So you’ve just finished a meal at your favorite restaurant and thought the food was no where near the standard, but when the waiter or server asks how your meal you say “thank you”. You leave the establishment and vow never to eat there. The restaurant manager, at the same time also thinking that you are a happy customer and will return. Does this ring a bell? The world of the internet is an ideal way to evaluate what people think of a service or product. People are generally honest, the only drawback is that it is very likely to get negative feedback as the ones who did receive the right service rarely write about it.
Control what people see
If you have something to do with what folks are reading this will help you manage your online reputation and also helps limit the damage. Limiting the damage as you might have guessed, is to suppress the negative posts on the Internet and limit or reduce the damaging effects it can cause an individual or a company.
If a news writer writes a negative article about the product,. What if you are a well known local business person and you have a very personal affair, the last thing in the world that you want on the internet in search results such are these personal matters.
4 Steps for managing online reputations
1) The first step is to see what the real content is. Is there any truth, or is it all lies and fabrications? Contact the webmaster if such is the case and politely ask that he or she erase the negative content.
2) Study basic SEO and start a campaign to push up positive feedback for the company or person, by launching blogs, web 2.0 sites with relevant positive content.
3) Monitor and tweak the results.
4) Create clearly defined measures to stop the negative content, or the length with which it stays on the top results on Google
Hiring a online reputation management firm may be necessary, depending on the severity of the negatives.
Read more: Online Reputation
