Published By: Puja Sinha

How Brands Mitigate Negative Publicity?

Businesses are often hit with crises. Nonetheless, in the art of remedying the situation lies the real challenge!

Negative publicity can inflict a sequence of negative consequences and in its wake leave a trail of destruction when felt to deal with it professionally and ethically.

Crosscheck with the Source

While it is never a smart move to pick a fight with stray comments and public opinion on the internet and social media platforms, you must never let reputed institutions speak brazenly against your brand sans evidence. In that case, silence might be a bit below the belt. Identify and confront the source that has sparked off the flame, but be sure you are well-equipped to battle full-fledged. If you have the room to challenge the published fact and retain your position throughout, make sure to diss the negative publicity with a positive one. Only by countering false allegations-- often crafted with malicious intentions, can a brand firmly hold on to its reputation.

Invest in Publicising

While devising a strategic plan to publicise, be sure to gather your supporters whose testimonials would vouch for the brand’s credibility. While dealing with bad press, clients, patrons and stakeholders are the best advocates whole opinions surpass even billion-dollar advertisements. When done right and tapped on the potential, the brand can amass mass-scale public support and appreciation subsequently obliterating the negative reports. The next step in publicising would be interweaving facts and honest narratives to establish evidence in favour of the firm. Being fully cognizant of minor deets is also mandatory to answer in full candour to refute allegations which should be the fundamental goal behind the contrived publicity.

Respond to Criticism 

The art of retorting back to criticism, of course, goes beyond fervently denying allegations and unabashedly chickening out from making a firm statement. Such acts do not bid well as far as brand reputation is concerned. If you have a strong presence on social media, it is imperative to respond to bad reviews or negative coverage and improve the crisis. Staying proactive and adopting a positive approach without ado can lessen the damage to your brand. Be it PR disasters, technical glitches or lapses in service quality, acknowledging the situation humbly and writing a response is the most responsible way to thwart off further havoc. Writing a reply and de-escalating the situation is especially necessary when the genesis of the negative press is you, be it a tweet wrongly interpreted or a legit complaint from customer.