When Do You Need A UK Reputation Management Agency?
The first thing you should do is take a minute, breathe and calm down. The team here at VerriBerri, a leading UK reputation management agency, wanted to look at when you need an agency such as ours, and what the steps you should take are. After all, nobody wants to go from fame to infamy. Read on to find out more…
Evaluate The Situation
There are two common responses to a situation in which your brand has come under scrutiny. Neither of which tend to be conducive for full brand recovery. Some brands take it personally, which is often understandable, and with their clouded judgement launch a full-scale counter offensive to fight fire with fire. Unsurprisingly, this rarely ends well. The alternative, is a brand which buries its head in the sand. If you pretend the issue doesn’t exist, then it will go away, right?
If only life were like that. Allow yourself some time (though no more than a day, if you can help it) to take stock of the situation and assess what’s happened. This step prevents kneejerk reactions and allows you to view things more objectively.
Unfortunately, here at our UK reputation management agency, we’re met by many people who come to us after having worsened the problem. If you pour gallons of petrol onto the fire, then there’s very little we can do to help. If you’ve remained calm, however, the problem is eminently more salvageable.
What’s The Scale Of The Problem?
Once you’ve got yourself in the right mind-set, you need to assess the problem, itself. What and where is the damage being caused? Something we’re regularly met with here at VerriBerri is damaging articles competing for SEO rankings with your website. In other words, if your brand is ranking first for its name on Google, but then the second result is a scathing review or blog post, then you have a problem. Pieces like these slowly chip away at your brand’s image, dealing death by a thousand cuts. Whether they have a basis or not, it sews a seed of doubt in a customer’s mind as to your brand’s trustworthiness.
Reputation management, in this instance, would take the form of shunting the offending piece further down Google’s SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). One of the ways in which this is done is by securing online PR articles with valuable backlinks to your website. These are fantastic, even without a damaging situation at hand, but their usefulness is amplified further still when it comes to managing reputation. If it’s a case of someone making a lot of noise on your social media posts, discrediting you this way and that, then the best cause of action is to engage with them, take on their feedback and remain as objective as possible.
Whilst situations damaging a reputation can go away on their own, with time, more often than not they won’t. That’s why a proactive approach is so imperative, the more you avoid an issue, the more it seems like you’ve something to hide. Not only that, but the longer you leave a problem, the more it will drain your pocket. Not tangibly, but through a decrease in customers. Those who may have been sitting on the fence about you, are less likely to commit if they see that there’s a reason to doubt you.
A Reputation Is For Life, Not Just For Christmas
Has your business been going along smoothly? You’ve never had a hiccup? Great! Now get some reputation management. Wait, what? There’s always ways in which you can monitor and enhance your brand’s reputation. You by no means have to have experienced something catastrophic to utilise the services of a UK reputation management agency. Ongoing reputation management takes the form of engaging with social media users, ensuring their experience is positive and considering any feedback. Actively monitoring this prevents problems from building up, and helps your brand nip situations in the bud.
Further to this, reputation management should also be carried out, internally. This means that anytime anyone is brought onto the company, they’re educated per the brand’s value and core ethos. Often crises and damaging occurrences happen when an employee, essentially, puts their foot in it. At best these are embarrassing faux pas, at worst, they can cause real damage. By teaching them from day one what does and doesn’t align with your company’s values, you greatly mitigate the risk of any such missteps.
General Tips On Reputation Management
There are a few things you should always watch out for when it comes to your reputation. These include:
- How you come across online
- Your brand’s tone voice (would some consider your brand abrasive?)
- Your stance on social issues/how progressive you are
Even by factoring these more into your business’ workings, you stand to improve your reputation.
Contact Us
Just because your reputation comes under fire, doesn’t automatically spell the end of your business. Far from it. A considered and proactive response can have you firing on all cylinders again, in no time. As we’ve established, though, reputation management is beneficial no matter what the situation, no matter how apparently rosy things may be. The constant auditing and monitoring of how you’re perceived helps your brand grow a more solid, deep-rooted foundation. So, if you’d like to find out more about our UK reputation management agency, then get in touch! Contact VerriBerri today on 01376 386 850. We’d be interested to hear what your problem is, and how we can help you out of it. In a world where reputation is key, it’s best you keep on top of it.
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