Online Reputation Management Strategies
Want to have more control over your business’s online reputation? Many companies have turned to professionals offering expert reputation management strategies which allow their clients to exercise more control over their brand reputation on search engines and social media networks. While it is easy to get a poor reputation without the right management tools, correcting the public’s impression can be much harder. This is why companies have had to develop particular reputation management strategies to help them take action over negative comments and reviews, and to ensure that their brand is not damaged by harmful feedback or content.
Managing reputation
Businesses have to manage their reputation by adapting a number of strategies. These may include:
- Creating better SEO for content published by the company
- Creating company-positive websites, articles and social network profiles, which undermine negative content
- Creating positive online press releases to be published on the company website and on recognized websites in order to generate a better brand presence and reduce negative commentary
- Creating review profiles to cover (or ‘astroturf’) third-party websites with positive reviews
These creative processes can help to reduce the impact of negative results by forcing them into a lower position in search engine rankings.
Other ways to influence company reputation
There are also other strategies that the business, or the professional reputation management company, can pursue in order to reduce the impact of negative content. These may include:
- Requiring take-downs of websites or content that the business believes is libelous
- Providing free samples of new products to popular or celebrity reviewers
- Taking positive steps on customer criticism, including negative feedback or customer complaints
- Encouraging reviews from third-party sites that already rank highly on Google
All of these strategies can provide additional support to a reputation management program.
Unsuitable ways to handle your reputation
While the above strategies are all effective ways to handle your business’s reputation, particularly by reducing the impact of negative content, there are some strategies which are commonly used by companies to reduce negative remarks that are less suitable. These methods are popular and easy to use, but may not be ethical, and could result in controversy if the company’s actions are revealed. These include:
- Creating fake blogs in the name of the critic or negative reviewer
- Using spam bots or DNS attacks to shut down websites with negative content
- Lashing out at negative reviews using fake profiles