Bad Publicity On The Web – Part 2

Bad publicity on the web is a type of online marketing. It’s a type of marketing by a dissatisfied customer against you!

In the last post, Bad Publicity On the Web – Part 1, I talked about some ways to deal with negative feedback in sites like Ebay, Amazon, Guru, and others.

But there are two other types of negative publicity you can get which are harder to deal with: Scam reporting sites and hate sites.

Scam reporting sites are often forums where angry customers go to post feedback about a negative experience. While scam reporting sites do have value in alerting people to scams, they don’t always have the filter to weed out the difference between scams and dissatisfied customers.

Hate sites are sites that are specifically geared to a company (and often have the word "hate" or "sucks" attached to it). Obviously, these sites are magnets for bad publicity about the related company.

So what can you do about it? Here are a few options:

1.    Ignore it. There isn’t much you can because this stuff will appear. Continue to provide great service and, unless the negative feedback is ubiquitous, it shouldn’t bother. (If there is a lot of negative feedback, maybe you should take a look at your operation).

2.    Respond. This is risky but I’ve seen it work. It’s risky because you stand the risk of getting drawn into a fight where the odds are stacked against you (especially on hate sites). However, if you are professional and level headed and apologetic, it can work. I’ve seen it work although, to be honest, I probably wouldn’t pick this as the option I’d take.

3.    Ramp up marketing. That’s what I recommended last time and I’d recommend it this time, too. And, this is exactly what I would do if I ever found bad publicity about my business: Boost your marketing dramatically and don’t just aim to point everything back to your .com website. Work hard to own or control the first 20 Google searches. Buy the .net and .org and .biz versions of your domain name and set up separate websites. Create multiple Squidoo sites. Start producing press releases every week and articles every single day. You’ll not only get a lot more business but you can help to drive the negative publicity off of the first 2 pages of Google.

4.    Seek legal counsel. This can be challenging and expensive, so make sure that winning will be worth it. (Don’t respond this way only if you are fighting "for the principle of the matter). Libel is a common legal argument but sometimes copyright infringement is brought in, too, if they are using your logo.

5.    Rebrand. This is an extreme step but it could be the right answer if the feedback is brutal and widespread. If it is enough to hurt business but not enough to hire a lawyer, consider a brand new corporate identity: New domain name, new marketing content, new everything.

These options require some investment; it won’t be cheap. But, it might still cost you less than what you’d lose from the negative publicity.

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