Modern businesses are too much dependent on feedback and media reviews. It creates a reputation among their potential customers. However, sometimes organizations have to face negative publicity.
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The major causes of negative publicity are:
Negative publicity caused by above factors has adverse effects on brand image of the targeted organization. It may result in loss of customers and revenues. Therefore, dealing with negative feedback and wrong publicity is a major problem for organizations.
Online reputation management is a crucial need for e-Businesses. Most of them are dependent on traffic diverted by major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. So, if they have negative feedback or rip-off reports posted on consumer complaints website, their potential consumer gets distracted. It's a huge loss for e-Business owners.
Online Reputation Management - The Process of Dealing with Online Negative Publicity
The process of dealing with online negative publicity is referred as online reputation management. It's a long term process involving several proven Search Engine Optimization techniques and manual actions taken in order to remove/distract negative feedback from major search engines.
The process involves following important steps:
Discovery of problems - This is the first step which involves around finding all instances of negative feedback and complaints appearing on top search engine results like Google. Later the main cause behind the problem is identified.
Planning a strategy - Once the details of negative feedback and rip-off reports along with their sources are finalized, the strategy of dealing with problem is planned. It includes thorough research of competitors in niche business area, analyzing potential customers need, and further action plan. This is the blueprint of whole reputation management campaign, so it needs to be accurate and addressing all essential aspects of campaign.
Internal and External Optimization - After completion of planning process, actual work starts. It involves optimization of both internal and external aspects of website. Primary keywords assessment, META tags & code optimization of website, online promotion, press/news release distribution, social business networking and social media optimization are some of the primary actions taken in order to remove all instances of negative feedback from major search engines.
Evaluation and Enhancements - Periodic evaluation of online reputation management campaign is essential. It helps in finding out the progress of actions taken. If required, additional actions are taken to accelerate the process as and when needed.
Press Release/News Release submission, Social Media optimization, and Social Business Networking are the key needs of reputation management campaigns. In summary, it is not a cup of tea for everyone. It requires professional expertise and knowledge of searching mechanism of major search engines.
So, if required, organizations facing bad online reputation should hire the services of expert reputation management service providers.
Online reputation is all about perception. What do people think of you? How do they view your business? Are they sharing positive experiences or negative ones?
If you can find out what your customers think BEFORE they decide to post online you can limit bad reviews and ratings and increase your percentage of good reviews.
We all have a good idea of what the word reputation means: what people think of us, how they view our business, what people are saying about us.
Here is a definition from the Merriam-Website dictionary:
1a: overall quality or character as seen or judged by people in general
1b: recognition by other people of some characteristic or ability
Jane has the reputation of being clever
2: a place in public esteem or regard: good name
Joe is trying to protect his reputation
To manage one's online reputation means to be aware of and control the things people are saying about you online.
It's always been important to know what people think of your business. Do patients or customers like you? Do they think you're doing a good job? Is there some employee who is rude who's turning people away?
It used to take surveys and extensive market research programs to find out what people thought about Krisenkommunikation your business. Consumer research groups would gather consumers together and chat about products or businesses. This was one way of obtaining more data.
And if one customer was unhappy that usually affected on that one person and perhaps several of their closest friends. But... no more.
However, in the past, word never spread as quickly nor remained as fixed as it does now. And, instead of checking with a couple of friends to get a review or rating, people check online.
Yelp, Amazon, and the various other industry specific sites such as Vitals, TripAdvisor and Restaurant.com are some of the "go-to" places for those seeking advice on what products to buy or services to use.
Unfortunately, the majority of people are inspired to write reviews when they're upset. For every negative rating placed online, there are dozens of happy customers who feel that getting a quality product or great service should be just the norm - so why say anything.
Most reputation management companies think only in terms of how to get more reviews.
While this is important, what you really need to do as a professional or business owner is to CONTROL YOUR REPUTATION.
This is real Reputation Management.