Erase.com on How to Repair a Damaged Online Reputation

In New York City, a place where reputation is everything, a bad online reputation can mean the difference between success and failure in the business world. Whether it’s getting caught up in a negative news story, or having an unhappy customer or disgruntled former employee attacking your business, damage to your online reputation can be extremely costly. Fortunately, there is always a way to fight back against this negative content and repair your online presence.

Erase.com, an online reputation management company with a large New York clientele, offers a few tips below on how to fix a bad online reputation.

Understand the Problem

Do you know why your online reputation is suffering? Is it a disgruntled customer or former employee? Are you the victim of false claims made by a competitor? It’s important to know why and how your company is being targeted so that you can choose the correct and most effective way to respond. If false claims are being made about your business online, for example, it’s much easier to get this content removed or flagged as defamatory.

Stay on Top of the Situation

If new content is regularly being released about your company, you need to be aware of it. Often, if one negative article is published, several more will follow. The best way to stay on top of what’s coming out about your company on the internet is to set up a Google Alert. With Google Alerts, you can choose different keywords to monitor. Any article or piece of content that goes up featuring one of your set keywords will go straight to your email. Knowing the severity of your online reputation situation will help you better decide how to approach fixing it.

Get Active on Social Media

If you haven’t already set up a Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn page for your business (or you have these accounts but don’t use them), you need to as soon as possible. New York City is a thriving hub of activity that relies just as heavily on social media to communicate as it does its subway system to transport people from place to place. City officials, emergency services, and community organizations all use various social media platforms to interact with New Yorkers. As a business, there is a great deal of potential with social media to attract customers, build trust, and create buzz about your products or services.

Post articles and relevant pieces of content about your business and interact with your customers. Respond to complaints respectfully and try to rectify any issues that customers have. Creating positive interactions with customers can go a long way. If it fits for your business, a YouTube channel is also a great idea. YouTube provides a forum to show new products to customers, interview high level staff, and provide customer testimonials.

Start a Blog

Social media is a great way to interact with customers and address their questions and concerns, but a blog can be a great forum to convey useful information regarding your products and services. Own an IT company? Create a blog that talks about cloud computing, how to avoid computer viruses, and best software of the year for businesses. Take your product or service and use it to provide people with valuable information that they might find genuinely interesting or educational. This will not only improve your Google search results (if the content is correctly optimized for your keyword), but it will also help your marketing initiatives and bring organic traffic to your company website.

New York City is packed full of bloggers and online influencers, so making your blog content stand out will be more difficult than in other locations. Make sure to provide quality content that your customer base (and others as well) will take interest in or learn from. Format your blog to align with your company’s services & values and remember to update it regularly.

Get Active in Your Community

By doing some community outreach for your fellow New Yorkers, your business can gain some much-needed positive press. Community members will learn about your business and what you offer and may be more likely to buy from you (a trustworthy brand that they have learned from) in the future. Depending on the nature of your business’s involvement within the community, it’s very likely that a local news agency will pick up the story and give you some newspaper coverage. Erase.com advises that if you want the story to be picked up outside of your area, it also doesn’t hurt to put out a press release as well.