Whether you have a business which operates online or offline the power of a great online reputation cannot be ignored. More than ever before consumers are using the internet to find companies, products and services and if your company’s online reputation is poor, you are going to struggle to capture these potential consumers. It is owing to this importance that so many businesses and individuals use the services of reputation management consultants, who both help to improve and maintain a solid online reputation. So how can a reputation be damaged in the first place? Let’s take a look.
Negative Reviews
Word of mouth is one of the most powerful marketing tools which a business has, but get it wrong and your business’ reputation could easily be in tatters. In the digital world that word of mouth carries more weight than ever before and through review sites people can leave comments for the whole world to see about your company. Get it right and this can be a tool to bring in more customers, get it wrong however and the world will know just what people think of your business, and your online reputation is going to suffer heavy damage.
Ill Advised Content
We have seen many occasions of CEOs or even company staff uploading a tweet or a Facebook post after a few too many, which lands in all of the wrong ways. Something which may seem humorous at the time, may not be received in the same context and all of a sudden the reputation of the company is at stake. Of course this type of content can be deleted but it may very well have done damage before that happens, it only needs someone to screenshot the content and that will keep on circulating.
Businesses need to understand that just as a piece of great and positive content has the possibility of going viral, so too can negative and motivated campaigns against the brand. This is why leading businesses are quick to employ and hire the best online reputation management company to handle such issues and problems. Even if one of your customers comes across something against the brand, it can lead to a soiling of your brand’s reputation. This in turn is what affects sales, and repeat purchases from the brand.
Viral Video
News on social media can spread like wildfire and given the fact that everyone has a camera in their pocket, if your business is recorded doing something wrong then that can also get round pretty quickly. Let’s say that you have a restaurant and your server is just having a bad night, he lashes out at a customer and it is on video, the content is uploaded to social media and will go viral very quickly, leaving you and the company with a big issue and something to explain.
Negative Content
Lis are easy to produce on the internet and all it takes is a disgruntled employee or a rival to produce some content on a blog or website for people to start questioning the integrity of the business. It doesn’t matter that this information is false and by the time you get the right to reply, the damage will have already been done. This is just another example of how easy it can be to damage someone’s online reputation, whether the information is true or not.
As you can see, an online reputation is very fragile and it is why you must always have an eye on it.
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