Just like corporate brands, personal brands are prone to negative attacks on reputation. Unlike businesses, attacks on personal brands hurt more deeply because of the attachment of individual emotions.
If you have built your personal brand over the internet and you experience such comments and remarks, it becomes even harder for you to contain your emotions and not respond in kind. But you need to know better than to lash out because of the far-reaching impact of such behavior on your brand reputation. Instead of reacting, you need to respond.
Here are some strategies that you must use to manage online reputation in the wake of negative attacks on your reputation.
Accept
Some influencers and celebrities may want to hush things up. Doing so gives them momentary control over the situation and sweeps the dirt under the carpet. Unfortunately, this approach makes the negative comment a time bomb for them that will go off sooner or later.
We want to believe that people on the internet have poor memories and we are right. But their memories can store and recall the information that matters to them. So, hiding the information will not eliminate this issue from your life. Instead, it will increase its intensity and people might give these discussions more weight because you gave these discussions that weight by trying to hide them.
Instead of trying to get rid of these comments, accept their presence and come up with an action plan that solves them.
Respond
Now, you know you’ve got negative sentiment building up behind your back, you need to tackle it, up-front. Respond quickly. If you don’t have an appropriate response to mitigate the negativity, you can still prevent it from escalating by participating in the discussion.
Join the conversation using your official social media handle and tell them that you have noted the comment and will deal with it soon. You might want to give the proper channel of communication to the commenter at this point. Or you will assure them that you will contact them in person at a specified time.
Empathize
Here you want to side with the commenter allowing them the opportunity to talk to you as a person and not as a brand or authority. A simple ‘I am sorry you feel that way’ can go a long way. You will not need to go overboard with this statement simply follow up with sincere curiosity about the background of this problem.
Deal with the Criticism
More often than not you will see negative comments that are brimming with emotions. It’s only natural for you to resent the hate, anger, or jealousy hidden behind the words. You may want to focus on the words and not the takeaway from the discussion.
Although your emotions are valid and understandable, holding on to them will not help your brand. Effective online reputation management prevents you from approaching these comments angrily and in a defense mode. Instead, try learning from them. Try understanding how your work ethic, shortcomings, or mistakes have hurt the person. If you are unable to see past the negativity, enlist help from a third party.
You will respond more empathetically when you have understood the viewpoint of the commenter. If you can see your part in their pain, apologize and offer to make amends. In most cases, all you will need to do is to give a statement or give them some solution to resolve the issue.
Be Authentic and Original
Personal brands differ from corporate brands because of one reason – they are represented by humans. You will want to remain as human as possible in your engagement with your fans and followers as possible. One way to present your human side as the face of your personal brand is to divorce the cookie-cutter answers to such comments.
Instead of copy-paste answers, you should talk to the person and let the discussion run its course in the most human way possible.
Keep Your Emotions in Check
Brands aren’t invulnerable to reputation attacks. When you experience such an attack, you will get defensive and resentful. Although there is nothing wrong with feeling the emotions of frustration and anger, you shouldn’t let these emotions get the better of you.
It’s difficult not to respond to these comments with the same anger and hatred, but you have to keep your cool. Choose your words wisely and be kind while curating a response. You may also want to get a second opinion on your response to these comments before posting them to ensure that the response is not emotionally charged.
Get a Second Opinion
The importance of responding calmly in the wake of an argument can never be exaggerated. If you are not confident in your tone regarding this conflict and negative comment, you should get a second opinion. Write the response and ask a mentor or a personal branding consultant to audit it for you. The expert will analyze your response against the original comment and using their knowledge about digital conversations and their impacts on personal brands in your industry, will advise you on your choice of words.
Don’t just stop at getting the expert to review your first response to the situation. If you decide to keep the whole conversation public, you should ask the expert to review every response you make to deal with the situation. Heck, you will even want them to monitor this discussion if you have gone into personal messages.
Try to Take the Conversation to DMs
While many people use social media channels to exert their control over brands and influencers, authority figures and personal brands cannot respond in the same manner. If the commenter is talking about your strategies, work ethics, or communication, you should invite them to talk to you privately. This way, you both will be away from the public eye and the pressure that comes with continuous surveillance.
Wrapping Up
Online reputation management is a never-ending task because of changing public sentiments and opinions. Negative comments can seriously undermine the popularity of brands in modern days if you ignore them or don’t deal with them effectively. In many cases, such comments allow you to present your human side and build lasting relations by presenting yourself calmly and confidently. This blog post discusses some tips that you must consider while dealing with negative comments online.
