Contrary to popular belief, not all publicity is good publicity, even for those who thrive on a negative image. As a business owner, your brand is in the public eye 99% of the time, a fact which leaves you at the constant mercy of the press, the public and by extension, internet trolls.

Both are looking for ways to dig up as much dirt on you as they can and post it online for the hungry masses aka your consumers. It takes only a few of them to create a bad reputation, which can derail even the strongest brand unless the people working behind it take immediate action.

When that dirt goes online, it stays there and does more damage to your reputation than you can ever imagine. A juicy piece of news is shared multiple times on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms. A single viral post can bring a brand to a grinding halt before it even has a chance to take off!

It’s a fact that gossip mongers are always on the lookout for provocative information, and unfortunately, their job becomes easier the more famous a brand or an executive gets.

Using headlines that are basically click-bait, they use that information to increase their site traffic, subscribers and gain more influence. In other words, they use your brand’s influence to make money so there is little they will not do to get their hands on anything they can use against it.

Whether your brand is suffering from constant, unwanted attention from small scale websites or major publications, maintaining your online reputation is a 24/7 job. We aren’t just talking about cheesy tabloid magazines that are notorious for spreading bad gossip.

Today, even ‘respected’ news sites will pick up any viral story that can give them the ratings they are working for.

Even worse, it is very difficult to dislodge viral news from Google search results. The algorithm working behind the search engine loves shareable content and will post it right at the top of results till the next viral news dethrones it. The constant influx of fresh content is what makes online reputation management so tricky and volatile.

Most online reputation management services monitor those search results 24/7 just to remain on top of the news that’s being shared about their clients.

They know that whether their clients change their product designs, cut a deal with a business partner, hire a celebrity for promotions, deal with an angry customer badly or even when a store shuts down, the news appears online in minutes and is shared instantly as well.

With the sheer volume of content being shared online, constant vigilance has become a necessity for today’s ORM services. To remove bad content, you need fresh content that can bring your brand’s online reputation back from the brink.

However, since you may not have the writing skills, resources and time to do this yourself, hiring professionals to do it for you can help you in the long run.

Think about it. If your business is still growing, chances are you are still working in the trenches trying to stand out among others who are vying for the same consumers you are.

If you have a troubled past that is also mentioned in your social media accounts, a buyer only has to do a single Google search on you to make that information pop up.

That information can spread to your brand which may deter consumers. In fact, they may also be reluctant to recommend it to friends and family especially if you don’t clean up your act online and offline.

The harsh reality is that there is nothing that prevents them from choosing your competitors if they think you are not a respectable business owner.

Remember, the internet never forgets, and social media makes sure it always has fresh content to share and re-share indefinitely. It takes a single person with a phone to take a picture of a faulty product or a video of an unprofessional customer rep.

Within minutes of being posted, the content is downloaded by thousands of people even if the original post is deleted. That’s why they say that nothing is ever removed from the internet.

Even if the news is replaced by fresh and ‘juicier’ content and the news cycle moves forward, your brand will be associated with that video or image forever.

As mentioned before, you can do little to regulate that content because Google’s algorithm was specifically built to push relevant content at the top of search results. The more frequently those topics are talked about and/or shared online, the more damage they can do to your reputation.

That’s because when Google detects a correlation between similar topics, it uses them to suggest related search results. This can result in a vicious cycle of eviscerating content that cuts to the quick and leaves your reputation as a business owner in shreds online.  

The good news is that even if there is a ton of negative content on the internet about your brand or you’re your personal life, you can still take back control.

The first thing you need to do is create a strong and clean social media presence. If your brand’s account is filled with content that will do more harm than good, don’t hesitate to disable it and make a new one.

By starting from scratch this way, you can have more control over what kind of content you want people to share about you. Here are some tips that can help:

The average attention span of a user is just 8 seconds. That means, if your followers don’t like a post or content, they will take just 8 seconds to decide to move away.

The average smartphone user checks his/her phone at least 150 times a day which means your brand’s online content has to be fresh and exciting to catch their attention.

Needless to say, if you want to remain influential on social media, you need to make your followers come back for more. Celebrities that have massive social audiences gained their following by making sure that their content is exciting, unique and posted on channels that gave them the exposure they needed. Think of them as a brand themselves and you will get the picture.

While you may not get that level of influence overnight, you can start by maintaining a social voice for your brand that is unique. Do this by:

The last point is particularly important. By posting content that follows a story you can keep followers hooked long enough to make a positive difference in how your brand is perceived. Here are some  brands  that used Instagram stories to attract followers and make them loyal customers.

Besides posting awesome content their fans love to scroll through, celebrities have popular social media accounts because they engage with their followers.

Before social media, people used to get gossip from magazines and TV shows such as E! News. Now, they get their information straight from the source by following their favourite celebs on their social media channels. You can even follow the President!

This gives celebrities a unique opportunity to engage with their fans. Just take a look at the newsfeed of a major celebrity such as Taylor Swift for example. Her Instagram account has more than 71.5 million followers alone!

Even if she replies to comments occasionally, which is usually enough for the  news  in question to go viral. In other words, even if celebs don’t reply to each and every follower, they have the star power to do more with less.

In other words, celebs have what you crave – millions of followers that they can influence with a couple of posts and tweets. By paying them to promote your brand on their social media channels, you can get more sales in a single day than your stores can get in a week!

The bottom line is that engagement builds audiences and keeps followers coming back for more. If your audience is attentive and alert to everything you post or reply to, you can push information that can build your reputation and brand power significantly.

Since you aren’t a celebrity with a massive following, hiring them to mention your brand online can help you piggyback on their success.

However, this does not mean that you should stick to one social media platform. You can do just as well with two of them depending on the audience you are looking for and the purpose of your social media presence.

For example, while Twitter may be great for alerting consumers about the latest product, posting about it on Instagram, complete with a hi-res picture may help you increase your reach.

Just keep one thing in mind though. While ads and promotions can pay out big-time, they can also prove to be a double-edged sword. Bombarding followers with brand mentions, product placements and advertisements is the quickest way to make them leave. Find a balance between posting promoted and regular content that can prevent that from happening.

A business that does not care what its customers think might as well not exist. If for instance your business is accused of selling low-quality products at exorbitant prices, ignoring it will only make things worse.

If you find yourself in this situation, make sure that you acknowledge the incident online. Pair it with an apology if you think you were in the wrong or defend yourself if you are in the right.

If you can get your fans to back you up, they will do the rest by cleaning up your brand’s reputation for you.  This will also compel more people to reach out to the brand and see what it has to offer.

The result will be more online mentions, which will help bring your online reputation back to the top of search results – in a good way!

A brand that is in its prime can fall out of favour without warning. A couple of years ago, that usually spelled the end of an executive’s career, but not today.

Today businesses that have fallen from grace can get right back up again just by hiring an ORM service to clean up their online reputation for them.

The best way to increase your brand’s online reputation is through professionals who have more experience using the above mentioned strategies than you do.

Will you really have the time to check what people are saying about your brand on Facebook when you are trying to run a business? Online reputation management for brands is not child’s play after all.