Blogs are not just online journals, as many people assume. They can be a powerful way to send a message. Blogs have helped companies launch successful services and products and have helped shed light on news stories that traditional media do not cover. Blogs have even made the news in some cases. Although they can be free to set up and only take a few minutes to create, blogs can spread a definitive message about your business.

When someone uses blogs to spread a negative message about your company, though, the results can be devastating. Many bloggers browse other blogs and use blog posts to start their own online discussions. Therefore, one negative comment about your company on one blog can quickly parlay into whole discussions about your company on a group of blogs. Blogs tend to feature feeds that allow regular readers to get posts delivered right to their inboxes. A negative comment about your company on one blog, therefore, can quickly end up on numerous blogs, on sites such as Digg and Technorati, and even in emails.

Your business cannot afford to ignore a bad company reputation being perpetuated by blogs because:

1. Blogs seem legitimate because they can be set up by anyone. They seem democratic and they can easily be touted as the voice of the “little guy.” Unlike company websites and blogs – which often appear to have an “agenda” – blogs are often seen as more impartial. This is actually a misconception, of course – business competitors often use blogs to put down another business and disgruntled customers use blogs as a good platform to punish a company. However, perception counts in business, and blogs are often seen as somewhat trustworthy. Potential customers and clients are likely to believe what they read on blogs, so you need to take negative comments on blogs seriously.
2. Blogs get lots of new content regularly, as bloggers add new posts. This means that viewers return to the same blogs again and again. It also means that blogs tend to place well in search engine rankings. Don’t assume that because blogs are established by one person they have no power. The comments made on just one blog can affect your bottom line.
3. Blogs often get quoted on other online sites. Forum participants, ezine writers, bloggers and even reporters writing for print media sometimes turn to blogs for information and for opinions. One negative comment can easily be reproduced many times, creating a PR nightmare.

Obviously, you cannot take blogs for granted. If you have dismissed blogs as online diaries, you need to start seeing them as important PR tools. Gauge your company’s blog reputation by running searches on sites such as Digg, Technorati, and Google Blog Search. All these sources will let you know whether your company is being discussed on blogs. Once you know what sort of reputation you have with bloggers, you can start formulating a plan to take control of your reputation.

For businesses, virtual reputation does not always match real-life reputation. Even if you have a great reputation as a business in your local community, your online reputation may be terrible. If your company is generating negative websites, negative online comments, and negative blog posts, this sort of attack can eventually affect how many customers and clients you see in your bricks-and-mortar office.

If you are facing a bad reputation in cyberspace, these do’s and don’ts can help you regain control online:

1. Don’t forget to thank those that do bolster your reputation. Some companies get so hung up about the negative comments made about them online that they fail to notice the great comments made by bloggers, forum participants, and the like. Be sure to look for the positive comments as well as the bad. If you notice someone posting complimentary comments about your business, make sure to thank that person. It will create a more positive buzz about you online and will make that commenter or web site owner feel even better about supporting your business.
2. Don’t be passive about a bad reputation. Some companies get so discouraged that they assume that there is nothing to be done about a bad online reputation. Nothing could be further from the truth. Set up Google alerts or put aside time each week or each month to monitor your online reputation. If you find a troubling trend, do act on it.
3. Do develop a solid plan to prevent a bad online reputation. One way to regain a sense of control over your online reputation is to have a solid plan in place. When you do find unflattering comments about your company on the Internet, knowing what to do right away helps you feel better about the situation. If you are not sure how to handle negative online comments, consider a reputation management service. Professionals can help you get a handle on the situation quickly.
4. Do use all the online resources in your arsenal. Many companies assume that as long as their company is not generating any negative comments that can be found through a cursory Google search, all is well. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. When considering your online reputation, consider blogs (both posts and comments), websites, YouTube videos, forums, and other modes of online expression. Similarly, when trying to repair your reputation online, make use of social networking sites, forums, blogs, and sites to spread a positive image of your company as far as possible.
5. Don’t try to be perfect. Many companies assume that any admission of wrongdoing is ill advised online. In fact, the opposite is true. If you have a negative reputation online because your company has made mistakes in the past, hiding those mistakes can be the most damaging thing you can do. Being honest about your mistakes and working hard to do better in the future is your best solution. The online community will respect you more for this approach.

A bad reputation on government sites or The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) website can be especially devastating for a company. While many businesses dismiss flame sites or negative comments made on blogs, forums, and newsletters, it is much harder to ignore government sites and a bad SEC listing. These sites simply carry too much cachet. These sites carry so much authority that any potential customer reading about your company on these sites will inevitably believe what they read.

Worse, government sites and SEC tend to have very good search engine rankings. Companies who have been listed with the SEC or have had negative comments about them posted on government sites have traditionally had a very hard time getting superior search engine rankings. Some companies spend many thousands of dollars on SEO services, hoping to push negative SEC or government site comments about their company down the rankings, but are frustrated when these sites continue to show up very high in search engine results.

If government sites or the SEC have negative comments about your company, you need to take action. Negative mentions on these sites are just too damaging to your company, since these sites are so authoritative. One way you can work to repair your company reputation is to ensure that any information contained on government sites is accurate. Thanks to the long bureaucratic process involved in getting information online on a government sites, many government sites contain inaccurate or outdated information. In many cases, you can request that the website remove inaccurate or outdated information or at least add an update about the situation. That way, readers looking at the information will at least be informed. Keep in mind, however, that government sites are often very reluctant to make changes of this nature on their website. They are simply not very motivated to do so and they often assume (correctly) that you have little legal recourse to enforce the changes in any event. If you want to make changes on government sites, you will have to be very persistent as well as patient.

If you are getting bad listings on the SEC or other government sites, you will certainly want to ensure that some government sites, at least, have neutral or positive listings about your company. That way, these high ranking government sites may eventually bump SEC and other negative sites out of the first page of search engine results. One easy way to get on a government site is to ensure that you are listed on your local chamber of commerce site. Many municipal governments have short listings of local businesses on their chamber of commerce sites. If your municipal site has a list of businesses in a specific area – such as a revitalized downtown core – or has a list of businesses that tourists might be interested in, do not be shy about getting your company name on these listings, where appropriate. If your community or city is hosting charitable and community fund-raising events, check to see whether a link will be provided for sponsoring companies. Sign up for some worthy causes that will see you featured on the municipal web site. It’s a great way to give back to the community and improve your reputation at the same time.

Browse through some pages on MySpace and other social sites and you may be convinced that these sites do not pose much of a threat to your business. After all, many pages on social sites are personal networking pages, containing personal pictures and listings of favorite books and movies. The conversations on these sites are often about personal, everyday things. Pretending that these sites don’t affect your business is a serious mistake, however.

People use MySpace and other social sites the way that earlier generations used the phone – to gossip and pass on information. You may not even be aware of it, but your company reputation may be affected by what is said on these sites. There are many reasons why you need to be aware of your reputation on social sites, and always work to improve them:

1. MySpace pages and pages on other social sites can be set to “personal” meaning that they will not show up in Google searches. Even if you occasionally run a Google search on your company name, you may not be aware of the misinformation or negative comments being spread about your company. You could be experiencing a drop in business and not even know why – unless you are monitoring the social sites.
2. Social sites can spread misinformation quickly. If you have ever played the childhood game “Telephone” you likely know how quickly accurate information can become distorted. In the game, players sit in a circle and the first player whispers something – such as “I have red hair” — to the next player, who then passes on the message. By the time the last player listens to the message, it is often garbled beyond recognition. Social sites can work the same way, with members passing on half-understood or incomplete information as facts.
3. Information about social sites often gains authority because these sites are friend-to-friend networks. If a stranger told you some bad news about a company, you might or might not believe them. However, if a friend told you the same information, you would be more inclined to believe it because you trust your friend. MySpace and sites like it rely on networks of friends. Therefore, when a negative piece of information starts making the rounds on this type of site it tends to get accepted as fact, since every member hears about it from a friend.
4. Information on social sites spreads geometrically. On MySpace, each member page can be viewed by all the friends that member has. When someone posts a negative comment about your company, that member’s friends will see the comment, and all the friends’ friends will see the same information.
5. Authoritative sources about your business – such as your employees – may be passing on very believable images and ideas about your business. It is one thing when a complete stranger makes an accusation about your company – but what happens when employees use their MySpace pages to portray themselves and your company in a less-than-flattering light? Wouldn’t you want to know if one of your managers or supervisors has a MySpace page that describes your company as “workplace hell” or worse? Only monitoring can tell you if this sort of activity is occurring online.

Of course, if you have a bad reputation on Google or other search engines, it is not really the search engines that are too blame. The search engines are merely reporting on relevant pages related to your company. The real problem is that high-ranking web pages, forums, and blogs are making negative comments about your company – and these comments are made highly visible thanks to search engines.

According to eMarketing, 41% of customers use search engines when researching a product or company before making a purchase. This means that if search engine results show negative comments about your company, your bad reputation could be costing you more than 40% of your potential customers.

Search engines can be a very useful way to learn the state of your current online reputation. Running searches on your company name, on your products and brands, and on employee names can help you determine what potential customers see when they research you online. Running searches can also help pinpoint where negative comments about your business are coming from. Finally, many search engines – including Google – allow you to set up alerts. This free service allows you to get email notices whenever new comments or pages with specific keywords appear online.

If your search engine research reveals that your online reputation has taken a beating, you can often use search engines to bolster your reputation again. For example, you can try search engine optimizing your website. This ensures that when customers search for specific keywords, they will find your website first – not flame sites or blogs.

Another option is to add new online presences. Set up a company blog, participate in online forums, develop a sub-domain for your sites, create feeder sites, and set up social networking pages for your business. All of these will show up as separate search engine results and will help you gain control over your search engine reputation. This tactic will increase the number of high-ranking positive comments about you online. Hopefully, these will push the negative comments further down the search engine results listings. All of these can bring more traffic to your site and will generally be accepted as new sites and may outrank the older sites with negative information about your company.

Another good tactic to use is to submit articles to quality online publications in your industry. Target the publications that have high rankings. Your article will be bolstered up the search engine rankings by virtue of the publication’s search engine ranking, and you will be helping others by sharing your expertise.