How to Get Positive Press and Reviews
It’s time to turn things around! Put the past behind you and move forward by showing the positive side of your business. In this chapter we will be covering how to increase the number of positive information about you or your business and getting that content in front of the public.
Gaining Positive Media Attention
The best way to turn the negative attention around is to gain positive attention. Publishing great content on your website and social media can help but what you really need is the positive content on other authority websites. In the past it was difficult to gain attention of the media, however in the digital era you have more options to get your story out there.
The first step will be to craft a story that shows you or your business in a positive light. Did you recently make a large donation to a charity? Did you participate in a community effort to improve your city, county or state? Were you able to help a customer out in an impactful way? You will need to figure out what event you can use to gain positive attention. Keep in mind the more emotionally moving the story the bigger chance it will get picked up by more news sites.
Another school of thought is the story doesn’t need to be public service in nature. Just being featured as a leader in your field or breaking a hot topic can also help change your companies image. This is another great way to obtain media coverage and bury those negative articles.
Next you will need to get the message out there. There are a number of different ways to do this, we will cover three of the best.
Submit a Press Release
Submitting a press release is a two step process, first you must write the press release. There is a very specific format to how press releases are written that must be followed for it to be accepted. If you are not familiar with the process your best bet is to hire someone that has experience writing one. They are around 350-500 words in length and should contain contact information for your company including name, address, and phone number.
Once the release is written you will need to submit it to major news aggregators. While you can do this manually the time it will take is not worth it. Instead you will want to use a service like PRNewswire or PR Web, they cost around $300 but they will get your release on to many times more sites than you could on your own.
Get a News Station to Cover You
This will take more work than submitting a press release but should produce better results than a press release. The two primary ways to get in front of reporters is by contacting them via Twitter or using a website like helpareporterout.com. We could write an entire guide on how to use these two methods, however that isn’t the purpose of this chapter. If you are going this route plan on spending a decent amount of time getting this done.
Increasing Customer Reviews
This is a great way to downplay negative reviews. When a potential customer sees one negative review but it is surrounded by a sea of positive reviews they will downplay the negative. First keep in mind that you do not want to sumbit fake reviews. We covered this in the last chapter but you are very likely to see this backfire in your face.
Different sites have different rules about how you can solicit customer reviews. For example on Yelp you are not supposed to recommend that customers review you on Yelp. Most all of the sites do not allow you to bribe customers to leave reviews by giving them a discount or an item for free so forget about that as well. Obviously that adds a challenge to gaining reviews.
Some businesses gain reviews by telling their customers to check them out on Google Maps, Yelp or other review sites. By doing it this way you aren’t pressuring customers to leave you reviews instead they can come to that conclusion on their own.
One of the best strategies is for brands to create engaging content that builds trust and a strong relationship with their audience. If a negative publication surfaces, your customers will be more likely to rush to your defense to refute the claims made by one individual that do not accurately reflect the typical experience of most customers.
Gain Exposure on Blogs in Your Industry
In every industry there are authority blogs where people go to learn about the latest news and trends. Most of these sites allow guests to submit content that visitors would enjoy. The hardest part of this strategy is to create a great piece of content that people in your industry would enjoy. Since each industry is different you will know better than us what your peers would enjoy.
Final Thoughts
Each of these strategies will require a bit of creativity on your part as well as some time to gain traction however they can greatly improve your online reputation. A lot of businesses will decide to hire a reputation management company to do the heavy lifting. If you would like some help in this area click on the “Live Chat” box and talk to someone from our team! In the next chapter we will show you the three most important things to look for in a reputation management company.