How to Deal with Negative Publicity

Business today rely tremendously on media reviews and feedback. This is what they use in order to build a positive reputation. Unfortunately, they cannot control what other people say, and this means their reputation can be damaged as well. If that happens, they must engage in online reputation repair to resolve the issue.

What Causes a Poor Review?

There are a number of reasons as to why someone may receive a negative review, including a poor service or product. It is equally possible that someone simply has an axe to grind, or that they are an online troll who pick a business and go on the attack. Similarly, the competition could pay someone to leave negative reviews in an effort to undermine them and win over their customers. Either way, these reviews have a serious negative impact on a brand, and this, in turn, leads to loss of customers and loss of revenue. Hence, it is vital that businesses deal with negative reviews quickly, and correctly.

All businesses now operate online, which means that online reputation management is a vital skill for them to have. In fact, most businesses rely on getting new customers through the major search engines, including Google, Bing, and Yahoo!. If, when people search for a business, negative things come up on those search engines, they are likely to quickly go elsewhere. Unfortunately, complaints can be left in a variety of different places, and not just on a business’ own website, blog, or social media profile, which can make it difficult to have control over what is being said.

How to Deal with Negative Reviews

There is no way that you can avoid getting negative reviews. You can, however, follow the next few steps to mitigate any damage:

  1. Find out what the problem is. Know where negative reviews are being left and by whom.
  2. Plan a strategy on how to deal with the issue. This means researching the competition and why they aren’t receiving complaints, what your customers’ needs are, and so on. This strategy is your blueprint towards solving the issue, so take your time to get it right.
  3. Work on search engine optimization (SEO) to get things you want people to see to the top of the search engine results, and in reverse SEO to push the negative things out there away from the first page of the search engines.
  4. Evaluate what you have done and whether it has work, and enhance your strategy for the next time.

The above points should help you not just manage your reputation, but repair it as well. However, it isn’t easy and requires quite a lot of knowledge on optimization processes. This is why it is better to work with a reputation management company, who can monitor your reputation around the clock, train you on how to professionally respond to complaints, and help to repair your reputation if it has been damaged. They do this through tools such as social business networking, social media optimization, press releases, and so on.

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