 |
Has anyone ever had an ax to grind about your brand and made a noisy scene online? Has your product ever received an over-the-top, negative review? Has coverage about a resolved crisis continued to rank high in search results?
If you've answered no to all three questions, now is not the time to consider yourself one of the charmed few—your time may yet come. To help you prepare for those rough patches when negative terms about your brand pop up in search results, and to manage a negative news cycle when it hits you, Laura Kempke, senior vice president, Schwartz MSL, offers the following tips.
Ongoing tactics:
-
Continuously monitor your company, product and executives' names online
-
Buy domain names, including .org, .net, etc., that include your company or product and negative terms
-
Register for the same terms on social platforms like Twitter
-
Participate in online forums where people are likely to discuss your company should something go wrong so you have an established following
After a negative story appears, push positive articles higher in search results by doing the following:
-
Consider launching a press release with links to your site or to other Web properties using anchor text
-
Comment on negative posts to state your perspective, include links to your site
-
If it’s a media story, ask the journalist or blogger directly for equal time
-
Post a blog using the same negative terms to allow people to find your response
Follow Jamar Hudson: @jamarhudson