eStrategy: Managing Your Brand Online

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You’ve spent countless hours and dollars building a brand. How safe is your investment in this brave new world of the internet?

A disgruntled employee, unhappy customer or even a disingenuous competitor need a few dollars to cause your brand irreparable damage in a few short days or weeks. In the process you are out millions, first trying to make them stop and then regaining the lost trust of your customers. 

The Attack

There are many ways your antagonist can get you without breaking a sweat. All they need is a dollar and a dream. Literally.

For as little as $5 one can register a site called “yourcompanyblows.com” or “yourcompanysucks.com.” Then fill it up with juicy content about your company. Follow a few simple steps to get the site search engine registered and optimized and voila! Every time a visitor searches your company’s name the first thing that pops up is: “YourCompanySucks.com!”

Then there is an even better way to get you. Try googling “terrorist bastard.” What is the first search result displayed?  “Bush is a murdering terrorist bastard!” Well, for all my disagreement and disappointment with our dear President, this is a bit extreme. I much prefer that the search on “incompetent fool” - you guessed it - displays Mr. Bush up top!

Kidding aside, the focus of this discussion is not on how this is accomplished - it is both a simple and widely used technique to get search engine ranking - but what to do to avoid being victimized.

Here are four simple steps to prevent being bush-whacked. (Sorry, that was just too easy to pass up J)