Your on TikTok and you see there’s an ex girlfriend or employee who is making you look bad with defaming content. Can this go viral you wonder? What if it does? What if this affects business, my family, future relationships? All of this is a possible and it can all be fixed. Your reputation is something to take serious and promoting your positives is not a question anymore it’s a neccessity with all the crazies in the world today.
A good brand reputation is an asset that is much more valuable than the tangible assets owned by a company. This is because investors, suppliers, and customers usually look at a brand’s reputation before deciding to do business with the company. Therefore, business owners need to invest in reputation management services. If some customers and “experts” have written negative reviews and offered low ratings to a company for one reason or another, brand reputation and image can be adversely affected. By taking proactive steps to counter the negative press, you will improve your brand’s reputation. Fortunately, many companies have specialized in reputation repair services.
What Damages the Reputation of a Brand?
1. Negative Reviews
There are two types of reviews online. These are customer reviews and expert reviews. Customer reviews are written by customers after experiencing the quality of service offered by a company. If they are happy with the product or service, they can write positive reviews. If not, they offer negative reviews. On the other hand, expert reviews are made by professionals who are experts in the industry after sampling a product or service offered by a company. In addition to customer and expert reviews, there are also malicious reviews written by competitors and their agents to try and taint the image of their competitors.
2. Ratings
After using a given service or buying a product, customers usually have a chance to give feedback by rating the product or service. They can give a 5-star rating if they are very pleased with the product or service, or half a star if they are displeased with the same. The best brands usually have consistently high ratings so the overall rating maybe 5 stars. If many customers offer consistently low ratings, the reputation of the brand will be adversely affected.
3. Lawsuits
When many cases are filed against a company, its reputation will be adversely affected. Nobody gets sued for nothing, so potential customers, investors, and suppliers will exercise caution when dealing with your brand, and this will harm your reputation. While there are malicious lawsuits, having many cases pending in court is never a good sign.
4. Negative News Articles
Newspapers and magazines usually have business columns where they look at different types of businesses and publish information that may be helpful to the public. They can write about a lawsuit your company is currently facing, recent bad experiences customers had, and anything else they may consider important for their readers. Having negative news articles published online can harm your brand.
How Reputation Repair Services Work
A reputation management company specializes in repairing the reputation of a brand. It is important to note that if the reputation of a brand cannot be repaired effectively, rebranding may be considered. The process may be costly, but it can save a company a lot of money in the long run.
Reputation management companies use different strategies to repair a brand’s reputation, including:
1. Asking Google to Remove Malicious Content
If a news article, social media comment, or company review contains wrong information that may be considered malicious, Google and other search engines can remove the content. Search engines have strict terms and conditions that should be adhered to by users. If someone breached their terms of use when uploading content about your brand, the reputation management company will have the content removed from the internet. The alternative is to remove the content from the search engine’s indexes, which means the content may be available online, but nobody can find it.
2. Contacting the Publisher
Once negative content about your brand has been uploaded online, the first thing you should try to do is contact the publisher and ask them to remove the negative content. News agencies are always willing to remove negative content if the affected company can show that the information published is false or misleading. The reputation management company will get in touch with publishers to try and convince them to take down the content.
3. Going to Court
If you are not successful in convincing publishers of negative content to remove their content, you can always go to court. This is usually the option of last resort because it is costly and time-consuming. However, it may be the best option if you have a strong brand that’s suffering due to a few malicious articles.
4. Using SEO to Bury Negative Content Online
Search algorithms usually rank content and web pages based on the freshness of content, relevance, and other factors. By publishing positive content online, search engines will give the new content priority ranking when ranking search results. This means that the negative content will never appear on the first or second pages of search results. This is one of the most effective strategies used in brand reputation management.