By: David Wenner, CEO Local Hits Media LLC, Home of Localtestimonials.com
The "Bad" part of social media is that anybody can write anything about anyone and there are no gatekeepers. There are so many vehicles available on the internet today to contribute, whether it be via blogging or simply by making a comment on a blog or news story. Imagine for a moment that someone has written a small negative comment somewhere out there about your business. Even before you can react, thousands and possibly millions of people will have seen the damaging content. This scenario is not far fetched. It happens more often than you think or would like to imagine. The question is what can you do about it?
In summary, Social Media brings many new opportunities to businesses. However you must be aware of the dark side of Social Media so that you can protect your most valuable asset, your reputation.
Everyone is ranting about the need to jump onto the Social Media bandwagon. There is much to be said for the new trend. Social Media is a quick and efficient way to get the word out on almost any topic. One of the driving forces behind this trend is the impact that Social Media can have on your organization's image on the Internet combined with the impact Search Engines have on determining your relevance and ranking. The more positive content that is written about your business or organization, the higher you will appear on search engine result pages (serp). The need to be very relevant all the time has made some companies enlist the help of writers and bloggers for the specific purposes of creating fresh, entertaining and insightful content. We have found that over time, this strategy seems to work. But as in any new technology, along with the good we usually find the bad & the ugly.
The "Bad" part of social media is that anybody can write anything about anyone and there are no gatekeepers. There are so many vehicles available on the internet today to contribute, whether it be via blogging or simply by making a comment on a blog or news story. Imagine for a moment that someone has written a small negative comment somewhere out there about your business. Even before you can react, thousands and possibly millions of people will have seen the damaging content. This scenario is not far fetched. It happens more often than you think or would like to imagine. The question is what can you do about it?
Before I get to what you can do about "the Bad", I would like to explore the "Ugly" part of Social Media. Search Engine's are constantly searching the web for new content. The search engine's do not discern between positive and negative or good and bad. Everything get's indexed. Not only do they get indexed but they are stored within the search engines for perpetuity. In our "Bad" scenario, someone has written a negative comment about your business. The result is that thousands of people can now view this negative comment, but what's worse is that the negativity is stored forever; waiting for the next time someone wants to learn more about your company.
Many people ask me, what can we do about it. The answer is that you need to take a pro-active approach to managing your image on the internet. It starts with tracking your name or your company's name or your company's brands so that you are in the know of what people are writing about you and your company. This can be done by setting up alerts in Google. Another approach is to have people write positive blogs and stories about your company and its services or products. If the negative comments are really hurting your business then you can take legal steps to have the offensive material removed from the source and Google.
In summary, Social Media brings many new opportunities to businesses. However you must be aware of the dark side of Social Media so that you can protect your most valuable asset, your reputation.
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