I was reading some news today of various scandalous activities from companies where the claim is when people started to research more into the topic it seemed like there was a procedure in place to scrub all information about various employees. For example, LinkedIn profiles all of sudden being taken down or even accusations of platforms such as Google delisting sites that have the information people wee seeking. There are always archives of course somewhere as people began to dig up information that way.
While that raises an ethics question, it is interesting to think about from a business perspective how some companies invest heavily in media and social platforms in an effort to try and control information such as bad press. This is beyond just hiring a PR firm as it requires building relationships with influential businesses and executives to be able to request say information takedown upon request.
This is obviously something that only a large corporation has resources for. From a marketing point of view too it shows you what you are going against if you are trying to get your product or service in the spotlight. Even if what you have is superior the other person may have that advantage of having those established relationships already which they wouldn’t want to burn.
Imagine it being used the other way where all of a sudden so many different sources begin to talk negative about your products and services. I guess that would show the importance of diversifying what platforms you use to help communicate your messages such as finding those ones that are more neutral. Even if they may not be as big of a platform, you can use all the support you can get.