Reputation management, or the art of controlling what information appears about you online, can seem drastic. Many would believe it’s not needed until something goes awfully wrong. They imagine hiring a firm to scrub negative content that appears online.
But according to a Forbes interview with Michael Fertik, founder of Reputation.com, “reputation management is not always about curing the negative—it’s about accentuating your positive truth and personal branding”. Reputation management is about fixing what is not yet broken.
Today we’ll see how influencers can help by letting positive content about your company rise to the top of online results.
“Reputation management is not always about curing the negative—it’s about accentuating your positive truth and personal branding”.
#1 Influencers Make Brands Personable
Consumers are known to be unreasonable with businesses. This is especially true with big companies. In their eyes, they represent a faceless organization. Even with the best PR practices in place, it’s easy for users to abuse social media accounts of businesses.
What influencers bring is a human touch. Instead of interacting with a support desk, consumers can ask questions directly to an influencer, who will be happy to answer questions. It helps influencers create more engagement with their content, which is beneficial to everyone, especially in the context of reputation management.
#2 Influencers Create Positive Associations With Brands
Nobody follows influencers whose personalities they don’t like. You wouldn’t subscribe, watch and comment on dozens of videos from a Youtuber you don’t care about (although some trolls might, but that’s another problem).
What this means is that the positive associations created with the influencer are immediately transferred to your brand. You like an Instagram personality because they’re funny and entertaining? If they promote your brand, this is exactly how good consumers will feel about it too. It’s reputation management at its finest.
#3 Influencers Improve Brand Engagement
We already know that better engagement equals better SEO and conversions. One other thing to keep in mind is that the more positive and transparent communication appears about your brand, the better it is for your reputation management.
Whereas content posted by a brand might seem static, the engaging nature of influencer content makes people comment and discuss. Even if you’re the one steering the discussion, the positives are numerous: people feel heard, they respond to your brand better, and more users notice, therefore improving your online reputation.
Conclusion
We’ve already seen how influencers can help with content creation, with improving conversions, and with launching events. One direct consequence of all the above, is that they also contribute to your brand or company’s online reputation.
And in the digital world, like in real life, the more positive comments there are about you, the more people take notice. Hopefully, you’ll never have to hire a reputation management firm to delete bad press about you from the internet.
