Keeping Your Online Reputation In Check

Business 101: A happy customer will tell one person; an unhappy customer tells ten. What if that unhappy customer had access to thousands, or even millions? How important would it be to your business to satisfy that person?

Most companies, however, don’t understand the impact their online reputation has on their business. The Internet has made “tattle-tailing” an art form and everyday disgruntled customers use their virtual soap box to spread their banter.

In fact, many large corporations such as Comcast, Sprint and Dell spend millions of dollars annually to counteract hostile messages and improve their online credibility.

So how can you do this without breaking the bank? We suggest three easy do-it-yourself techniques to improve your online rep while finding many of the people who may be bad-mouthing you behind your back.

Let’s assume your business name is “O3 World” (great name by the way) and you make websites (really, really good ones):

1. Google is your best ally!

Use search engines to help you find the most widespread offenders. First, search on the name of your business – “O3 World”. Look for any results that may deem damaging, and bookmark them. Next, add some derogatory words to your business name: “sucks”, “rip off”, “scam” and “cheat” are good starters. Continue looking for anything that might be a page or post about your business and keep note.

Separate your findings into those with legitimate gripes and those that are flat out lying. Legitimate gripes should be dealt with directly. For example, if it’s a blog post, comment in the blog about how unusual their experience was and how you plan to make it up to them.

For the liars and competitors who spread propaganda, try contacting the owners of the site. Many sites will remove slanderous material if you can legally prove it to be fallacious. Failing that, contact Google and let them know of the pages existence. Google doesn’t like spreading lies through hate pages and will, in many cases, remove the page in question from its index.

2. The power of the hash (#) search (cannabis jokes aside)

If you don’t have a Twitter account, get one. Twitter is the number 1 site for “let me just scream about anything I love, hate or just want to randomly comment on”. More times than not if someone is unhappy about something, they’ll tweet their way into oblivion. This is where your due diligence will come in handy.

On Twitter, perform a “hash search” in by adding a hash (# sign) to the beginning of a keyword. In our case, we’d search “#O3 World” to see who’s tweeting about us. You can then respond to them directly by writing a simple message that starts with “@USERNAME” (replacing USERNAME with their actual username). This will place your message in their @ message box. If you structure your response properly, and politely, they may delete the original post, add a new post vindicating your business, etc.

3. Go out and blog

Find active blogs that share similar interests to your business and become a regular. As people become more familiar with your user account, they will begin to pay more attention to your message. Many websites, such as BlogSpot.com, offer easy to set up, free blog software so you can even start a blog of your own. It’s important, however, to make sure you keep your blog fresh and active. An active blog will help increase your brand awareness and also give you some online allies when you’ve been criticized.

Keeping your online reputation in check is a must-do for any company. While the Internet makes it easy for people to denounce your business, it also makes it easy for you to find and correct them.