Malign Competition: Watch Out!

admin on Aug 10th 2009 with 8 comments

Are you aware of what your customers, ex-employees or current employees saying about you? And your competitors? Do you have any idea what kind of online conversation is going on about your brand? How such conversations are affecting others’ view point in regard to your organization?

Earlier the spread of news was a slow process, giving organizations ample amount of time to develop structured responses to arising problems. But after the advent of Internet, and the growth of consumer-generated media like message boards, forums and blogs, people quickly air their views and these quick-generated views are indexed by search engines. Building brand is not a child’s play. Thereupon, it is important for business heads to be acquainted with what negative is being said about them. By becoming a regular observant of the conversation, you will be able to take action and deal with malicious information within time. This way, negative publicity of your brand can be avoided and ultimately, the reputation is managed.

Competitor Attacks
The increasing cut-throat competition in the online industry gives rise to unethical marketing practices. Your competitors will not miss out any opportunity to take business away from you. They may carry out an undercover derogatory drive against your product. This form of negative CGM conversation directly affect upon your trademark. In intense case, you may take legal action to limit the damage of your brand’s reputation. The unscrupulous competitors may implement other techniques like ‘Link Smearing’ or ‘Google Bombing’ to infringe your reputation. This is an unethical marketing practice followed by the competitors to damage your online reputation. This can be cured by online reputation management.

Need of Online Reputation Management
It takes years to build and maintain a reputation. A reputation is everything a business relies upon. Online Reputation management is “the practice of consistent research and analysis of one’s personal or professional, business or industry reputation as represented by the content across all types of online media”. The aim of Online Reputation Management is to increase your overall web presence in positive way.

Online Reputation Management is becoming an important strategy for every organization, as the reputation of many companies is being damaged by the wrong response given by others or in the absence of any response. Through monitoring, analyzing and influencing online communications, it helps prevent the loss your business suffered and thereafter, ensures ongoing success of your organization. Moreover, reputation management is not only about monitoring, it’s about taking action. Marketers need to work really hard to keep their reputation alive and maintained. It requires doggedness and an intense determination to succeed.

Every business organization understands the importance of its reputation. Positive reputation builds trust and confidence that last to give positive result, profitability and growth of the business. But a bad reputation does a lot of bad things, resulting in lowering sales and profits in the business.