How to manage your organization’s reputation with SEO + online listening
We’ve all seen it happen. Whether as a result of cancel culture or a negative tweet gone viral, a brand’s reputation can seemingly go up in flames in an instant. Next thing you know, Google results, social media and possibly even a news cycle are consumed with negative content about the organization. So, how can you protect your brand from this happening? Unfortunately, there’s no fool-proof way of escaping the risk of negative coverage, but if you proactively manage your online reputation, you will be much better positioned to weather any criticism that comes your way.
What is online reputation management?
Our practice of online reputation management entails monitoring and influencing the information available about your organization in search results, on social media and in the news media. The content of these three channels defines what your reputation is online, and we believe “online” is where the battle for brand perception now takes place.
Why is it important in crisis planning?
When it comes to protecting your brand, the best defense is often a strong offense—especially in this cultural moment for nonprofits and faith-based organizations. In order to bolster and protect your brand’s reputation online, you need to develop a proactive digital strategy spanning search engine optimization (SEO), social media and media relations. The planning stage is something your organization can control. Without question, the amount of time, organization and effort that goes into the preparation process will largely determine the strength of your reputation and how it weathers any crisis scenario.
The important first step in protecting your brand online
In today’s digital landscape, search is often the front door—and sometimes first point of introduction—to your brand. To the best of your ability, you need to control and frame the narrative on the first page of search results when someone searches for your brand name.
Your reputation management strategy should always be customized to your brand’s unique need. However, the following are key strategies and tactics for taking the first step:
- Claim your knowledge panel and maximize your Google Business Profile listing. As the search landscape has evolved over time, the knowledge panel, or the information boxes that appear on Google in search, has become an increasingly more crucial element. If Google deems your organization and the information provided as credible, the knowledge panel allows you to control the entire right side of the first search results page. This ultimately gives your organization instant credibility and the opportunity to garner more attention, given its size and placement. Your organization must first claim your knowledge panel and set up a robust Google Business Profile listing to maximize not only the first page of search results, but also brand awareness and engagement.
- Cultivate and engage with reviews. It’s time to challenge the thinking that online reviews are irrelevant for brands that don’t have consumer products at the forefront. Even nonprofits and faith-based organizations need to be mindful, as reviews play a significant role in shaping the perception of your brand online. In a world of fake news, demonstrating and gaining the trust of your constituents is increasingly more important. More than 90% of consumers consider reviews before a conversion. And while there is always a risk of negative reviews, cultivating proactive reviews as part of a triggered email or short message service (SMS) campaign, or inviting reviews on credible platforms like Yelp, BBB and the like can be helpful. As with Google, organizations need to claim their respective pages on key review sites and, ultimately, form strategies to cultivate positive reviews from your constituents and manage reviews as they build over time.
- Maximize social media and videos. Other contributing factors to the first page of search results are your organization’s social media profiles and video content, especially the frequency at which you post, engage and develop new content. Google sees these platforms as increasingly important, thus bubbling these domains to the top when someone searches for your brand. Social media also serves as a review platform frequented by users, so it’s crucial to monitor sentiment and respond to users.
- Work to ensure page one news media hits are positive or neutral. Large news organizations carry strong domain authority, meaning Google ranks them highly. So if your organization has been covered in a large outlet, the story may well show up on page one of your search results. As such, it is important to engage a thoughtful, targeted media relations strategy to help control the media narrative in general, but particularly for those stories that land on page one of search results. It’s best to cultivate this positive coverage proactively, as it can take time to secure good placements that rank on page one. Additionally, if a negative news article does show up in your results, you cannot take it down. You can only work to push it off page one over time with other, more positive results.
- Consider paid search strategies. While users are increasingly more prone to ignore and scroll past paid search ads, securing these ad placements continues to be an important tactic, as it secures precious real estate in your brand’s search results and usually at minimal cost compared to a typical advertising mix. Paid search is ultimately another tool in the toolbelt of controlling the narrative when someone searches for your brand. If you haven’t already, your organization should consider paying for your own brand terms at a minimal cost to prevent someone else from buying them.
- Employ an ongoing, long-term SEO plan for branded and non-branded terms. A thoughtful, ongoing SEO strategy is possibly the most important element of proactively protecting your brand’s reputation. Organic search results are often some of the most trusted by users and, as such, your organization needs to cultivate and maintain content for not only keywords associated with your brand (e.g., “Nike shoes”), but also non-branded, categorical terms (e.g., “cross-training shoes”).
Importance of online listening
Beyond framing the narrative, it’s also important to keep an ear to the ground. No one likes to be taken by surprise from a threat that could damage their brand’s reputation. Online monitoring—listening to all the conversations around your brand—can help you identify a potential crisis before a situation escalates. In today’s world, media monitoring must include more than traditional news outlets, as a single tweet or blog comment can change how people view your organization. It can seem impossible to track every conversation about your brand happening on every social media channel, but by using advanced analytics software, our team tracks conversations and uses this data to inform and reinforce your crisis management strategy to avoid similar crises in the future.
Managing all facets of your brand’s online reputation can feel cumbersome and overwhelming to some, but these efforts pay off, especially when done so proactively. We specialize in protecting brands and are here to serve you.
