Corporate Reputation Management: A Strategic Overview

Most senior executives and business owners admit that corporate reputation management is much more important than it used to be. But many large organizations don’t have a strategy to manage online brand perception.

What is corporate reputation management?

Corporate reputation management is much more than media relations and press release distribution. It fuses search engine optimization, social media management, brand management, reputation marketing, content creation and public relations into a single service.

Our corporate online reputation management solution repairs your company’s branded search results which directly impact revenue and growth.

Importance of corporate reputation

Consumers don’t interact with brands in the same way they used to. Before social media sites and search engines, people heavily relied on word of mouth to determine which businesses to trust. But now they rely on Google searches and review platforms like Yelp and Ripoff Report to learn about an organization’s reputation.

Every day, billions of potential customers turn to search engine results to research brands before they make a purchase. Bad reviews and negative feedback on social networks even affect corporate reputation in many ways.

When negative content creeps into a corporation’s search results it impacts the entire business. Chief executives and key stakeholders get distracted from important initiatives, or worse, they may even exit the company. Shareholder and investor relations become strained. Marketing grinds to a halt, and loyal customers may switch to competitors.

Consider these concerning reputation management statistics:

A new commissioned study by Forrester Consulting found that unfavorable search results impact consumer trust, shareholder trust and brand perception. The same study revealed that 54% of executives believe reducing unfavorable search results would drive revenue growth. Read the full study here.

As a company leader, it’s your duty to help build a defensible, positive online reputation that protects your organization from reputational risk. Our world-class corporate reputation management strategies are the answer.

Why you need corporate reputation management

A damaged corporate reputation won’t self-correct. In fact, it will often spread like a virus because people tend to gravitate towards negative stories.

For example, if your search results contain a negative review, consumers will be more likely to leave one themselves. Similarly, if journalists find an unfavorable news story about your brand, they might write another one and link to the first. As a result of users clicking on and linking to your negative content, Google will rank it higher in the SERPs.

Let’s take a look at the most common problems that our corporate ORM services solve.

Lack of a strong online presence

Most businesses don’t grow into successful corporations unless they take care of their customers and employees along the way. However, there’s a big difference between a great company and a great online reputation. Let me explain:

Perhaps you offer competitive salaries, desirable benefits and interesting perks. Your employees love their jobs, but they don’t write employer reviews so nobody knows how great your company is. Further, if one rogue individual writes a negative review, people may assume that it represents your entire employee base.

Here’s another example: You provide B2B services for global companies, and customers recognize you as the industry leader. Unfortunately, your industry rarely receives media coverage apart from a few unread press releases. As a result, one negative news article could infiltrate your search landscape.

When your company is underrepresented online, it’s vulnerable to reputational damage from unfavorable search results. Our corporate reputation management services will strengthen your brand’s online presence while protecting it from future incidents.

Learn more about reputation recovery in these posts:

• How to Get Something Removed from Google Search Results
• Remove News Articles from Google and the Internet
• How to Push Down Negative Search Results

Negative online reviews

Review sites often rank near the top of Google for branded search queries. That’s bad news if you haven’t actively solicited positive reviews from happy customers and employees. In fact, you may need to earn as many as twelve positive customer reviews to offset a single negative review.

One-star reviews from employees on sites like Glassdoor and Indeed are even more problematic. Not only could those complaints influence customer decision making, but they may also scare away top talent.

Find out more in our post: Does Glassdoor Remove reviews?

Negative articles about companies or executives

Fortune 500 corporations and CEOs are no stranger to bad press. Missed revenue goals, product recalls and scandals involving business leaders can all spark negative news articles. Even worse, if your company is well-known to the general public, bad news could go viral.

You’ll need a carefully-mapped strategic approach to push top-tier news sites off page one. But online corporate reputation management of this scale isn’t something you should tackle alone. Instead, you’ll need help from a professional online reputation management service like ours.

Social media backlash

Highly-engaged social media followers are an incredible brand asset. But be warned; they can quickly turn on you if you post something at odds with their beliefs.

Angry followers aren’t the only pitfall you need to avoid. Trolls are constantly on the lookout for any type of social media blunder to exploit. Don’t assume you can solve the problem by simply deleting negative comments and blocking followers, because doing so will only make things worse. You’ll need to handle those situations very delicately.

Corporate crisis & issues management

Corporate reputation consulting services also help to mitigate reputational damage in the event of a crisis. A robust online presence can hold back bad press, but that’s not all. When you control more digital assets you can deliver key messaging more accurately.

Corporate reputation management strategy

A good reputation doesn’t exist in a bubble. It takes a carefully-mapped process and continuous action to protect your reputation from danger. Our strategies are custom-built for each client, but we often draw from the following tactics to address search issues:

Our corporate reputation management process

• Expand your social media presence – We’ll claim untapped networks and social media accounts and optimize your profiles to rank for branded search queries.
• Publish positive content – We’ll amplify your corporate social responsibility initiatives and ensure online publishers are talking about your good corporate citizenship. We’ll also publish and promote positive news about company culture, growth and hiring.
• Build brand expertise, authority and trust – We can leverage company leaders and senior executives to bolster your online presence through earned media mentions and thought leadership articles.
• Continuously monitor online mentions – We’ll discover and address negative content immediately. Finding harmful search results quickly will keep them from securing a foothold on page one of Google as well as other search engines.
• Leverage search engine optimization to boost positive content – corporate brand management won’t be successful unless it’s underpinned by search engine optimization. The bigger your brand’s reputation issue is, the more critical SEO becomes.

Don’t wait until it’s too late

Your company’s reputation is much too valuable to leave unattended. Our world-class corporate reputation management team has helped companies and executives who control hundreds of billions of dollars in market capitalization with ORM issues. Managing corporate reputation and risk takes expertise, commitment, and experience. So, don’t leave it in the hands of an bad reputation management company.

Are you ready to see we can do for you? Contact us today.