In life, your reputation is something you should hold dear. In the blogging realm, it could mean the difference between a well received blog and a clunker. Sometimes a bad reputation can breed success (usually in a niche market, see John Chow), but it can lead to death of your brand if not handled correctly.

How do you recover from a well-publicized reputation hit?

I have looked to one of my idols, Bear Grylls, and the way he and his team handled his reputation hit in order to showcase some tried and true methods to regaining the trust of your audience.

For those who do not know, Bear Grylls is the host of the television show Man vs Wild. He has an extraordinary list of accomplishments including being the youngest Briton to climb to the summit of Mt. Everest and survive the trip down. He is charismatic, dynamic, and is an excellent speaker. Originally, the premise of the show was that of a survival expert being placed difficult situations with a 5 day window to reach civilization. It made for outstanding drama, and great entertainment. Bear would showcase his exceptional survival skills in the face of what appeared to be grave danger. A camera crew would follow but according to the introduction, they were only instructed to help in life and death situations. It was staged to appear in real time, and in a documentary format.

It also was a little too good to be true. Reports started surfacing about the staging of events and the fact he would receive assistance while filming these episodes. He was branded a fraud, Discovery Channel pulled the show off the air, and he was bashed all over the blogging and talk show realms. His reputation had taken a serious hit, and while it was in my opinion unfair, the damage had been done.

The problem with being labeled dishonest or fraudulent is that almost all other aspects of you reputation are now considered non-valid, at least to those who do not invest the time to know the full story behind the label. Most of what happened to Bear he had no control over. He didn’t edit the show, he just did what was needed to make the show entertaining from his end. There was no dispute that he was putting himself in difficult situations, or that his skills at surviving were exceptional. People were more fixated, however, on the fact that this gorge he just scaled without a rope or climbing equipment was near civilization and not isolated as the shows editing made it appear. The focus on him doing extraordinary things was completely lost.

So rather than running from this whole situation, Bear Grylls and the those associated with the show did some proper damage control. All the previous shows were re-edited to make sure that events that were stage were disclosed. New voice over spots also helped explain to people that these situations are controlled and there are people standing by to assist if need be. Producers behind the show identified that although some events may have been staged, Bear’s exceptional way of selling the situations is what made the show entertaining. After some careful re-branding, the show is now more of a survival ‘how-to’ guide and Bear’s reputation has been restored. The show is more popular than ever.

As a blogger, what can I take from this story?

If you feel your reputation has taken a hit, the first thing that has to happen is you need to identify the problem and correct it. In Man Vs Wild’s case, the problem was the producers didn’t trust that Bear Grylls’ survival skills and visual storytelling would be enough of a selling point for the viewer. They decided the make the show seem more dramatic by creating the whole ‘trapped in the wild, needing to find civilization’ storyline. It backfired on them when it came to light some events were staged. They immediately took steps to correct this. If you are an excellent writer, trust your content and your ability to storytell.
While rebuilding your reputation you need to focus on the positives. While the way they branded the show at the beginning was misleading, the show itself was entertaining. When you have a good product, you can take the occasional hit. After the show was re-branded, more of an emphasis was placed on Bear and the things he does, and this made the show more successful than ever. The producers focused on the positive while handling the negative accordingly.

When I was moonlighting across America as a rock singer, I heard the same thing over and over again. All publicity is good publicity. That is not entirely true. Bad publicity can destroy your reputation. But if you carefully spin the bad publicity, you can use it as a boon to bring traffic or new readers to your blog.