Responding to Negative Publicity Online
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In a previous article, I talked about online reputation management. I explained why it’s important to monitor your reputation online and how to do it. I also discussed what you should already be doing to manage your reputation. In this article, I’ll describe what you should do when the worst happens.
There is an old saying that any publicity is good publicity. Even the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie played into that belief; when Captain Jack Sparrow is told that he is the worst pirate someone has ever heard of, he quickly responds "But you HAVE heard of me." Anyone who runs a business, however, knows that this is simply not true; bad publicity is bad publicity, and can cost a large company millions of dollars, to say nothing of goodwill.
The Internet comprises a flood of user-generated content from social sites, blogs, forums, and review sites such as Amazon, TripAdvisor, Yelp and Yahoo Local. If you read my previous article, you know what you need to do to monitor your reputation online. You've set up alerts for your company name, your important brand names, top people within your company, and maybe even a rival or two to keep an eye on the competition. You know that you need to monitor news stories, standard search results, significant sites and blogs in your field, and other areas.
What do you do if something negative comes up? Say a disgruntled customer had a bad experience with your company. It could be something like the finger in the chili rumor associated with Wendy's (which turned out not to be true) or the trouble that Kryptonite locks had on its hands when one of its customers was able to unlock his Kryptonite lock with a pen. You've been monitoring your reputation, so you found out about this situation quickly; that's the two-edged sword behind the fact that negative comments about a company tend to rise to the top of the SERPs very quickly.
The first thing you want to do is analyze the problem. What accusation is being leveled against you or your company? Who or what is making the charge? Is it believable? Is it legitimate? When Wendy's was faced with the finger in the chili rumor, it began an investigation to discover whether the rumor was true, even making public offers of rewards for any information. What you do next depends on what your analysis turns up.
Next: Get the Word Out >>
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