The Communicatorium

No, I’m not trying to be rude – I mean it literally. Go type your name or your brand name into Google and search it. What comes up? Do you see positive references, such as an announcement of an award, or a successful product launch? Or do you see negative links? If people search for your brand and the first page of results is filled with bad press, that will obviously affect their perception of your brand. Would you believe several Fortune 100 companies are suffering from this problem?

How can we put our best foot forward on the Web? First, we need to monitor search engine results. They can change overnight, as fast as an oil spill is sighted or a petition is signed or a blog entry is published. We can’t address an issue until we know about it, so we need to Google ourselves.

So what happens when we discover that result number four leads to a consumer site encouraging people to boycott our company? We can reach out to the consumers behind the site and try to resolve the problem. We can attempt to drown out their influence with an aggressive advertising campaign. On some search sites, we can even pay a fee for favorable placement of our own Web site. But more on that in my next entry.

In the meantime, have you Googled yourself lately?