Online Reputation Management: What To Do When You Google Your Name and It’s Not Good
Everyone knows you need to have a good online reputation. This is especially true and vitally important if you plan to run for office. If you’re new to politics, nothing will destroy your campaign and political brand faster than someone conducting a Google search of your name and finding negative comments about you or very unflattering photographs from years ago, as some politicians recently learned.
When it comes to running for office, positive political branding is a MUST. So, the first thing you and your political consultant should do is find a qualified, experienced digital marketing company specializing in online reputation management.
Can you do this yourself? Sure, you can. There are plenty of websites that assure you that you can do it yourself and give you advice on how you can. But remember this, NOTHING is free. The amount of time, knowledge, and energy it will take to manage or repair your online reputation will end up costing you more when you compare it to the time and energy you could be devoting to your campaign.
Think of it like repairing your car, the small jobs, such as changing your wiper blades, or maybe topping off your fluids; you can probably do it yourself and save yourself some money. But the bigger jobs, the ones that impact your safety and the safety of your family, are best left, qualified mechanics. Your online reputation management and political branding should be treated the same way and repaired by qualified professionals.
So, what should you do when you Google your name, and it’s not good?
Online Reputation Management and SEO: A Winning Combination
The first thing is to hire an experienced online reputation management company to monitor, address, or mitigate search engine result pages or mentions in online media. However, the company you choose should also understand search engine optimization (SEO) reputation management.
It’s one thing to repair your reputation, but it’s another to utilize search engine optimization techniques to suppress negative comments and increase the ranking of positive search results to increase your political brand’s reputation.
Public Relations is newsworthy
The second thing you want is a good public relations (PR) person on your team. If negative comments are posted online, you’ll need someone who understands how to create content to shift public perception and redirect the conversation around negative topics to improve your political branding. Having a public relations person who understands political campaigns and who can work with your political consultant and campaign manager to craft a PR plan to deal with any negativity that may come your way is crucial.
PRO TIP: Hire someone who also has experience with crisis communication skills. Having been involved in several political campaigns, if you’ve found the negative stuff, rest assured your opponent has too and is probably keeping their powder dry. You can expect an onslaught as the election gets nearer. This is when you’ll already want a PR person with experience with crisis communications who will anticipate the attack and be ready with a plan to counter.
Reach Voters | A Winning Team
At Reach Voters, we are a full-stack digital agency providing political consulting, political branding, graphic design, website design, social media marketing, email marketing, mobile marketing, public relations, crisis communications, and much more. We utilize cutting-edge technology, data-driven analytics, and innovative integrated marketing strategies to help our clients stay ahead of the competition.
