This post first appeared in Anthony Bullick’s Daily Post column.
A brand’s digital footprint can significantly influence its overall business objectives -especially its profit and loss. Scarily for organisations, a negative showing online can take shape without it even being involved in the conversation.
Picture this: someone searches for your brand and a negative news article, review, or blog post is shown on page one of the results.
It’s highly likely this plays a role in their decision-making to either buy from you, apply for one of your roles, or take action linked to your company activity such as seeking planning permission.
This is where online reputation management comes in. While often called upon in response to a story adversely affecting your reputation, proactive brands minimise any impact with online or digital PR in the first instance.
The first step for an organisation is to complete an audit of what’s being said about the brand online, including on social media platforms where you may not have an official account.
In addition, analyse all review sites, from popular ones such as Google and Facebook through to niche platforms linked to your industry.
Compare your most popular branded searches in Search Console against the results that come back: what are users seeing? As a secondary action, scroll to the bottom of Google’s first page of results to see what else people type into the search engine related to your company.
Introduce media relations to feed positive stories such as business milestones and contract wins into the news world. Take part in features and submit expert commentary and thought leadership to encourage publications to share your content online and therefore feed into the search results.
Consider creative PR tactics such as news-style video interviews, infographics, and e-books to grab attention and entice more outlets to upload your materials.
Market research, linked to your area of expertise, often performs well. For example, if you’re seeking to place your legal service in front of sports brands, PR activity that includes market research on amateur clubs that have faced legal proceedings may prove to be of interest to the media.
Include spokespeople in your online reputation management strategy as broadcast media opportunities on TV and radio is often repurposed online and feeds into search results.
Similarly, influencer marketing or engaging with content creators, historically meant just meant your brand being seen on social media channels.
As the industry becomes more sophisticated, a strategic approach to this tactic will result in wider opportunities for online coverage and further strengthen your company’s digital presence.