Reputation Management Basics

By Gadook

User generated content has transformed the way we as consumers research the products and businesses we are going to spend our money on. We can see read reviews and opinions from people who have already made the purchase, helping us to make an informed choice that was never before possible.

The internet is a democracy where free speech is championed, everyone can give their opinion as long as they have a computer and access to the internet. A larger percentage of people than ever before are active users on social networking sites and communities such as Facebook, MySpace, Trip Advisor and consumer forums.

Reputations can be damaged by by blogs, forums, unfavorable articles, disgruntled employees, websites or other online footprint damage, it can even be generated by mistake by your employees revealing sensitive information that was never intended for the public domain. Some reputation damage is not just created by disgruntled consumers, but actually created by your competitors looking to bad mouth your name. This can have huge implications as often these comments and opinions will rank very highly in the search engines. It has even been reported that if a surfer sees a negative search below the official website then they are 70% more likely to click the negative result.

The anonymity of the internet has meant people have been more forthright in their opinions than in the past when newspapers and similar media where held accountable for what their journalists wrote with fear of liable and slander lawsuits keeping the majority of things written to be based on fact.

Reputation management is all about alerting to and tracking of newly generated content and then dealing with anything inappropriate. It is good practice to know what people are saying about you, any gossip or how your products and services are being received. Reputation management is beneficial to businesses, individuals, charities, celebrities and organizations.

Small Businesses

Particularly at risk from negative online publicity are smaller scale and family run businesses. Often these companies will rely heavily on word of mouth and good will between customers and have a much smaller customer base. Family run businesses will have worked tirelessly to create a good reputation for themselves over the years and yet can be blissfully unaware of the damage being done to the business via negative opinions and comments.

A good example of this is a small family run hotel that had seen a decline in the number of new bookings. Although regular users of the internet, the owners of the business were not active on the well known and influential vacation website trip adviser and as such had not been aware of the negative comments and reviews being posted on this prominent site. It actually transpired that a competing hotel in the area had created various aliases to post fabricated, negative reviews that completely outnumbered the genuine reviews and was causing the drop off in new bookings.

If protecting your image and brand online is important to you, you should seek a reputation management expert who will have experience in all the areas of concern and also give you an indication of your current online reputation as well as giving you an reputation management plan.

Specialists in reputation management and http://www.crisis-management.co.uk

Published by Gadook in Reputation Management Basics