So, what do you do about negative exposure online? Reputation is perhaps the most important asset any business and person can have. Without a good reputation, it is impossible to survive in today’s cutthroat world.

The difficulty is that you don’t have any real control over your reputation, as it is down to what others say about you. What you can do is build on your positive image and hope that it catches on.

Building your reputation consists of the activities and strategies you can implement to develop a positive and accurate view of your business among outsiders. Reputation management exists online and offline and affects just about everything you do.

Sometimes, however, despite all your best efforts, things don’t go as planned. The reality is that no business can make every customer happy, so some degree of the complaint is normal. You will find it harder to resolve, however, a disgruntled employee, an online troll, or even the competition, all of whom could take great pleasure in spreading negative information about you, whether that information is true or not. In this article, we’ll take a look at what to do about negative exposure online.

What to Do About Negative Exposure Online

You can do a number of things with regard to negative online exposure. First and foremost, you can set up a Google Alert, or something similar to other search engines. You can get emails when new results for a topic show up in Google Search. For example, you can get info about news, products, or mentions of your name.

What this means is that whenever someone says something new about you – good or bad – Google will inform you about it straight away. You may also want to set up a Google Alert for your competition. That way, you can build on their negative exposure, or learn from their positive exposure. Either way, you will never be able to control the narrative unless you know what the narrative is.

Secondly, don’t take the negative exposure personally.

How Do You Deal With Negative Reviews?

If you have 100 reviews, five of them are bad, and you let those five get to you, then how are you going to deal with 50 bad reviews out of 1,000 or 500 bad reviews out of 10,000?

If you take negative exposure personally, your emotions will take control rather than your rational mind. What this means is that any response you give will be due to anger and pain, rather than professionalism and politeness. You must remember that you cannot make everybody happy. In addition, you should see negative exposure as a gift, an opportunity for you to learn how to be better.

Additionally, you need to find a balance. Negative exposure, by definition, sounds like a bad thing. In reality, however, not having any negative exposure is far worse.

A study by Harvard Business School found the majority of consumers trust reviews more when they see a mix of good and bad feedback. If the feedback is entirely positive, 95 percent believe the reviews are fake or company-screened.

That said, if there is an overwhelming amount of negative reviews, trying to delete them is time-consuming and challenging. You might consider asking a professional reputation management provider for help. Simply speaking with experts will give you a better understanding of what’s possible.

If you still have questions on what to do about negative exposure online, contact us today and speak with our reputation team.