subject: Negative Press Isn't 100% Bad [print this page] What's the first thing you think about when imagine a negative review for your site? A coping strategy is probably the first thing that comes to mind, with a side-order of panic. Negative reviews are never welcome, but they are unfortunately inevitable. A comforting thought should also be the fact that their influence is not always completely negative.
Negative press is a fact of life for every online business. Opinions are only too easy to air on the net, and internet users are far more keen to vent their frustrations than sing someone else's praises. It's a sad truth of business life that you hear more frequently from disgruntled consumers than you do from happy ones.
There are ways to court positive reviews, and you can discuss this with our expert staff at SearchEngineOptimization.co.uk. When it comes to online reputation management, it pays not to be too fearful of negative press.
Negative reviews nurture trust It might sound strange, but one of the positive aspects of negative publicity is that it can help promote consumer trust in your business. It goes against business logic, doesn't it? The effect comes about due to the untrusting nature of the average internet user.
Internet users are generally very aware of marketing tactics. Having been exposed to sophisticated marketing methods since babyhood, the average internet user can spot a marketing ploy from a mile away. One of the things that give a piece of marketing away is that it wholly supports the thing it's advertising. When every form of publicity about a product is positive, internet users begin to smell a rat.
Throw one or two negative reviews into the mix, however, and there appears to be balance. Even if all of the positive reviews have been orchestrated by you, internet users are more likely to trust them because a genuine debate seems to be going on.
Balance is key It's important to keep the balance of reviews believable if you want to gain the trust of internet users. If there are three reviews on a site that absolutely condemn your product, and three that praise it to the heavens, internet users will grow suspicious. It's important to keep the positive reviews in balance with the negative, and always to be realistic in the assessment of the product or service you're selling.
Obviously, too many negative reviews will sink any business. Internet users frequently shop around when thinking about making a purchase or investing in a service, and no business can count on their own marketing material to win people over by itself. This is why it's important to maintain a balance of positive against negative reviews if you can.
Keeping watch for negative press The balance of positive and negative is one of the many reasons it's important to constantly monitor for negative press. Keeping watch enables you to restore the balance should it ever be in peril. Monitoring the net for negative press should be a part of any company's internet reputation management.
