What do you see when you type your company’s name into search engines like Google? Ideally, you’d see your company’s site, your various social profiles, and maybe even a news article or two discussing your recent successes.
But that’s not always the case, and you may find some unfriendly reviews or critiques among the search results. You may think that these results are completely up to chance, and that there’s nothing you can do to change the irrelevant or unflattering results that appear below your site. Fortunately, that’s not the case at all. So if a search for your company’s name brings up pages that have nothing to do with your business or – worse – negative reviews, you can change that with reputation management strategies.
Reputation management involves monitoring every aspect of your brand’s online presence and doing what you can to improve it. And in some cases, it also involves handling negative press or reviews in a professional manner. But in order to be effective, your strategy should be proactive and not reactive.
Many companies choose a reactive approach and only think about their reputation when it’s threatened. Unfortunately, this makes handling issues much more difficult when they arise, and it means missing a huge opportunity to build a positive name for your business online. After all, reputation management isn’t just about damage control — it’s about improving your image as a whole.
Go Back Chapter 2: Why manage your online reputation?