Social Media and Forums have now empowered the common masses in such a way that they no more need to sue the company and take things to the court. They can just voice their displeasure on the comments or on the social media or leave negative reviews for the whole world to see.

This is a double aged sword as it has helped in the consumers voicing their opinions and keeps the companies in check to provide quality service but it can also destroy the reputation of the brand.
More than once the internet has been used in the wrong way to intentionally defame the reputation of a brand. Once defamed it is a huge blow to the sales of the company.

Online reputation management is a technique that is used to optimize the search engine results to improve the rank of your company in the search engine. It is done so by filtering the negative results, outranking them with other positive content or neutral content about your brand.

It is not possible to delete a negative article or blog entirely from the internet, because once it is up, it is up. It is there to stay forever. So best one can do is increase the positive content about your brand on the internet compared to the negative content.

Protect your brand with below steps

• Treat your employees well. A little courtesy goes a long way. A bereaved ex-employee may slander the reputation of the company by posting negative reviews and outing company secrets.
• Make sure your company keeps those promises made to the customers otherwise you will be facing backlashes in the form of negative comments on social media.
• Continuously keep in check the comments on your company’s social media page and reach out immediately to a dissatisfied customer. This shows that your company values customer opinion.
• Create blogs and websites to counter the negative websites, articles, and blogs created to slander your company.
• Opt for press releases on the web to supplement the positive content created for your company. This will also help in promoting your business.

It is quite a task to take care of your business as well keep as to keep a lookout for negative reviews and comments on the internet. To reduce the workload you can hire professional online reputation managers who are trained at this very task. While you keep the company running they make sure the value of your brand never dips.