Online reputation crisis: Why and when takes place?

An online reputation crisis emerge when your personal image, brand or bussines has been associated to dismissive statements or negative events, thereby when you check on the internet your name or bussines, the majority of the results obtained are negative. In this way, we talk about a reputation crisis in the exact moment that someone wants to get any information about you, like what do you do for work or what type of company you have and end up with a negative perceptions. There are two types of online reputation crisis mainly:

• Personal reputation crisis: when as an individual, our appearance gets negative impacted
• Business reputation or brand crisis: when potential customers receive, after checking our business, a negative  impression of it.

Depending on the type of crisis that you face, the way of solving it or treat it, will be different.  

Definition of reputation and related concepts

  Before we start going into detail, is important to understand the  definition of reputation, no matter in which communication channel occurs. So, is understood as reputation  the combination between how we see ourselves (or Business) and the way people see or talk about us (or our company). In other words, the duality of “what you believe you are and what you want to be”. Knowing this, a reputation crisis is when the appreciation of ourself or business is negative, but not only in the case that someone is descrediting a brand or individual. Also, a reputation crisis occurs when our reality or the current situation of our Brand not correspond with what it appears online.  

Why an online reputation crisis occurs?

  An online crisis occurs when we do not have any control about the  information or comments that appear on the network generating the following effects:

• Deviation: overall, the generated opinion of myself or my company is not 100% how I would like it to be.
• Review: when the opinion of myself or my company is not true or is negative, creating a wrong effect of who is reading about it.

  When negative comments come along related to our activity, it has to be an intentionality from someone who has been generating negative or fake content. That situation could be for the following reasons:

• A negative personal or corporate event, like a past incident or wrong comments on Social networks, that quickly it has been made public.
• A vulnerability that has been exaggerated and spreaded with the intention of damage our image.
• A confussion or coincidence: a company or individual that has the same name and does a similar activity.

 

How do I know if i'm having an online reputation crisis?

  It is very simple. If you search your company or personal name and the results are 100% satisfying, does not exist a crisis. On the other hand, if the results are showing negative aspects or fallacy, even though is just one result, we are talking about an online reputation crisis.    

The importance of positioning in an online reputation crisis.

  The reason why just one comment or page it could supose an online reputation crisis is because the user is focus on the first results the browser brings after a search.   Nowadays, not many users look further from the first page of results and no one checks the contents past the second page. Thats the reason why the leading results are very significant to get an opinion about someone or something.   The lack of time and the escalation of movile device formats allow users to search and get information everywhere,  enhancing the importance of the first positions on the search. In this way,  even though we have a good reputation but have only one negative page or comment related to myself or my business but is popping up on the first page, it will ruin the image anyway. The 60% of the Google users only click the first result, 16% first and second and the 8% go to the third result. Can you guarantee that all the results about your company or  ypurself are positive?