Online Reputation Management
Time, money, and effort are spent in improving visibility on the web. Unfortunately for some companies, not all the publicity is good. In certain cases, bad publicity is the result of disgruntled employees, slander from the competition, or simply unsatisfied customers. They take advantage of the ease of publishing content online to attack your reputation. If you happen to encounter an especially malicious individual or company, the adverse impact on your business can be great. So what can you do in this case? The answer lies in online reputation management.
Displacing Negative Search Results
For many, their first instinct is to get rid of negative search results through aggressive search engine optimisation efforts. This method might treat the symptoms but it does not eliminate the problem completely. Tarnished brand image is a public relations issue and it destroys relationship between the company and its customers. Companies should do more than displace negative search results though because it leaves them running after the culprits instead of being in a position of control.
Damage control is difficult to implement. Take note that aside from traditional search results, the World Wide Web is now heavily reliant on social media. That means that user-generated content plays a bigger role more than ever. Websites like YouTube, blog search engines, and social news sites like Digg also crawl the web for information about your company. If a member of their community is disgruntled for one reason or another, you might suffer the consequences.
What You Can Do
First of all, remember that prevention is better than cure. In this regard, it is important to monitor all comments, suggestions, and opinions about your company on the internet. Some of the things you need to monitor regularly include: (1) Brands, (2) Company, (3) Products, and (4) Executives. Be aware of modifiers like scam and associated words.
There are various types of content to monitor. Special focus should be made to monitor news reports, standard search results, social media tags, blogs, and forums. Major search engines like Google and Yahoo typically provide alerts if you want notifications about certain search terms.
Treating the Cause of the Problem
Once the object of negative commentary has been identified, there are simple ways to deal with it effectively.
- Look into the situation - is your company at fault?
- If yes, try to reach a settlement
- If no, ask for corrections
- Respond by commenting or writing about it on your company blog
- Be as informative as possible
Obviously, every company wants to protect their brand image online and offline. All digital communications including investor relations, PR, marketing, and human resource is typically publicly available these days. Putting all these information on the Web may not necessarily put the firm in a position of control but it enables consumers to perceive the company as transparent.
