Having a strong online presence and a good brand profile plays a large part in marketing and brand awareness and we very much suggest you try and utilise all free avenues such as local listings to aid this part of your marketing and getting “out” your company name. However, online can also be a place where free speech is exercised and reputations can be built and destroyed very quickly if you don’t try and protect your reputation.
Claiming your social accounts and submitting local listings provides protection for your business by having your business name indexed many times. Then, if someone writes something negative about you online, it is unlikely to rank above these authority sites and hence it shouldn’t automatically land on the first page of search results damaging the reputation you’ve worked so hard to create.
What you can do is set up alerts to notify you when your business is being talked about on platforms like Twitter by using hash tags. You can also look at installing some sort of moderator system on your blog for comments and email alters when someone leaves a comment on Facebook.
If you ever see negative comments online, do not automatically respond to them. Stop and think first. If it is a valid complaint you may want to respond directly to the person. If it isn’t, and the person complaining does not have authority………do not lend them yours. Bath Marketing Consultancy became the victim of such abuse from a client we took to court for non payment and it can be stressful and very damaging.
If you have someone who takes a dislike to you and you’ve done all the above, you may also want to get advice from someone familiar with reputation management before deciding what best to do.
