In today’s world, information works the same way as bird’s eye-view of its prey and the predator's view of the bird. In this metaphor, we would like to emphasize that the high-flying bird as a prominent person or a business which is very difficult to be touched or to interact with, and the predator as the person or news agency who are in the search of controversial stories.
It all depends on your societal positioning. If you are a businessman dealing with thousands of employees and millions of consumers, the chances of you being hunted by an ex-employee, a journalist or an ordinary consumer is high. The same happens to a politician, or a celebrity/artist. Therefore, the need of a media watcher or a third pair of ears and eyes is essential in this era of search engines.
A bad story about you or your brand is natural when you are in the spotlight. But there are the tier-three writers and bloggers who tend to twist the story and make it more worse. Thus, a news article/rumor be it an allegation or a truth can deeply bruise your online reputation.
The search engines are autonomous. They work on artificial intelligence. They are programmed to pick the most relevant, most popular and above all the most geographically close location to the searcher. To add more fuel to the fire, the links are shared in mainstream social media.
It doesn’t matter how careful you are some people will spew out of revenge, or to cause you financial pain, mental distress or because their blog/journal needs to be famous and some do it for a ransom. You can simply avoid major negative stories by these few tips. Be aware of what you’re saying in public or use the language of opinion, try to minimize un-official public presence (which can lead to candid photos taken by paparazzi). Personally, try to be low on social media. If you are passionate about bring on social media, use professional help who will plan and execute it in a creative manner for you.
Relax, calm down, think through it. For a business a bad remark on the internet is inflammable. For an individual a bad remark works like gossip, people tend to share more. Both need to be dealt with strategic surgical precision. There are several ways to handle the crisis in an organic manner. It’s the brands responsibility to respond to the user reviews, and talk to the customer on a personal tone. For an individual, the response and countering depends on the depth and the popularity of the news.
Our Experience
At lecocqassociate we deal with various scenarios of reputation management for brands and individuals. Our expert team works with various agencies to help you find the right solution at the right time to counter the issue. The quantity and mix of strategies is key, as oxygen can fuel the fire and we know how we deal with fire.