I was wondering how long it would take someone to pick that up. I’m not sure to be honest. My parents think she may be a very distant cousin, but I’ve never met them.

Good question Ruud. I can’t imagine I’d do too much different to the reputation management text book, namely:

1. Create a home base micro site with the facts of the case from a club/league perspective to counter the girl’s claims
2. Create a PPC campaign around all the relevant topical keywords and point it to the site
3. Respond officially in each of the social channels being utilised by the girl to ensure people have a chance to see both sides of the story. This was their main downfall in my opinion. This is a little leftfield, but I’d also have considered creating a video from the innocent players to document how their life had been affected.
4. Attempt to take issue offline by building a real relationship with the girl. I suspect that’s what the player agent attempted to do, yet evidently got a little too close…

Sounds indeed like a familiar theme, LKJ. I haven’t studied the particulars of this case but I wouldn’t be surprised if the girl was upset with the way her relation was going with the team member. On the other hand it would be very un-PC too to automatically assume she’s the helpless victim and the player the mean perpetrator.

How would we be discussing this case if the player had released nude photos of the girl?

From where I look at it, this social media crisis was most damaging to the girl who created it.

Impressed with the amount of care they’ve taken in several fields already, James. And no, I don’t think they or anyone could have foreseen this particular case or issue. But it strikes me that the variables of the case are such that an issue like this almost *must* be caused. Then again, it’s hard to manage sexual attraction and to stipulate all cases where the club would be less than thrilled.

Curious: had you been the social media manager on this case, what would you suggest they’d done?

They were leaders in abolishing racism from the sports field in the mid 90’s via their racial vilification policy:

http://aflpa.com.au/articleimage/afl-racial-religious-vilification-policy

They have also developed the most strigent drugs testing policy in the country:

http://www.afl.com.au/tabid/13144/Default.aspx?newsId=66504

And ironically, they also have a policy and program relating to the treatment of women:

http://www.afl.com.au/Portals/0/afl_docs/R_R_Policy.pdf

So I’d say that the AFL has been proactive in managing their reputation in general. However, I think it’s safe to say they’re less savvy when it comes to the web, and were unprepared for this scenario. Having said that, I’m not sure who could ever have forseen this type of situation occuring…

Without going into the moral area of the story — I’m not familiar with the laws and principles in Australia — I think it underscores that (online & offline) business reputation management should start before it descends into reputation containment management.

The company should have a reputation management policy in place which suggests approved, expected, encouraged behaviour and draws lines around what is discouraged.

That’s hard to do for things that are legal, as in this case where no laws were broken apart from the potential drug case, but maybe a company can then signal “this is where we will help and this is where we won’t and just cut you loose”.

What do you think?