Don’t be an Ostrich! Take Control of Your Reputation!

An estimated 80% of Americans between the ages of 33 and 44 use the internet as a tool for research, shopping and banking. With that said, do you know what they find when they search for you and your company online? Do you know what to do if a customer has a complaint and decides to post something negative on one of hundreds of online business directories that exist? Boy you had better know and fast because in the case of the Internet what you don't know can and will hurt you.

A poor reputation online can be enough to sink the best laid marketing plans in an instant not to mention the amount of money in marketing dollars that can be lost trying to “over market” poor PR. The wrong thing to do is nothing.

This is where having a system for Reputation Management comes into play. In today's world it is vital for businesses of all sizes to have a strategy in place that can predict and address reputation issues, create a positive image and foster better customer relations.

The Internet is a fast paced and uncaring tool for communication. It does not care if what is posted about you is good or bad. The search engines don’t care either; they only care about making it findable. With the advent of social media, consumers now have a means of spreading the word about of company, product or service to the multitudes with a simple click of their keyboard. In fact, social media has become such a valuable conduit of information that the news media is using for their stories what people are talking about online. So if a customer has a complaint and posts it online it can potentially and quickly become local or even national news.

Take for instance the lesso
Pepsi learned when they decided to change the logo they had been using for 25 years of an orange with a straw to a glass of juice. Consumers were up in arms over the change and made it known quite loudly on social networks calling for a boycott of the brand. Pepsi waited two months to respond and then changed the logo back to the original one. The slowness of their response resulted in more damage as it was simply too little too late. Dominos pizza on the other had had an even bigger situation with two employees posting a video of themselves on YouTube defiling someone’s take out order. Yuck! Without delay Dominos was on the offensive with a YouTube video of their own launching a Reputation Management campaign that has been viewed as a success. The story about Dominos made it into the New York Times.

The most successful way of managing your reputation is to combine traditional PR with the new social media tools. There are hundreds of online systems for tracking, maintaining and repairing a reputation with more being developed on a regular basis. Knowing how to track, synthesize and maintain this new burst of communication is a must for PR success.

A strong Reputation Management system is a must in any PR strategy in this day and age and can be the difference between simply fostering better customer relations and cleaning up a disaster.