The Importance of Brand Reputation Management (Post on Optimum7)
No matter how exceptional your company, products or services, if your online presence is weak your online reputation is at risk. There is no shortage of individuals who love to use controversy to generate traffic they can monetize or to make themselves feel more powerful – at your expense.
The fewer search engine listings (serps) you have now, the easier it is for bad publicity to affect your sales and reputation. Someone with very little real influence can dominate the serps for your company name – if you don’t have any coverage already there – leaving you to scramble for new content to reduce their influence.
Even the best people and companies will have detractors. The best defense is a strong offense! Make sure your company has multiple listings in the search engines for your company name, products, brands, makes and models, key personnel and your most important keyword phrases.
Existing listings insulate your from attacks by power-happy individuals with little influence and dilute the negative impact influential writers can have.
How important is your reputation? Read Why You Should Google Your Name Right Now for more reasons why this matters and what you can do about it.
You may find this Online Reputation Infographic created by Digimind which I first saw on Brand Strategist Wayne Sutton’s blog:
Every brand – and that includes bloggers and consultants who accept clients – should have a reputation management plan. Here are some posts to get you started:
- Epic Launch: Online Reputation Management Basics
- Kudzu Biz Success: Ten Tactics That Could Save Your Online Reputation
- ReachCast Blog: #Fail: 10 Online Reputation Management Mistakes from 2010
What if you still end up with a PR Nightmare on your hands? When a Reputation Management Crisis hits, don’t panic. First be sure to evaluate the actual influence the negative information has on its own.
CRITICAL: If THEY have little influence don’t hand them any of yours!
Many people who like to stir up controversy do not actually have many readers or followers. When that is true, DO NOT respond to them publicly, retweet what they have to say, or write about the issue. Do attempt to reply where they raised the issue – and do not be surprised if your replies never get approved or acknowledged.
Do monitor the situation so that is if becomes more widely public you can immediately respond, preferably on sites where you can control what happens to what you publish such as your blog. Be calm, clear and present your side of the story – there is ALWAYS more than one side.
Be polite and apologize if there is indeed a misunderstanding or any mistakes on your end. Do your best to resolve the situation. If the other side is not interested in a resolution, state your position including your attempts at resolution and stop participating in further discussions.
Carefully read anything new that pops up and lean towards NOT replying unless there is a very good reason to add additional details. The less energy you add the sooner the problem will fade away. Focus on creating positive content. If the person who created the issue is very powerful you may even want to keep a lower profile than usual, but do what you can to get new search engine listings above them in the search engines.
If you have a strong positive reputation and many fans in the online community let them defend you. Bloggers can be beneficial friends to quality businesses, coming to their defense IF they deserve it.
Developing relationships between bloggers and businesses in specific niches and locations benefits them and the public too. Once you have those relationships (or know a blogger who does), you can quickly raise visibility for new projects, products or increase content roll-out to handle any PR challenges that arise.
Wise bloggers are very selective about linking to or writing about businesses and products. Businesses should be equally selective about choosing bloggers who have influence and are professional in their actions and what they write. New ways for measuring blog influence are being developed as are ways to identify Social Media Influence.
Research shows that Blog Influence On Consumer Purchases Surpasses Social Networks and that influence will grow as bloggers learn to geo-target specific niches. My prediction for 2011 is that blog outreach between businesses and bloggers will grow exponentially.
The fast path for businesses to connect with bloggers is to create relationships with bloggers like me. Because we spend so much time on Social Networks and collaborating with other bloggers we already know which bloggers write in which locations and niches and what types of businesses they would consider collaborating with versus which would never be a good fit.
Businesses are invited to contact me for referrals, additional information or answers.
Related articles
- How You Can Restore Your Online Reputation (ronmedlin.com)
- Why You Should Repair Your Online Reputation (ronmedlin.com)
- Strategies on How to Protect Your Online Reputation (ronmedlin.com)
- Online Reputation – What Is it and Why Does it Matter? (pamil-visions.net)
- Restore Brand Reputation And Subjugate Upset Ex-employee Libel And Defamation Off Of The Web (ronmedlin.com)
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This is a great post on what to do about RESPONDING to negative comments. I also agree when you state that you should look at the effect of what they are saying but still address the issue that was brought up, even if they really don’t have any information to back up what they are saying.
So many people want to attack back with something negative when that is only going to hurt their own brand. You bring up very helpful ways for anyone to be able to respond to a negative comment while being professional at the same time.
I would highly recommend for anyone to set up Google Alerts. This will email you when Google indexes new pages containing keywords you select. Use your brand as a keyword, and you’ll know immediately when something new hits the net.
Twitter: calindaniel
October 1, 2011 at 2:58 pm
I think you raise a really really important point (ie. If THEY have little influence don’t hand them any of yours!). Many companies will see a negative comment and respond with full force without properly evaluating the situation.
SEO Calgary Consultant would love you to read ..SEO Infographic
A bad reputation in the my industry is like a nail in the coffin. Reputation is everything so it will be interesting to see how companies try to battle the “openness” of the web.
Calgary Impaired Driving Lawyer would love you to read ..As Soon As Practicable: Effect of Forsythe (MCA)(2009)
Choosing a brand is very important, it’s like leaving behind one’s signature. It’s so important that no surprise, online brand reputation has become very popular and has created an impact on internet marketing.
Build a good brand is possible in a crowded market , but building a recognized bard without new innovation is very difficult. you need to do something radically different than the other guys to stand out. On top of that you run the risk of the other guys copying your innovation.
Twitter: http://www.redlineinteractive.com
February 5, 2011 at 2:23 am
It’s really hard to build a business reputation in this crowded market but it is still possible, though maintaining it or uplifting it would even be harder. And I believe that one great tool in managing our reputation is through online marketing strategies. Thanks for the Post!
People who start controversies just don’t have any other useful things to do with their lives. They find it a bit easy to just trample others along the way for their brands to be more stable. Well, they deserve no attention at all and you wouldn’t want to go down their level by replying to whatever stuffs they throw at you. For as long as you know what you are doing and you know that it’s the right thing i guess you will be just fine. Thanks for this post by the way.
dui defense would love you to read ..ROR Sitemap for http-wwwcaliforniaduihelpcom-
Twitter: http://www.californiaduihelp.com/california_dmv/dmv_consequences_second_offense.php
January 26, 2011 at 7:27 pm
It really makes me feel bad to be aware of this reality around us. People can already do “anything” just to get to the top. It’s just sad that others may do it at the expense of others. Well, if you have strong brand name, there’s nothing to worry about bad publicities. May it be good or bad, it is still publicity so you just have to make the most out of it. The most important thing to do is to know how to handle these situations in such a way that you will always be in a win-win situation. And what can be more effective than the online world to establish a strong brand name? People should already work with the most reliable and strong social networking sites now to be noticed. Well, that’s life, sometimes you have to take risks and face the consequences of your actions – a concept we can apply to branding and any other aspects of online-related business. Thanks for the post by the way.
David would love you to read ..ROR Sitemap for http-wwwcaliforniaduihelpcom-
I believed that branding is one of the most important consideration for most businesses.It is tone thing that represents the company and differentiate it from other company.Thus, it always necessary to protect and maintain it. Thanks for sharing us the tips on how to do it so.Keep posting great articles.
antonette would love you to read ..ROR Sitemap for http-wwwcaliforniaduihelpcom-
It’s the 1st time I’ve heard about Reputation Manager, but you are right. Like you said: social networks are very important, Facebook, Twitter, etc. They keep you connected with the users and the users connected with you. It’s very hard to achieve reputation and it takes lot of time and hard wok, but to lose it – it takes only a few seconds and it’s very hard to regain it. Cheers!
latief would love you to read ..Frontline Top Spot For Dogs And Cats Review
This is interesting. I think you have to be carefully select your marketing strategy in order to make your Brand image going in the right-way. Some strategy can harm your Brand even it it brought some leads, which is not worth it.
Blogging is a community. It helps to be part of that community, so the others kn0w you and can defend you.
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