Using Social Networks to Combat Bad PR

We recently had a few clients who were the unfortunate targets of negative articles in the area papers.  Every company goes through its ups and downs, but bad situations are made even worse when the media gets involved.  Bad publicity makes it even harder for businesses to recover or deal with whatever matters they are going through.

Negative publicity is particularly damaging because of the long-term effects related to search engines.  Even if the situation is short-lived, references to the article stick around for a long time, and for most companies these articles can be the first things to show up in search engines when somebody searches on the company page.  Newspaper websites tend to get much higher search engine rankings than most websites because of the amount of content they generate and the number of inbound links that they have.  The result is that bad publicity is often the first thing that people find when looking for information on a company.

It turns out that social networks can be leveraged as one of the most effective ways to combat bad PR.  There are a few key reasons why this is:

• Your major social network sites (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) are juggernauts when it comes to traffic.  In terms of search engine rankings, these sites tend to dwarf most traditional media sites.  As a result, content posted to these sites will often show up higher than content on a newspaper's website.
• Your fans and supporters want to see you do well.  They get upset on your behalf when you are the subject of negative publicity, and they will actively support you in the fight against this PR.

For a company that is subject to bad PR, there are a few key things that can be done that are simple and inexpensive that will make it so that, at the very least, when somebody searches on your company or name the positive things that you are posting will come up higher on the rankings than your negative publicity:

• Blog on your site regularly.  Blog about the bad PR, and state your side of the story. Then blog consistently about all of the good things that you are doing.
• Promote your blog to your network.  Leverage your Facebook and LinkedIn accounts to share your blog link to your network.
• Refer to your blog postings on Twitter every time you post.
• Create a video where you directly address the bad PR and post it to YouTube.  Share your YouTube video with your network and post it on your site.
• Make sure you have a Facebook page and LinkedIn group for your company.  Use these outlets to promote your website, blog postings, and the positive things your company is doing.
• Enlist the help of your network to promote the positive things going on with you.  Ask them to retweet your Twitter postings and share your blog links with their network. Have them endorse you on your Facebook page, in your LinkedIn group, and on your website.

Taking these steps will help to boost the number of inbound links to your site, helping your site out in terms of search engine rankings.  Importantly, it will also create references to your site on the social network pages, which will generally show up higher in the rankings than your negative article.  At the very least this gives you a fighting chance to promote the positive things you have going on, and for people to see those things first over the bad publicity.