Your brand's online reputation is taking a hit. What can you do to turn it around?

Awareness is the key. To do damage control you have to admit that you have taken a hit, identify the impact of the situation and acknowledge it. Identify acknowledge and address and you are already halfway through it. The brands that address these crucial situations with ignorance and delusion are often the ones that get the worst side of it.

As a brand manager, one of your key responsibilities is to monitor your online presence. Before raising the sails, identify the leaks in your reputation. Analyze social media sentiment, review online reviews, and gather customer feedback to understand what's causing the storm. Be transparent and proactive about this.

Monitoring your online presence is crucial as it provides real-time insights into how your brand is perceived, helps identify emerging trends, and allows for timely responses to potential issues. Utilize tools like Google Alerts, social media listening platforms, and analytics tools to track mentions, monitor sentiment, and analyze engagement metrics. Regular monitoring ensures that you stay proactive in managing your brand's image and adapting to the evolving digital landscape.

When a brand's online reputation is suffering, there are several steps you can take to begin turning it around: Assess the Situation: Conduct a thorough analysis of the negative sentiment. Identify the root causes, whether it's customer complaints, negative reviews, social media backlash, or other issues impacting the brand's reputation. Listen and Engage: Monitor conversations and mentions across various online platforms. Engage with customers and address their concerns promptly and professionally. Responding tactfully can mitigate the impact of negative comments. Apologize and Take Responsibility: If the brand is at fault, issue a sincere apology.

To improve a damaged online reputation: Address Feedback: Respond promptly to negative feedback or complaints, showing willingness to resolve issues. Publish Positive Content: Highlight positive stories, testimonials, or success stories about your brand. SEO Strategy: Optimize content to ensure positive, brand-centric information ranks higher in search results.

Your consumer and audience tell the clearest picture of you. If there is negative feedback it is a problem at your end that, your audience already spotted for you! Do not ignore it, they actually helped you. Now your job is to address the issue with a comforting and kind response, assuring the consumer. Your consumer cared and helped you spot a problem you should of course show you care about them too and make sure they know they are being heard.

Often, customer losses have already occurred, and aside from offering sincere apologies and compensating for the customer's losses, customers are more eager to hear about the resolution plan for the situation. This is crucial for instilling confidence in the brand, as customers need assurance that the brand genuinely recognizes the mistake. Sincerely following up and providing feedback to the customer within reasonable bounds will strengthen trust in the brand.

Responding to negative feedback is highly important. It shows that your brand values customer input and is committed to addressing concerns. By engaging with dissatisfied customers, you have the opportunity to turn a negative experience into a positive one. It also demonstrates transparency and a willingness to improve, which can enhance your brand's reputation and build trust with your audience.

Take the bull by the horns. Don't just address the concern and move on. Have you ever apologized to your significant other for just once and dropped it? Or did you apologize, and bring flowers the next day, and went out to eat that weekend? Yet, when we disappoint a customer, we apologize and move on. Address the problem, come back a day or two later and let them know how you handled it within your business (in a second response); and lastly thank them for taking time out of their day to make you aware of something going wrong in your operation. I read a study about 5 years ago that stated for every person who complains, 3 others had a similar issue and didn't take the time to mention, they just stopped being your customer.

Responding to negative feedback doesn't just mean you try to console feedback. There should be a strategic planning and vision to reply to the negative comments You can even turn negative comments into a marketing campaign with how quickly you solved it, or how was your customers reaction after solving the negative feedback The motive is to gain trust and keep in mind that you are transparent in solving the issues.

NOW THE 3rd stage of DAMAGE CONTROL. If you want to get through the negative narrative, create a positive narrative, it is as simple as that.

1 negative viral content cannot be compensated by 100 generated positive content pieces! It is very important to understand why that 1 negative experience happened. The idea is not to cover it up and distract everybody with other positive news but the goal should be to help solve that negative experience. A negative turned into a positive will yield much better results than creating new 100 positives at the same time without catering to that 1 negative!

Influencers in today's ever growing digital era are becoming an influential medium on digital platforms. They are constantly making creative content for their growing follower base. The unique thing with influencers is that the cohort of followers have similar interests and needs. This allows brands to leverage the influencer connect and push their brand agenda through the influencers at once to a large number of people.

I think another term for this is: build relationships with others aside from yourself. Early this year, I hosted an event alongside an industry expert like me. I knew that if I didn't, I will not get as much exposure and influence as I should. So I tapped into her network. At the end, I got more sign-ups that I never could have imagined. So in another way, if you want to make more sales from what you know or do: collaborate with others who has influence in their own sphere. Thank you.

Think of influencers not as PR mercenaries, but as brand ambassadors with megaphones. They're trusted voices within specific communities, and their endorsement can act as a bridge, mending the gap between your brand and its alienated audience. By partnering with the right influencers and focusing on genuine connection, transparency, and long-term commitment, you can transform your tarnished online reputation into a shining beacon of brand resilience.

I'm going with the opposite response here. Avoid influencers when you've taken a hit. People are smart and they know you are just covering it up. As shoppers catch on to which influencers are just saying things because they are getting compensated; well as their followers bailout, you go down the drain with them. If you really want to recover from negative hits, partner with the person who was effected. Let them tell the story of how you fixed it and won them back. Stop trying to buy your way out of trouble. Cusomer's have millions of resources to dox you for it and you end up with bigger hit than what you started with.

Consumers are more inclined to respect the brand that is transparent. Sometimes it requires a brand to go above and beyond to earn respect from their most loyal consumers (I.e. send hand written thank you notes to your top fans). Mistakes happen, but owning up and being transparent will help in the long run.

To enhance your brand's online reputation, there are various actions that you can take: monitor online conversations, respond promptly to negative reviews, address root causes, highlight positive stories, invest in customer service, implement SEO strategies, engage with your social media platforms regularly , consider public relations, be transparent about trust building, use online reputation management tools, and learn and iterate on strategies to gradually rebuild trust and enhance your brand's online presence.

While the 6 steps are good guidelines, we have never addressed if the negative comments are true or not. If they are true, the company needs to address that first, fix the problem and then work on damage control.

When tackling a damaged online reputation, remember that transparency is key. Consider launching a proactive campaign, openly acknowledging past shortcomings, and highlighting corrective actions. Sharing your brand's journey to improvement can resonate with audiences, fostering trust and loyalty. Moreover, leverages the power of user-generated content. Encourage satisfied customers to share their positive experiences through testimonials, reviews, or user stories. This authentic content can counterbalance negative feedback, showcasing your brand's strengths and commitment to betterment.

Considere os influenciadores positivos -tops, mas também os bottons, s?o eles que trazem importantes critérios de revers?o. é necessário conhecer profundamente as situa??es, satisfa??o e insatisfa??es, relacionadas as marcas, dessa forma é possível evidenciar o que atrai e mantém, mas também corrigir o que dep?em contra. Esse pode ser o grande desafio da gest?o de marca e crises.