Web Reputation and SEO: how to lift the brand after a fail
If it happened even to Chiara Ferragni, who on communication skills founded her “empire,” it can really happen to any brand, whether personal or corporate: in today’s scenario, every statement, every review, every article, and even every “action” can influence the public perception and reputation of a brand, which build and decay with unprecedented speed. Online reputation is an intangible corporate asset, but at the same time measurable and closely linked to revenue performance-so much so that the World Economic Forum estimates that digital reputation accounts for 25 percent of a company’s market value-but the problem is that accidents and slips are always just around the corner and can wreak havoc if not acted upon in time. That’s why constant monitoring of online reputation is no longer an option, but an imperative necessity: the way a brand is perceived online can have direct repercussions on sales and customer loyalty, and fortunately SEO can help us resolve some difficult situations or real communication crises.
What is web reputation
Until a few years ago, the expression web reputation simply referred to the fame of a brand or a product on the web, while today it is a theme that extends to the whole complex of related information that can be found on the Net, that help create the subject’s digital identity and influence what users think.
It can be defined as “the prediction of a relationship between the company and the consumer, which presupposes a negative or positive expectation depending on what and how (the sentiment) is said on the web about the brand” (Marco Aurelio Cutrufo).
Reputation is often associated with the concepts of credibility and reliability: when a user/consumer decides to prefer a brand and buy his product/service, he performs an act of trust, starting a privileged relationship that should be mutual and satisfactory.
Definitions of Web reputation and Brand Reputation
In this view, brand reputation and web reputation are two closely related concepts but with distinct nuances.
Brand Reputation refers to the overall perception that consumers, customers, partners, and the market in general have of a brand or company: it is built on several factors, such as product or service quality, customer experience, corporate social responsibility, corporate communications, and public relations, and is formed through all contact points between the brand and its audience, both online and offline.
Web reputation, on the other hand, is specifically related to the perception and reputation of a brand in the online environment: it is influenced by what is said and shared on the internet about that entity (company or person), including websites, blogs, forums, online reviews, social media, and any other digital space where the brand is present or discussed. Web reputation is particularly important because, in the digital age, an increasing number of interactions and purchasing decisions take place online, and information spreads rapidly and can be accessed by a global audience.
Online brand reputation is a digital reflection of a brand’s value. In a world where 81 percent of consumers research online before making a purchase, according to research by GE Capital Retail Bank, a positive reputation can be the deciding factor that tilts the scales in a company’s favor. Conversely, a negative reputation can turn away potential customers before they have even considered the products or services offered. In addition, a strong online reputation helps build trust, which is critical to any long-term customer relationship.
Creating this trust relationship is difficult in the immediate term, and it is even harder effort to make it endure over time: trust can be betrayed by too high an expectation that does not match reality, for example, which generates frustration in the customer that often reverberates in the online world. And, according to the White House Office of Consumer Affairs, negative word of mouth is 20 times more effective than positive word of mouth and can even cause a business to lose 7 to 9 customers.
The problems for online reputation: less and less control over the dissemination of information
The Web world is fast by nature, and social networks have amplified this feature, extending the reach of content to an increasingly wide audience immediately and globally and, at the same time, making it increasingly difficult to manage and control information.
Now everyone has an online presence and, if we do not do it directly for ouselves, someone on the Net will talk about us anyway and will share his sentiment towards the site, the brand or the personality, that the average user has learned to consider to create his idea.
So, even being careful not to touch controversial topics and avoid unhappy jokes online, you can always make a misstep of any kind that – element to keep in mind – cannot simply be deleted or hidden. Our tracks in the digital world are more and more numerous and can have long-term consequences, and surely you can not “pretend” that the error and failure did not happen (also because, probably, in a few moments it will have already become a viral content).
Therefore, it is essential to have a crisis response plan in case of a misstep on social media: it can happen to stumble, and what matters is to respond quickly and sincerely to mitigate any damage to the reputation. The main communicative error that can be made in this case is in fact to think that the fail could not happen to us and our brand, and therefore be caught off guard and react in an ineffective way.
Slips and epic fail: famous cases of web reputation crises
The digital world is littered with examples of reputation crises that have left their mark.
For example, 2023 was certainly a bad year for Bud Light, until a few months ago America’s best-selling beer. In April, transgender TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney promoted Bud Light on his social media platforms as part of a planned partnership, but his post received a transphobic backlash, with conservatives calling for a boycott of the product. The situation took an even more serious turn as members of the LGBTQ+ communities themselves and their allies turned their backs on the brand for not speaking out quickly and standing with Mulvaney. The result was that, by June, sales had declined and Modelo Especial had replaced Bud Light as America’s best-selling beer, and the company reported a 13.5 percent drop in third-quarter U.S. revenues.
Speaking of meltdowns, then, it is possible to include in the big fails (including communicative ones) the rebranding of Twitter into X wanted by Elon Musk: in just over a year since the acquisition, the value of the platform has declined more than 71.5 percent. Basically, the South African entrepreneur spent 44 billion dollars to buy Twitter in October 2022, but today his social X is worth a mere 12.5 billion dollars-partly because Musk has revolutionized several things besides the name, even going so far as to pick fights with advertisers (including Apple, Comcast, Disney, IBM, Lions Gate Entertainment, NBCUniversal, Paramount Global, and Warner Bros Discovery), who have publicly withdrawn ads on X because of concerns over Musk’s public invectives as well as “hateful” content and misinformation that have come back powerfully on the platform.
Looking at Italy, the slips of some major companies and brands have now passed into “history.” For example, in 2018 the fashion house Dolce&Gabbana published a series of advertising videos for the Chinese market that were deemed offensive and racist; the situation worsened due to Stefano Gabbana’s inappropriate comments on Instagram. A boycott of D&G products ensued, especially in China, with significant repercussions on sales.
Even earlier, in 2013, Guido Barilla, president of the company of the same name, made statements during a radio interview that were perceived as homophobic: this led to an immediate reaction on social media, with hashtags and boycott campaigns urging people not to buy Barilla products (which has since taken a very different and more inclusive path in promotional communication as well).
Still on the “pasta” theme, in 2016 Buitoni miscommunicated during the earthquake that hit central Italy, publishing a Facebook post that was judged insensitive and was interpreted as an attempt to exploit the tragedy to promote its products. The negative reaction was immediate and the company had to publicly apologize.
These examples also make it clear to us that, when addressing the issue of online reputation crises, it is impossible not to consider the impact that social media has had on this phenomenon: digital platforms have the power to amplify communication gaffes, quickly turning small mistakes into real media storms. In Italy, we have witnessed several cases in which companies have been put in the spotlight for public statements by their representatives, which have had direct repercussions on the corporate image, a further sign of how currently any public word can go viral and how the distinction between personal opinions and corporate communication is becoming increasingly blurred.
Chiara Ferragni’s Pandoro and the case of Acqua Eva
We opened the article by mentioning precisely the recent “scandal” that hit Chiara Ferragni (without going into the merits of the legal case, but focusing on the aspect that affects communication and branding) and now it is time to quickly summarize it for those (certainly few) who have not heard about it.
Chiara Ferragni is an influencer with almost 30 million followers on Instagram and on TikTok and almost 18 million on Facebook and X: however, these numbers have been declining for weeks, particularly since the case involving her collaboration with Balocco, sanctioned by the Antitrust Authority because of precisely a miscommunication and non-transparent communication, came to an end.
Specifically, the facts date back to the final months of 2022, when the well-known confectionery company Balocco announced the launch of a new line of pandoro in collaboration with Chiara Ferragni, called “Pandoro Pink Christmas.” The pink packaging with Ferragni’s logo also featured a label that read “A portion of the proceeds will be donated to support the Regina Margherita Hospital in Turin,” which was also highlighted in promotional communications.
Following a complaint from Codacons, the AGCM determined that indeed the social media posts and press releases that promoted the campaign misled consumers by suggesting that the purchase of the limited-edition pandoro involved a charitable donation-in fact, Balocco had already made a donation to the hospital in October 2022, before the commercial launch of the product, and therefore the proceeds from sales did not benefit the hospital. And so, in December 2023 came the rather heavy penalty: the AGCM imposed a fine of 420,000 euros for Balocco and more than 1 million euros on Ferragni’s companies for this deceptive campaign.
On December 18, 2023, the influencer published an (already celebrated) video post on social in which she made a mea culpa for the case, even promising to donate 1 million euros to the Regina Margherita Hospital, but she abandoned “public” communications for a full 18 days, until January 3, 2024. In the meantime, however, he reportedly lost as many as 300,000 followers on Instagram, an existing contract with Safilo, which terminated the collaboration due to “breaches of contractual commitments,” and also a commercial agreement with Coca-Cola, which decided to suspend the planned promotional campaign.
Also in recent weeks, then, there has been another “case” that may be of interest to those involved in communications, namely the court case pitting Acqua Sant’Anna and Acqua Eva, two of Italy’s leading mineral water brands, against each other. It all started in 2018, when an article was published on a blog created ad hoc (and closed shortly afterwards) claiming that Acqua Eva was allegedly owned by the Lidl chain; to be precise, the incriminated article was published on the blog “Acqua Eva: the truth they don’t want to tell you” and was signed by a journalist who introduced himself as “a former employee of Acqua Eva.”
The article had a significant impact on Acqua Eva’s reputation: the company suffered a drop in sales and faced a boycott campaign on social media. After a short time, Acqua Eva sued Acqua Sant’Anna for defamation and trade disruption, identifying the management as the “principals” of this publication: in fact, the two mineral water brands have always been rivals in the market, with Acqua Sant’Anna leading with a 20 percent market share and Acqua Eva in fourth place.
On December 29, 2023, during the trial in Turin, Alberto Bertone (Ad and president of Acqua Sant’Anna) admitted responsibility, saying, “I wanted to have the gossip that had been circulating in the environment for decades put on paper and to embarrass Eva by forcing her to explain,” adding that “there was no intent to do economic damage” and that he had not read the draft of the article later published.
This diatribe raises a number of important issues in particular. First, it raises the issue of online media accountability because the offending article was published on a blog, which is a less regulated medium than traditional newspapers. No less important, it makes us realize how difficult it is to protect the reputation of businesses and also what impact a simple defamatory “rumor” can have if not countered properly.
The relationship between SEO and Web Reputation
In short, even figures deemed to be communication and business “gurus,” institutional figures, and major brands are not immune to slips and crises that can damage their image and reputation, whether in the online or physical world.
One of the possible solutions to buffer these problematic situations lies in SEO, which today is a crucial component in online reputation management. Search engines such as Google are often the first point of contact between a brand and its audience: even more specifically, virtually everyone does a Google search to find out something about a brand or person before doing any interaction with them, and thus the links and information that appear on the first pages of the search engine when our name is searched are what potential partners and customers perceive who we are.
It is therefore clear that SEO can “lend a hand” in influencing online reputation by ensuring that positive content is more visible in SERPs, while negative content is relegated to less visible positions. That is, through SEO, we can direct the dialogue surrounding our brand and present the best possible image to our audience.
More: a specific branch of brand monitoring, called online reputation management (ORM), has developed that works to ensure that Internet users intercept positive brand information as a priority, monitoring Internet mentions and maintaining a positive presentation in web searches. This proactive measure protects the brand by monitoring content disseminated on the Web and social media for mentions that may need to be addressed, such as negative feedback or critical articles, and also works to repair any reputational damage.
In summary, then, an effective SEO strategy allows a brand to be presented in the best possible light for any user’s search, finding opportunities to improve the ranking of positive content and “cover up” negative search results by giving them less visibility.
The main SEO techniques for managing reputation
Managing online reputation through SEO means adopting a number of targeted techniques that can make a difference in the ranking of a brand, whether personal or corporate.
It all starts, inevitably, with creating quality, useful and optimized content, which is one of the most effective tools for influencing what appears in the first pages of Google search results, especially when it comes to mitigating the impact of critical content. This can translate into content such as articles, press releases, positive reviews, and testimonials that, if optimized properly, can gain prominent positions in SERPs, but also in optimizing social media profiles and company websites so that they get to the top positions for brand-related searches.
One of the first actions to take is to analyze the “related questions” that appear in the People Also Asked boxes, which can reveal what negative aspects or doubts are associated with the brand and can provide valuable insights for the creation of content that clearly and constructively answers these questions. For example, if questions such as “Is it wrong to buy clothes from Walmart?” arise for a brand like Walmart, it is important to produce content that addresses these misgivings, showing the value and quality of the brand’s offerings.
Also in terms of onpage SEO, it can be essential to counter negative impressions by managing to position our pages among featured snippets, providing authoritative and informative answers that can be selected by Google as the best answer to the user’s question, so as to improve brand visibility and, at the same time, also help to build trust and strengthen reputation.
Another key aspect is the identification of long tail or medium length keywords that generate negative results, on which to work with a mixed onpage and offpage strategy. The first step is to create optimized content that responds to these searches, with the goal of undermining the undesirable results from the first pages of Google, through a complex process that requires in-depth analysis and an understanding of SEO dynamics, but can lead to significant results in the medium to long term. To say, it is certainly impossible now to completely eliminate all the negative results that appear for “Pandoro Balocco” searches, but with a proper strategy and due patience, one can clean up the SERPs from only references to the Ferragni case.
Achieving this requires another pillar of SEO strategy for online reputation management, namely quality backlink building: obviously, it takes a lawful approach and absolutely far from Black Hat tactics in backlink building, carefully selecting partners and avoiding unfair practices such as backlink buying, which can further damage reputation leading to search engine penalties.
Through creating high-quality content, optimizing for the right keywords and building a strong network of backlinks, it is possible to positively influence a brand’s online reputation, protecting and improving it over time.
10 techniques to overcome a misstep on social media
This is also the starting point of Victoria Edwards’ article on Search Engine Journal, who lists ten ways to restore the web reputation compromised by a social communications problem and prevent further damage in the future.
- Wait and plan before answering
Spur-of-the-moment answers are never recommended: reacting quickly and in the wake of the emotion of the moment to the error of the brand, regardless of which it is, is probably an intervention that worsens the damage.
More appropriate is to pause operations and plan solutions to effectively address the problem, so as to mitigate any and further consequences. This work must involve not only the social media team, but also the communication and public relations team as well as the one that takes care of the legal aspects, because it is important to weigh the words of the response well and carefully.
Most online users (especially on social media) look for the drama and follow all updates related to thorny cases: that is why it is important to keep calm, avoid answering to trolls and not be distracted by negativity – which lowers the whole conversation and makes the brand lose points – or anxiety.
A wrong reply message could cause big troubles.
- Establish and recognize errors
Admitting the errors and taking full responsibility for the problems that have occurred is often the best start to correct our social media reputation.
We were saying this before: today it is no longer possible to try to hide the incident and pretend that the problem did not happen: often, delete posts, photos or videos that represented the problem only serves to amplify their scope and turns the Web spotlights on the case.
Presenting a positive and sincere response can be essential to stem the creation and dissemination of false rumors: in the absence of “official” information, arranged directly by the organization or the person concerned, Web users will desperately search for other sources and look to external players (users of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, websites, newspapers….), who can further discredit the brand.
Communication of crisis to defend web reputation
We must therefore analyze the situation and understand what happened: in the early stages, it may be useful to respond with a simple and formal statement to “take time”, such as: “We are evaluating this situation”.
If we ascertain that there was indeed an error (human or technical) on our part, we should always offer the apology in an authentic way, with a human-toned message and not too robotic (which appears unfeigned): it is useless to ask ouserlves “why” to apologize, because people demand it, and so we “have to” do it.
It is crucial to give an answer: it must contain truthful information and objective facts about the event and must be distributed on all channels that dealt with the case – social platforms, web pages or forums.
This allows us to propose the brand as an information channel: users (and the media) interested will refer to our social page to find out what happened, without relying too much on sources that report the facts in a partial and perhaps tendentious way to create the scandal.
- Providing solutions to the error when possible
Often, the inconveniences encountered by users depend on problems related to data, errors or service interruptions: a brand (and those who maintain its reputation) cannot control everything, but being ready to respond with solutions to offer quickly will help the brand clean up its web reputation and prevent the case from exploding.
Truthfully speaking, these negative events can generate opportunities of growth for the brand: managing feedbacks and solving people’s problems can generate positive engagement and strengthen online reputation in the long run.
- Investing in brand monitoring
Listening and monitoring tools on social media may appear expensive and useless, but they are very useful in times of crisis, because they offer immediate alerts on what is happening; more generally, they serve not only to check if the brand appears in discussions on the Web, but also to keep an eye on people’s feelings towards the brand.
This allows us to do research, study the problem in advance and react immediately to prevent it from degenerating. You can also use free tools, such as Google Alert: what matters is not to neglect this activity and take action only after the case bursted.
- Working on the SEO to clean up the SERPs
Google is now the first channel of information for millions of people: if the misstep has become viral and has infested the SERP, you need to activate a strategy of cleaning up negative results to try to recover the image of the brand.
The simplest technique is to produce and promote different content on the brand, a long-term strategy that – if well executed – could effectively push the lower positions the content not so pleasant towards the brand. One way to start solving the problem is to create sponsored content or develop a campaign that mentions the value promoted by the brand.
- Managing complaints offline
A useful trick to avoid putting in place all the problems is to activate assistance systems that do not directly involve the public bulletin board of the social page or site comments.
When a negative post appears, the best thing to do is to accept the message and ask the user to send an email or message privately.
For example, we can use as a means of communication the direct messenger native to the specific social platform, or create a support email account entirely dedicated to the answers on social media. Just activate easy-to-remember addresses for people – like socialmedia@brand.com or socialsupport@brand.com – and channel the problem and discussion into these.
This not only serves the security of the brand, but also to ensure the confidentiality of the data subject, who can report his problem (and possibly personal data) in full respect of privacy.
- Using testimonials to launch a new campaign
After a misstep you have to get back on your feet: when the waters have calmed down and the fail of the brand no longer makes news, it is time to highlight the positive aspects of the company to the public.
One way to do this is to develop a campaign (not necessarily big) focused on presenting the value or benefits offered by the brand, perhaps emphasizing the human aspects of the business – like showing the people behind the name and how they play a fundamental role.
Another useful technique is to take advantage of the testimonials of satisfied customers, who can become testimonials and start a positive word of mouth.
- Strengthening emergency communication
Restoring the brand on social media is also an opportunity to make an in-depth analysis after the problem has disappeared, bringing together all the interested sectors – social media teams, legal and PR – to understand not only the case, but especially the reaction, the timing, the consequences, figure out what could have been better and study plans to prevent complications in the future.
Not having an emergency plan is definitely a mistake, but also not re-evaluating the responses to crises is wrong, because it limits our ability to be ready to face new cases.
- Review business operations
If complaints and missteps often occur and concern the same topic, it is not the social media or communications team that can solve them, because they may concern a business operation problem.
There may be a lack of technical support, or a production error and so on: social support can help up to a certain point, but the user perhaps expects a different and more concrete intervention.
In such cases, you need to invest in ways to improve the support provided with the purchase, a means to increase customer satisfaction and create new brand ambassadors at no costs.
- Pay attention to competitors
The battle between brands is often fierce and there are times when a competitor invades our space to do everything in his power to further jeopardize our brand.
They could develop content that shakes hands on failure, try to tarnish the brand, propose themselves as problem solvers or (in cases of problems born from wrong communications) bearers of a different and more inclusive philosophy: in most cases, the best thing to do is to avoid being part of that noise, because this dispute will make our brand look even worse and may even cause legal repercussions.
