The Web is an environment where information is freely exchanged. This allows people to extend a helping hand and exchange their experiences with one another in an open environment. While most consumers provide their honest assessments about their experiences, there is a vocal minority who go far and beyond and aim to hurt the image of your brand.
They leave behind digital footprint that aims to undermine the integrity of your business. For many, this is an act of deliberate sabotage and owners feel that their business is under attack by some rogue and malicious forces. Business owners want the negative data suppressed because it cuts into their respective bottom line and undermines all the things they are doing right.
With reputation being more important ever, these types of attacks have a long lasting effect on businesses or individuals. The negative comments do not disappear on their own and need to be addressed before they spiral out of control. You must determine who is behind these negative campaigns – many business owners suspect competitors, former employees who left on bad terms or someone who is unhappy with your customer service.
In most cases, regardless of the motive or source, these malicious comments are very high ranked on search engine result pages (SERPs). This is because review websites or online communities rank very highly with search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo – they value what people have to say.
Google, Bing and Yahoo’s algorithms gives preference to review based websites and online communities because they are based on people’s experiences. The high ranking nature of these review websites places them at the top of search results when people search your brand. These are the first impression that prospective consumers get about your company. If they read a negative review, it will be hard to win them over after this.
While it is easy to compare the front page of a newspaper with the first page of Google, they are not similar – it is far more damaging to be on the first page of Google. This is because search engines do not change their information on a daily basis and their audience is so much broader and runs beyond the limited geographic lines of newspapers.
Businesses that thrive in the new economy understand that their reputation is accessible by anyone, anywhere and anytime. In a business-to-business environment, companies that want to establish long lasting relationships do the majority of their homework and research online.
They try to answer important questions like – is this company the best fit for us? Will they be a dependable partner in the short and long run? The information they find online can be the difference between closing a deal or losing one. This is because a good reputation displays trust and confidence, while a bad reputation leads to distrust.
In the age of social networks, malicious rumors and the dissemination of disinformation can spread like wildfire. The scalability and shareability of social media allows for information to quickly find its way to the public. Businesses are often blindsided by the quick spread of negative news. The inability to react quickly can result in permanent damage.
The Smash Agency will develop and execute a game plan that is both preventative and prescriptive in nature. We prevent the bad news from outpacing your capacity to deal with it and execute smart action plans. We bring time tested solutions that will ensure that you are one step ahead as we carefully craft a desirable online image of your brand. We can help manipulate search engine results to showcase the strong points of your brand and bury the negative points.
THE RANK SQUAD TRANSFORMS THE WAY THE WORLD SEES YOU ONLINE.
We build, develop and manage your brand’s online profile.
We Help Tell Your Side of the Story
We counter and neutralize negative campaigns by showcasing and highlighting positive content about your business.
Despite our incredible technological advances in the past decade, especially with the advent of social media and improved Internet speeds, word of mouth is still the most persuasive and authentic form of marketing. Social media is essentially word of mouth marketing, on a much larger scale, in the digital age. On social media, people talk about how they feel, their emotions and their experiences. In essence, social media is not a new concept – we just now have the technological means to voice our experiences to a larger audience.
In the past, the conversation was controlled by businesses who only shared their side of their story. It was seen as one-sided, biased and unrepresentative of all parties. CGMs have triggered a paradigm shift by putting the power back into the hands of the consumers, who provide different perspectives and first hand experiences. Just because the pendulum has swung, it does not mean that businesses should sit on the sidelines – it is time to join the game and help change the scorecard.
In an information-savvy age, consumers have been empowered. They have a wide array of tools and resources at their disposal that allows them to make educated and smart decisions. Consumers are predisposed to venture online and search various social platforms, to read consumer-generated media (CGMs) about different products and/or services. Social networks also help create an environment where no single entity, whether it is a business or individual, can control the narrative.
Word of mouth marketing is still the most valuable and persuasive form of marketing. Regardless of where technology goes, word of mouth marketing will always have a powerful influence on businesses. Social media are virtual places where real people share their experiences, organically and openly. People place a high level of trust into these social networks. Google and other search engine giants understand this – that is why they rank social platforms high on search results. In a nutshell, consumers trust each other and this translates into the top results on search engines.