What are some online reputation issues a brand might experience?

Business owners are often taken off-guard by online reputation issues. Many don’t even realize they need to be concerned about their reputation online. A common question I hear is: “Why are people saying bad things about us on the Internet, and what can we do about it?” Executives can spend long years developing a strong brand. It can be beyond unsettling to wake up one day and see defamatory remarks appearing online, particularly when the items move beyond constructive criticism to include outrageous accusations and even slanderous or libelous remarks. Even worse, the negative reviews are often on websites that rank high in search engines, so anyone doing a search on the company name will probably see them. Whether the comments are true or not, these negative search results jeopardize the company’s online reputation.

Many executives don’t consider the potential losses in sales, press coverage, hiring ability, and more until long after the damage is done. That’s understandable, given all they’re responsible for, but it leaves them vulnerable. It’s a lot more expensive and difficult — sometimes impossible — to clean up a reputation after negative comments appear online than it is to be proactive. I’ve seen more than a few companies plagued by a small group of individuals with a vendetta against a company who leverage the Internet to do damage. These people often have goals to critically damage the company or even profit by a company’s poor reputation by shorting their stock.