Your company’s reputation is its most valuable asset.
As founding father Ben Franklin once said “It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.”
Anyone contemplating doing business with you will go to Google or another major search engine and research you, your key executives and your company. What they find in the search results will determine whether you have a new client/customer or whether that potential client has been driven away by negative comments and an overall negative perception of you, your company and your executives.
Unfortunately, social media has provided virtually everybody with the opportunity to publish online. That means that anyone with a grudge against you can attack you and your company online and those attacks- warranted or not- will show up in search engines.
So, how does a company go about protecting its online reputation?
The key is to use multiple online content platforms to get the (positive) word out about your company. While you can’t eliminate the negative statements about your company, you can overwhelm the negative reviews with positive ones.
1. Your Company Website
If your company doesn’t already have an online presence, then immediately build yourself a website. Your company’s website is almost invariably the first place your potential clients will go to check you out. Your brochure must put the best possible face on your company:
- Impressive Executive Bios
- Case Studies
- Testimonials
- Charity work (if any)
2. Micro sites
Along with your main website, create satellite websites that are specific to the work your company does. This gives more sites featuring your company’s name and more places for search engines to find you. Companies can create micro site for charitable work, for special events or for promotion of a new product or service offering.
3. Your Company Blog
A blog gives you the opportunity to tell your story in the most positive way. It gives you an opportunity to put a “face” on your company. It gives you a terrific forum to:
- Talk about new products
- Tout success stories
- Announce special deals
- Talk about recent company developments
More importantly, the blog will often show up as a secondary result below your main website on search engine result pages.
4. Social Media Accounts
Your accounts on each of these social media venues are not only searchable, but tend to come up very high on search engine results. Encourage your clients and customers to come to these accounts to keep up on what you are doing. This is another great avenue for pushing out positive news about your company.
Use these accounts wisely. Effective use of social media sites can enhance your brand, attract leads, and even lead to direct sales. Misuse of these accounts can severely injure your band and your brand’s credibility and reputation.
If your executives have personal social media accounts, then you should have policies about what is posted on them. Photographs of key executives drunk or if there are offensive statements made my executives on the site, it will present a very negative image to the outside world.
5. Establish Yourself as an Expert
If you are running a company, then you almost certainly have expertise that you can share with others. You can do this by:
- Blogging (and then seeking out industry websites that might link to your blog)
- Commenting (Find blogs that cover areas of your expertise. Add your comments, your wisdom, your knowledge)
- Become an expert on an industry website (websites are always hungry for meaningful content)
6. Press Releases
Whenever there is positive news about your company, get it out into the world. Success stories, new product lines, charity efforts… they are all worth promoting. Unlike traditional press releases that just went to major news outlets, online press releases go out to the internet universe and are picked up both by search engines and by online news aggregators.
In Conclusion
When it comes to your online reputation, it pays to be both vigilant and pro-active. Even if your company has never been attacked online, it makes sense to create a vast network of positive messages about your company. By flooding the Internet with these positive messages, any negative messages can be lost or at least well hidden.
Gabriel Shaoolian is the founder and CEO of Blue Fountain Media, a results-driven website design and online marketing company based in Union Square, Manhattan. Shaoolian has grown Blue Fountain Media from a one-man operation to a full-service agency with over 70 employees. Clients range from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. Shaoolian is an entrepreneur who loves working with hungry, entrepreneurial clients.
Great post. To really build a great reputation online, you have to do everything you’ve listed. When you get done to it, being successful online takes a lot of work.
Nice little post. All very clear and relevant points – thanks.
Great article with solid information.
I have been involved with entrepreneurs for years, this article is very helpful
And packed with information.
Have a Great Day
This was a good well written article with legitimate information. The only thing I would add is that another good use of social networking websites is to create an informational page on your website then post a link to that page with a description on all the social marketing websites you belong to.