Online reputation damage can happen in a variety of ways, including many you wouldn’t expect. One real-life example could be made of Adam Catzavelos, a South African businessman who posted a racially charged rant on social media back in 2018. Within days the video went viral, causing havoc in his life. As a result, he was charged with crimen injura and lost his position working for his family’s business.
When the online reputation of an employee is tarnished, it could directly impact the reputation of your company or organization. As a business owner, it is up to you to decide if the damage done to your company’s reputation is significant enough for grounds for dismissal. If you’re not willing to take this route and would rather assist your employee and company in restoring their online reputation, read on.
Since anyone can post anything online, online reputation management is essential. From the intern posting inappropriate comments to the CEO sharing a religious rant, everyone employed by your company carries potential risks for the business’s online reputation.
The first step to fixing a damaged reputation is to Google yourself or your brand. See what information comes up and decide if this is the information you’d like everyone Googling you or your company to see. From there, you can monitor Google search results by setting up a Google Alert with your name so that you can be notified of any new links, articles or images associated with your name.
If you Google search your name or company name and you find undesirable results, you could try saturating the search results by publishing more positive content about your company. This will suppress any negative news and links associated with your company while promoting newer and more positive content. Alternatively, you can contact Google and have them remove the website or page from its listings. You can read more about what type of content they will remove here, however, you need to remember that even if Google removes the website from its listings, you may still need to contact the website owner to get the content removed from their site.
Implementing search engine optimization (SEO) can help your company show up higher in the search results. Some would say it’s essential. According to imFORZA, 75% of search engine users never scroll past the first page of results. Furthermore, 68% of all clicks go to the first five positions of the search results. Therefore, it’s vital that your company shows up first whenever a keyword or related word is typed into the search engine.
Last and most certainly not least, you can make use of an online reputation management service. Companies like Reputation.com offer services to businesses that help them provide the best customer experience possible, but if you’re looking to improve your personal online reputation, you can check out BrandYourself for a free reputation report.