How Technology Can Affect Your Brand >>
I received an email from a colleague who heard about our WTF (Where To Focus) Workshops stating there was a weird Google warning popping up across our website advising visitors to be careful about being on our site. Charming.
Apparently someone decided to place some “malware” on our server and compromised our code by placing an automatic download on anybody’s computer that visited 3 Degrees West. Ya, all priorities that day came to a halt and Karley and I urgently began investigating this nonsense. We were obviously concerned about the security of our visitors but also we were greatly concerned for the negative impact this intrusion would have on our brand.
We immediately placed a fun dead bird on a wire image up on the site and made light of the “doofuses” that did this to us, while we stripped the code and cleaned all permissions on the site and server files.
I had no idea that fixing the site would just be the start of the journey to brand redemption. Ugh.
When I went on to Twitter to earn sympathy from my fellow tweeters for this incredible inconvenience, I discovered my Twitter account had been suspended! Apparently the malware affected a Twitter program and as such I was banned from tweeting and continue to be right now (god, help me).
As far as engaging Google’s trust again for our site and removing any messaging about our site, we have to go through the site review process again and this takes time. I have resubmitted the site and I am concerned how this will affect our search standings which we worked so hard on to improve with our newest website update. **I have a vision of a 30 something person, isolated in their home computer dungeon, spouts of evil laughing at his/her destruction**
Anyways, I won’t even try to understand why someone does this type of thing, obviously it must be for some twisted sense of adventure, losers.
So, as I am always trying to find the upside in a negative situation (once the emotion wears off, of course); we discovered we were not being indexed by Google Sitemaps in the investigation process and as such, have now implemented that for our site. (Take that, malware messenger!)
The ripple effect on our brand from the Twitter suspension and Google Site review is unknown, but it is definately a reminder that technology can affect your brand, at your hand, or others.
Tags: 3 Degrees West, Branding, Google, malware, Marketing, sandy gerber, search engine optimization, Technology, Twitter