Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, the dictator of Belarus.

On top of taking on controversial clients, the firm also has a history of using controversial techniques. Specifically, the firm has come under fire for using “black hat” online reputation management tactics to distance their clients from controversy online, including creating and spreading fake news, utilizing Twitter bots to spread false information, gaming Google searches and revising Wikipedia pages to remove unwanted information.

While social media, content marketing and SEO are effective and necessary tools in any modern PR/Crisis Management strategy, Bell Pottinger often tested the limits, routinely violating the terms of service of internet platforms. This habit risks bringing more unwanted attention to the company and its clients, instead of less. For example, in 2011 it attracted scrutiny from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. The Bureau determined that Bell Pottinger had removed negative information from the Wikipedia page for the Uzbek government, which was accused of human rights violations. The firm was also found to have employed “black hat” search engine optimization strategies to drive articles on Uzbek human rights abuses lower in Google search results for the country.

So what should PR/Crisis Management firms make of all this? There are two main takeaways, I believe:

• Online reputation management (ORM) techniques are an important part of any modern major PR strategy, which means firms need to be equipped if they want to compete.
• There is a right way and a wrong way to utilize online reputation management techniques, and if firms aren’t versed in the differences they can end up in major trouble like Bell Pottinger.

My company BrandYourself.com has been a major force in the ORM space for almost a decade. We often partner with Crisis Management and PR firms to help their  clients with online strategies. There are two major lessons we try to communicate to our partners.

1. Online reputation management can’t hide consistent and fundamentally bad behavior : The purpose of ORM is to make sure an online presence isn’t disproportionately dominated by negative, irrelevant or inaccurate information. For example, let’s say your business has been operating for 50 years. Generally speaking you treat your employees and and customers very well. However, one of your newest hires makes a major mistake and mistreats a customer. Once you find out, you address the employee, make good with the customer and put a new system in place to make sure it doesn’t happen again. However, in that time, the customer wrote a terrible review which also got picked up by the local news. Now, whenever people search your business, the results are dominated by this incident, wiping 50 years of good practice off the map. In a case like this, it would make sense to use online reputation management techniques to ensure other results that balance out the incident are visible: stories about how your business reacted to the incident, testimonials from happy customers throughout the years, etc.

Online reputation management is extremely effective in helping people, businesses and brands avoid isolated incidents or crises from forever damaging their life. However, firms are often approached by clients with the impossible task of using ORM to counteract consistently bad behavior. The issue is, if bad behavior is is the norm, online reputation management can’t help because those bad reviews and bad press are relevant and likely to continue cropping up.

We are open about telling potential clients and the firms we partner with whether ORM can be effective or if the issues are too fundamental, rendering strategy a waste of money or time.

2. While it’s tempting to use “black hat” online reputation management techniques to get fast results, they don’t work long term and often backfire: Black hat techniques are techniques that violate the terms of service of Internet platforms in an attempt to manipulate them in your favor. Firms will resort to these for three reasons:

• Client pressure: Clients often want to see results fast and since they don’t understand the techniques involved, they don’t want to hear your long term strategy. In response, firms will utilize black hat techniques because they can work faster. The issue is, they don’t work long term and they often backfire, making things worse. Bell Pottinger is a good example. Here’s a guide on a few ways to explain online reputation management.
• Ignorance: ORM is a relatively new concept, and while clients are requesting it, not all firms are fully equipped. In these cases they’ll partner with a firm without realizing what type of tactics the firm uses. In a worst case scenario they end up in a position they never wanted to be in.
• Greed: Some firms capitalize on the ignorance of others. Because the industry is new and mysterious, they know they can get big paychecks upfront by using black hat techniques for quick results. And we’ve seen this happen before. Eventually this will catch up to them as it has for Bell Pottinger and many firms before it.

Advice for brands and for firms who want to use ORM techniques

By now it’s clear that while online reputation management is needed for a modern day PR campaign, firms and clients need to be careful who they work with and what techniques they utilize. Using the wrong techniques can put you in a worse place than when you started. Here’s some advice before hiring or partnering with an ORM firm.

• Ask for a transparent plan: Firms should be able to explain exactly what they’re doing and what it means. If a firm is vague about how they plan to help, there’s a good chance you’ll be in trouble down the line. Make sure they’re using best practices and avoiding black hat techniques. You can use our free guide to learn about best practices.
• Ask for specific examples of past work. They should be able to provide 6 or 7 case studies of work they’ve done. Firms that can’t provide case studies probably don’t have long term results to stand behind.
• Ask to sit down or speak with the team who will be doing the actual work. You should be able to sit down with the entire team of people who will be writing content, developing websites, tweaking SEO strategy, etc. If they can't do this, it's a good indication that you aren't getting high quality work.

Hold yourself and your team accountable

When it comes to online reputation management, it’s imperative that you choose the right firm and use the right techniques. Unfortunately, choosing the right ORM firm isn’t always that easy when high-profile companies like Bell Pottinger exercise controversial techniques for short term gains (in spite of the negative long term effects). If you’re even a little unsure of what strategies you should use or which firms are trustworthy and effective, do more research, and demand a higher standard for your own brand and that of your clients.