What Is Negative Earned Media?
In the realm of advertising and SEO, negative earned media is a form of outbound media. It is when a customer speaks poorly or complains about a company and its products/services. For example, if Chick-fil-a was to take away their Chicken-Minis for breakfast, there would be a plethora of online reviews that share the news in a negative voice. This is impactful for the company because reviews affect trustworthiness in the customers mind. If customers don’t trust a company then they are less likely to click on that company’s links. In result, their rank through Google will drop due to the decrease in relevancy from a lower click through rate.
What To Do To Avoid Negative Reviews
To start, it is very important to treat every customer to the best of your ability because it will turn into a positive impact for your SEO practice. If a company does receive negative reviews, which is likely to happen, it is important to respond with grace and humility. The customer is not always correct but they are always right. It is important to treat them respectfully even if you as the company disagrees. Now, negative reviews are bound to happen. It is hard to make everyone happy but when they do pop up, but there are a few things you can do.
From “How to handle negative Google reviews: Remove, respond, recover” by Search Engine Land, here is a list of action steps that can be taken to protect your brand and avoid negative SEO ranks:
- Flag the review
- this is possible if the content of the review is either
- spam or fake
- misleading
- off-topic
- restricted or illegal
- this is possible if the content of the review is either
- Contact Google Help
- Discuss Legal Options
To learn more about how Google reviews are important, check out another insightful article:
4 Responses
I think this is an interesting and unique topic for a post. Often when we are discussing SEO, the importance of encouraging positive reviews and engagement is mentioned, however I have yet to see someone address what to do if that doesn’t happen and how to handle negative reviews. Overall very informative.
Everyone always talks about getting positive reviews but never what to do when you get a negative one. I think a negative review can be just as impactful, because as a company, you can show how you handle that situation. Handling a negative situation well can actually turn your customers more loyal depending on how you take care of it.
Hi Zach- I really liked your post this was unique and interesting. I have never thought of reviews and SEO to go hand in hand. I also liked how you included ways to handle negative earned media as an SEO specialist. Also, It was interesting how you liked SEO success with earned media and how its important to strive for positive earned media.
This is a great post! I enjoyed the picture of the negative media, and I liked that you dived deep into defining what negative media is. I will definitely be paying more attention to negative reviews from now on!