Managing your Company’s Online Reputation

Before the internet had become what it is today, if a client had a bad experience with your company, they would complain to their friends about it and that’s about it.  These days, anyone can go online and participate in a character assassination campaign that could most definitely effect how your company is viewed by the public, both current and prospective clients, and cost you a lot of money.  It’s virtually impossible to calculate the amount of money that can be lost by being on the receiving end of this type of situation. 

There are Online Reputation Management companies that you can hire to help you with this, or you can attempt to do it yourself.  Let’s assume that you don’t want to go the route of hiring a company to help you with your company’s reputation.  The following are some suggestions in trying to get a handle on the bad publicity about you or your company that has been posted online for all to see.

The first step is to simply do a Google search on your company’s name to see what comes up, if you haven’t done so already.  Know what you’re up against and see what’s already out there.  Even if there isn’t currently anything bad written about your company in online forums, that doesn’t mean that it will stay that way.  The best thing to do is to create an account on Google Alerts.  This is a free service that Google offers that allows you to enter a word, phrase or name and you will receive an email alert every time it becomes visible to Google.  Once you create a Google Alert for your company’s name, every time someone mentions your company online, whether it be good or bad, Google will send you an email with the source for you to inspect.

Once you’ve identified the bad publicity, the next step is to see if you could respond.  There are a few common ways that the average person can complain about your company online: blogs, review sites, online forums, news groups, comment fields, social networking websites, etc.  If someone really has a vendetta against you or your company, they could go as far as purchasing the domain name, “YourCompanySucks.com”. 

In most cases, it may be impossible to have certain statements removed from the sites they’re on.  The only way to have content removed is if it violates the site’s terms of service.  Review the site’s terms of service carefully to determine if the offender has violated them in any way.  If they have, report them to the site immediately to have the content removed.

If the statement is extremely damaging but whatever site it’s been posted on refuses to remove it, consider the possibility of taking the exact wording of the statement and copyrighting it yourself.  Chances are, whoever made the statement just typed it out of anger or frustration.  You can copyright text fairly cost effectively with LegalZoom.  Once you have the legal document stating that you are the owner of that statement, the site will have no choice other than to take it down or they will be in violation of copyright infringement.  This can be done with images as well.

If this tactic is not applicable, the only other way to make negative statements about your company less visible is to push them down further in the search engine result pages.  This means replacing the damaging content with more positive content.  You can do this by flooding the internet with new content about your company.  Write articles and press releases about your company and post them on the many article and press release submission sites that are available.  Most of them are free.  You can also start a blog and add more content about your company there.  The more information that you put about your company online, the more it will push everything else down in the search engine result pages.  Most people don’t go past the first or second result page when they do a search.  This could be a viable solution to at least minimizing the chances of anyone coming across the negative statements.

If someone posts a negative comment on a site that gives you the opportunity to respond, do so in a respectful and sensible way.  If you choose your words wisely and come across as being sincere and genuine, it will add credibility to your company and possibly even discredit the bad remark that was previously made.  Don’t engage in battle with any of the offenders on these online forms.  It will only make matters worse.

If you identify a negative statement about your company online that is seriously damaging, you also may want to consult with an attorney to see if the offender has violated any defamation laws.  If they have, you may be able to take legal action against them and/or the site that the statement is on.

For more information regarding online reputation management, call Ashlar Consulting Corporation at 305-849-9399 or visit www.AshlarConsultingCorp.com.