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Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Guide

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is transforming how brands show up in AI-powered search. Explore insights, strategies, and best practices to help your content rank and resonate across conversational engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot.

Explore insights and strategies for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to help your brand stay visible and discoverable in AI-powered search.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Blog Collection | Meltwater

Media monitoring helps organizations stay informed about what’s being said across online news, print, broadcast, podcasts, and other media channels. Whether you're tracking brand mentions, measuring PR performance, monitoring competitors, or identifying emerging trends, our expert guides, best practices, and industry insights will help you build a smarter media monitoring strategy and make more informed communications decisions.

Discover expert media monitoring guides, best practices, and industry insights to track brand mentions, monitor competitors, and stay ahead of the news.

Media Monitoring: Guides, Best Practices & Industry Insights

Every day billions of conversations take place on social media: tweets, posts, comments, blogs, reviews, podcasts, and much more.

Learn how to use social listening to make sense of all of that data.

On our social listening category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around social listening and social media monitoring. Read more.

Social Listening Blogs | Category

Business Reputation Management: What does it take to add reputation management to your marketing strategy? More importantly, how do you keep your reputation sparkly and shiny? Here’s your all-access guide to online reputation management for the long term.

On our reputation management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around business reputation management. Read more.

Reputation Management Blogs | Category

From your brand's logo to your website, your social media presence to your customer support—these elements combined are what constitutes a brand in the minds of customers. But, there are thousands of other businesses that have a logo, website, social media presence, and website. So, how can you position your business on the market and make it stand out from the competition?

The key to success is branding & brand management!

On our brand management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around brand management. Build your strategy and reach your goals!

Brand Management Blogs | Category

Competitive intelligence and the act of collecting competitive data can be seen as growth drivers for a company. Our guide will help you understand the concept of competitive intelligence (CI) by answering questions such as: What is the definition of competitive intelligence? How is competitive intelligence useful to organizations? What is the goal of competitive intelligence? And more.

On our competitive intelligence category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around competitive intelligence. Learn how to stay ahead.

Competitive Intelligence Blogs | Category

Let’s dive into the customer journey framework and how to optimize the process by creating a customer journey map and using metrics that matter when analyzing the customer journey.

On our customer journey category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Customer Journey Blogs | Category

How do customers interact with my newly launched product?

How do I increase the productivity of my employees?

How do I know if my marketing efforts are working?

We have just two words for you...Data analytics!

On our data analytics category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around AI and data analytics. Technical and still easy to understand.

AI & Data Analytics Blogs | Category

Public relations and media relations can add impact to any marketing strategy. It’s an opportunity for brands to grow their reach beyond traditional sales messages. PR helps to shape the image you want people to have of your brand.

So, what is PR and how do you use it? This guide shows you everything you need to know to build a strong public relations foundation.

On our public relations (PR) category page, you find all our blogs covering public relations and communications topics. Step up your PR game.

Public Relations (PR) Blogs | Category

We all know exactly what the roles of sales or accounting are in a company, right? We might even have a slight idea of what the IT guys are doing.

But there is another business discipline, that plays a crucial role in organizations, even more so during the pandemic – internal communications!

But what exactly do we mean by that, what purpose does it serve and what steps can you take to ensure you and your employees will communicate effectively?

On our internal communications category page, you find all our blogs about internal comms topics. Learn about the intranet, internal newsletters, and more.

Internal Communications Blogs | Category

As the internet has taken root in more areas of our lives — everything from entertainment to shopping to paying bills and more — traditional marketing is becoming less impactful. As any marketer knows, you need to focus on where your audience is if you want to reach them. Since the average person spends about seven hours a day online, it’s no surprise that content has maintained its hold on marketers.

Here's a closer look at what content marketing is and why it matters more than ever in our digital-first economy.

On our content marketing category page, you find blogs about content marketing topics. Learn about strategies, KPIs, tips, and more. Make your content king!

Content Marketing Blogs | Category

The rise of the influencer marketing space – today a $10 billion industry, growing 50% per year – is one of the clearest examples of how social media is transforming traditional marketing. These days having a business website, presence on social, PR coverage, and your own content isn’t enough to compete.

We'll dive into the intricacies of influencer marketing to help ensure that you're equipped with the insights needed to be successful in this space.

On our influencer marketing category page, you find blogs about influencer marketing topics. Build your strategy, find influencers, and measure results.

Influencer Marketing Blogs | Category

Have you just launched a new product or service that you want to get the word out about? Maybe you want to share with consumers why it is awesome and how it is so much better than the one your competitors offer.

Well, then, there is one thing you can't do without...Marketing!

On our marketing category page, you find blogs about marketing topics. Learn about all the different angles and types of marketing and improve your results.

Marketing Blogs | Category

Building a following and using social media platforms to reach a wider audience requires a well-planned social media marketing strategy. In this guide, we’ll be looking at why social media marketing is so essential and how you can make it work for your business.

On our social media marketing category page, you find blogs about social media marketing topics. Learn how to get the highest paid social ROI!

Social Media Marketing Blogs | Category

In the fast-evolving realm of digital marketing and public relations, utilizing the right tools is crucial for success. Our interdisciplinary category showcases all the pertinent tools for digital marketing & PR. These tools help in enhancing your online presence and effectively reaching target groups, whether through reputation management, influencer marketing, or social media management.

On our digital marketing and PR tools category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Digital Marketing & PR Tools Blogs | Category

From media coverage and social conversations to audience insights and campaign performance, communications teams have access to more data than ever before. But collecting information is only the beginning. The real challenge is knowing what it means, what matters most, and how to respond with confidence.

Data-driven communications turns scattered signals into actionable insights. By using data to understand audiences, identify trends, measure impact, and guide decisions, communications teams can create more relevant strategies and demonstrate their value across the organization.

Learn how data-driven communications helps teams understand audiences, measure impact, identify trends, and turn media, social, and AI signals into action.

Data-Driven Communications: Insights & Strategies | Meltwater

Kim Cattrall takes the lead in a campaign celebrating the intelligence behind confident brand decisions.

Intelligence is always in style: Kim Cattrall stars in Meltwater’s new campaign

AI adoption is no longer the challenge—trusted context is. Most organizations have AI tools, but many still rely on disconnected, stale, or unverified data, limiting the quality and trustworthiness of AI-generated outputs. Meltwater MCP brings trusted, real-time intelligence into AI assistants.

Your Best Context is Already in the Room

See how one platform can power every decision across PR, communications, and marketing.

The Meltwater Blog

Blog Topics: Generative Engine Optimization, Media Intelligence, Media Relations, Social Listening, Consumer Intelligence, Influencer Marketing

Find out how you can leverage Facebook to boost your brand's online presence and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

Facebook Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage Instagram to boost your brand's visual appeal and gain a competitive edge. Explore our category page today!

Instagram Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage LinkedIn to grow your professional network and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

LinkedIn Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage TikTok to elevate your brand with creative content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

TikTok Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage X / Twitter to engage your audience effectively and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

X / Twitter Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage YouTube to create engaging video content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

YouTube Blog | Meltwater

A brand’s online reputation means everything. It can help you charge a premium, differentiate from the competition, attract talent and win customers over during the purchase decision-making process. Considering the stakes, it’s therefore surprising to hear that under 50% of respondents from a PRNews study do not have updated reputation management plans in place.

We understand that managing, mitigating and resolving a crisis can be extremely challenging if you don’t know the steps involved. That’s why we put together a list of before, during and after crisis pointers, so if ever one did hit, your online reputation repair strategy will be that much more effective.

Learn how to repair your online reputation!

How to optimise your online reputation repair strategy

Calm before the storm: GOAL – Mitigate online reputation risks

1. Analyse internal processes to spot potential weaknesses

2. Hash out a crisis contingency plan for each potential weakness you find

3. Monitor your brand, competition and industry across media

In the eye of the storm: GOAL – Contain a crisis

1. For a better chance at reputation repair, configure media monitoring alerts

2. Create brand reputation dashboards and share insights with key stakeholder

The storm aftermath: GOAL – understand lasting effects of the crisis and work to repair them

3. Up your Search Engine Optimisation game

The first step to online reputation repair is not waiting until you see a crisis coming to start planning. 

Handling reputational threats that have already surfaced is crisis reputation management - a reactive approach that’s purpose is to limit the damage.

Online reputation repair is made easier by the speed it takes for you to respond. The faster you act the better. This is why it’s important to have governance models in place to mitigate risks in the first place. 

Below you’ll find a few ways to help you become more proactive when managing reputational risk.

No business can ever anticipate all situations or actions that could result in a crisis, but having an idea of what could trigger one is extremely helpful in containing it. After all, if you’re not aware, you can’t prepare! 

Internal due diligence is needed to create strategic contingency plans. This process involves the evaluation of problems that could affect reputation. 

Weak links that could impact reputation management include:

Weak product-testing procedures that could result in product recalls and a ton of disgruntled customers voicing their concerns

Personal reputation of leadership and workplace culture

Not every negative mention or bad customer service review will require the attention of your crisis response team, so it's essential to also discuss what defines a crisis at your organisation.

The next step in the crisis-response risk mitigation system is to predict the likelihood of a risk happening and the extent the issue will hurt your company’s online reputation. This is referred to as a 'likelihood and impact' risk assessment. 

Following this framework will help you focus on priority risk areas and develop the required response playbooks to repair a brand if needed.

As Deloitte rightfully states, managing reputational risk doesn't fit neatly into a single function. Reputation management needs clear accountability, leadership, and engagement across a number of teams. These teams include risk, compliance, internal and external communications, human resources, and other operational functions that regularly engage external stakeholders such as customers, suppliers, and investors. 

Be sure to gather all the relevant teams’ opinions when conducting the 'likelihood and impact' risk assessment so that no stone is left unturned.

Once you have an understanding of what could go wrong, now it’s time to think about how you could put it right if this situation does occur which is the first step of your actual online reputation repair. 

Begin drafting communication material for each of the predetermined scenarios and ask yourself questions like:

Who is in the chain of command, what are their contact details and responsibilities?

How will the chain of command come together?

What happens if influencers you’re working with or any affiliated companies begin to receive backlash too?

What is responsible for writing a response and what should the response look like?

What channels will you be releasing statements on and who is in charge of each channel?

The last thing you want to be doing at the height of a reputational crisis is scrambling to create a press release template or drafting a tweet, so we’d recommend pre-planning your crisis comms response for each scenario you identified in your 'likelihood and impact' risk assessment.

3. Monitor your brand, competition, and industry across media

Explosive news articles, disgruntled customer reviews, negative comments on social media sites, and damage to reputation all come hand in hand. This is why it’s vital for brands to know what’s being said about them online. 

When we consider the fact the average person shares around 9 pieces of content online every day, and 90 percent of the world’s data was generated in the last two years alone, the digital noise can be deafening causing critical conversations to be missed. To plug this visibility gap, media monitoring tools like Meltwater are being used by marcomms teams.

Tip: Read our customer story with PLDT and learn how they use the Meltwater Media Intelligence Suite to manage reputational risk.

With the support of such solutions, marcomms pros can gain a holistic view of trending brand themes, keywords, the geographical spread of mentions, and the sentiment of conversations. That way, you are the first to know when your brand is gaining traction and more importantly, why.

It’s just as valuable to set up media monitoring searches on your competitors and industry and not just your own brand since their crisis can easily tricky down to you and you may need to reassure customers, as Sarah Pursey, Danone's previous Regulatory Affairs Manager found out. "On one occasion, we saw an article in the US talking about the chemical BPA, which was found to be leaking out of plastic containers into the contents," Pursey explains. "While it was not relating to our business directly, we were able to learn how BPA can affect babies and train our Careline staff quickly with questions and answers so that we were prepared when our customers began inquiring." 

Once a crisis hits, the role of online reputation management is to contain it before it spreads like wildfire. Following the above steps will help massively reputational resilience, but there are additional steps you need take to achieve this fully.

In most cases, reputational crises start out as murmurs. Having the ability to spot these murmurs can help you squash them before they get out of control, as Roxana Tintea, Planning & Insights Manager at Hill + Knowlton Strategies explains: "I use Meltwater to get ahead of the narrative and understand mentions in real-time to try and lessen the impact."

To help this process, communication pros turn to real-time media monitoring alerts and digests since they condense online chatter down to a handful of stories you need to be aware of. Most media monitoring providers offer different alerts/ digests reports based on the distinctive needs of stakeholders. 

Here are a few media alerts we would recommend having in place when a crisis is rumbling. Configure them to increase your chance of repairing online reputation if things do get progressively worse.

As it happens alerts
‘As it happens’ alerts are instant notifications with a new email for each article, post or broadcast clip. They’re mostly sent to ‘boots on the ground’ field marketing/ comms teams who are trying to understand the nitty-gritty of what’s being said, as it’s said, by whom and to what audience. A more granular view is often needed to guide tactics, for example, deciding who to respond to first, or spotting where something may have been misinterpreted, as well as opportunities to influence opinion.


Daily digest reports
‘Daily digest’ alerts are summaries of key conversations that took place in the past 24-hours. This is useful for those in more strategic roles, such as the marketing/ comms VP or CMO, who need a high-level overview of the situation to help inform their next move.


Weekly digests reports
‘Weekly digest’ reports offer an even more high-level situational overview of what’s being said, and are therefore often sent to c-level executives.

Regardless of the type of alert or report you wish to send or receive, having the option to view push notifications within a mobile application is critical. That way, you can stay in the know while on the go.

2. Create brand reputation dashboards and share insights with key stakeholders

While instant alerts and daily/ weekly digest reports are great to stay informed, in order to really understand how a developing crisis is impacting your online reputation, you need to go beyond surface level and conduct a reputation analysis. This involves creating brand dashboards within your media intelligence solution, analysing metrics like sentiment, trending themes, reach, top posters and geographic spread of the conversation.

At Meltwater, our shareable dashboards take the form of presentation-ready reports and are perfect for debriefing and communicating advancements in an ever-changing situation. Another way you can improve internal communication is by sending internal newsletters which summarise highlights from the dashboard, such as key stories to be aware of or how competitors are responding.

It’s worth keeping in mind that the murmur might die down before you need to go public with a comment, but as mentioned earlier, it’s always good to have crisis comms statements ready. 

If you decide this issue needs to be addressed, begin prepping your spokespeople and tweak your pre-planned statements so that they’re relevant to the current situation. Insights found via your brand reputation analysis come in handy here, as Andres Giuliani, Community Manager at Brote explains:

"A large client of ours was acquiring a prominent bank recently when the seller suddenly had his assets seized. Fortunately, we have a robust listening tool. Meltwater allowed us to follow the negative impacts on social media and gauge how our response was able to mitigate the situation in favor of our client."

When it comes to crisis communication outreach, we’d recommend searching for relevant influencers and journalists and begin telling your side of the story either on social media or via our newswire distribution services. If you communicate directly with journalists or your social community, you can ensure your messaging is on brand and that you control the narrative as much as possible. Don’t forget to also tweak your statements depending on the channels where the conversation is mostly erupting on.

Sometimes a crisis simply can’t be avoided, and brands have no choice but to work on minimalising the negative impact. Knowing to what extent a crisis has damaged your brand is paramount if you’re to move forward. With this in mind, here’s how you can analyse the long-term effects of a crisis and put reputation repair strategies in place to successfully come out the other end.

Once the storm has passed, it’s tempting to want to put a brand image crisis behind you, but aftermath analysis is too rich in insights to skim over. Media intelligence evidently has its place before, during and after a crisis. For example, by analysing the narrative/ sentiment of conversations one year on, you can gage if the crisis has made a more permanent negative impact. We would recommend taking a 6 month retrospective view to judge just how hard your online reputation has been hit and which elements of your brand need the most damage control. 

Data from the media analysis can also guide future online reputation management decisions, helping you to answer questions like:

How might I handle the situation differently if one was to hit again?

Where was the crisis comms strategy most helpful/ least impactful?

How did our social and crisis comms teams handle the dissemination of information?

Do we have processes in place to support our brand if a crisis develops again?

Which publications and authors wrote extensively about the crisis?

Piggybacking on the positive brand reputations of influencers is one-way brands can combat the negative impact of a crisis and repair damage. 

While the audience of micro and mid influencers are smaller, their loyal and engaged communities tend to trust them more compared to macro-influencers and celebrities. To ensure your message remains authentic, it’s best to work with influencers you already have relationships with and have them share why they still love working with your brand. Don’t forget that influencers aren’t just individuals, they can be third-party organisations with authority too, such as an established health organisation.

Some influencers may naturally be advocates without any prompting; a media intelligence tool will help flag positive mentions from those influential accounts. You should also be using media intelligence insight from your brand analysis to guide which influencer relations to prioritise. For example, if certain segments of your audience are more concerned than others, working with an influencer that speaks to that community should be actioned to restore tarnished reputation.

Generating more positive conversations through online content marketing can significantly help to suppress search engine results that may compromise your online reputation. When we consider the fact that 90% of Google traffic comes from the first page of search results, it’s clear that Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) skills play a key role in reputation management too. So, make sure you keep SEO content in mind whenever you create content that supports ORM efforts. 

Here are a few online reputation repair tips you can use to reduce the visibility of bad press appearing on page 1 of search results:

Create a PR campaign targeting trusted national news publications since articles appearing on high-quality authoritative editorial websites have a higher chance of appearing on page 1 of search results.

Encourage brand advocates to leave favourable reviews and social media comments since social media profiles are also powerful authoritative website in the eyes of search engines.

If the negative search result trending is a press article, explore options for a follow-up piece with a more positive spin, such as an interview where you can put your side of the story across or discuss what you have done to address the problem. 

Reach out to reputation management companies that have experience with reputation repair by de-indexing search results.

Google tends to rank PPC ads above regular listings, so consider using Google’s PPC Ads platform to push down search results by creating a campaign for your brand name.

In an economy where 70% to 80% of market value comes from intangible assets such as brand equity, organisations are especially vulnerable to anything that poorly impacts their reputations. By following the above online reputation repair tips and having the right crisis communication solutions in place, you’ll be able to protect one of your most important assets – your brand. Want to discuss online reputation management specifically for your company? We’re happy to help with our Meltwater PR & Comms Suite. Complete the form below and we’ll be in touch.

Online Reputation Repair: Everything You Need to Know

There’s a lot that makes up a brand identity: logos, colors, typography, messaging, and packaging. Each of these plays a role in marketing, helping you differentiate your brand from another. But there’s another critical component of your brand that’s also used in marketing. It’s the single most powerful brand identity tool to make people advocate for and buy from you: reputation.

Your reputation is arguably your most valuable intangible asset. It helps you earn trust, increase your brand’s value, and even attract better job candidates. And just like you need to market your products and services to raise awareness and increase sales, you also need to market your reputation.

This type of “marketing” is called reputation PR. It allows you to take control of the narrative around your identity, help to shape people’s perceptions, and protect your image.

Here’s more on how reputation PR works and how you can put it to work for your brand.

How Reputation PR Differs from Traditional PR

Reputation PR Strategies that Lead to Success

Reputation PR can be defined as proactively using public relations to protect or improve your online reputation. This is different from traditional PR in that it focuses solely on building a good reputation, not just getting your name mentioned in mainstream media.

Reputation management PR might include removing negative online articles about your brand, responding to online customer reviews, or using influencer marketing to build positive brand buzz, for example. Like corporate brand management, reputation PR requires ongoing proactivity and communication.

A natural part of managing your brand image includes keeping a finger on the pulse of your reputation. But, what is reputation, and what makes a good reputation?

Your reputation is a collection of other people’s opinions about the things you say, do, and sell. Your employees, products, services, and even your community presence all help to shape your reputation. Every interaction a customer has with your company is an opportunity for your reputation to change (for better or worse).

Reputation management has become an even greater concern in the current digital climate. Things like fake news, digital scams from seemingly legitimate companies, and a spike in product recalls have made it critical for companies to earn and keep consumer trust. What’s more, bad press no longer dies with yesterday’s news. Digital content can live (and rank in search results) for years, making it harder for brand wounds to heal.

The role of PR in reputation management is to leverage public relations outlets and techniques to improve your image in the eyes of others.

There’s a subtle yet important difference between traditional PR and reputation PR. Both are tools that can be used strategically to improve your reputation. But while traditional PR focuses largely on relationships with traditional media (think press release in The New York Times, etc.), reputation PR is all about online visibility.

The main goal with reputation PR is to reach as many people as possible with your message. You might launch a new marketing campaign with the goal of earning brownie points from your audience. Or, you might use search engine optimization strategies so that people see positive press when they Google your brand.

Reputation PR can also include traditional PR. For example, you might use your connections at a top publication to write a press release or hold a press conference.

Proactiveness is another difference between traditional PR and reputation PR. Brands that prioritize reputation PR are constantly monitoring the media so they can respond to any negativity almost as soon as it happens. Some companies even hire brand reputation managers to identify opportunities and prepare appropriate responses as they occur.

Knowing the difference between traditional PR and reputation PR is essential to your reputation management strategy. Because you’re not limited to traditional PR tactics, you have more opportunities to take control of your brand’s narrative.

Managing your reputation online can take many paths, depending on the catalysts driving your efforts. For example, you might take a different approach to crisis management than startups trying to earn consumer trust for the first time.

These reputation management strategies can help to guide your efforts:

You can’t control what others say about you. But you can take control over the conversation and get ahead of the situation.

This is exactly what KFC did when some of its restaurants experienced a chicken shortage. With no chicken to sell (unthinkable for a chicken-based restaurant), the company quickly released a “fowl-mouthed” apology with a full-page ad. The ad showed an image of its iconic striped bucket with the letters rearranged.

Understandably, customers were upset with the chain for having no chicken to sell. COVID supply chain disruptions created chicken shortages that affected the restaurant and many others. However, the brand's creative reputation PR plan helped to smooth things over by offering a humorous apology and taking ownership of the issue.

Effective reputation PR strategies are deeply rooted in authenticity. Brand trust has been on the decline for years, according to the Gustavson Brand Trust Survey. And in the wake of COVID, brand scores have recently reached an all-time low.

Social Media Today reports that 90% of consumers say authenticity is a key factor when choosing which brands to support. They want companies to use real people in their advertising, have real conversations with consumers, and make a real difference in the world.

Authenticity as one of your reputation management strategies means showing the real human side of your brand. It’s not about making a stand or sharing a belief for the sake of marketing. Rather, it should naturally integrate with your business’s values and commitments to your customers.

Influencer marketing continues to be highly effective for brands, but there’s a new side of influencer marketing that needs to be explored.

Internal influencers are starting to carry more credibility than hired celebrities and paid social media actors. Influencers are essentially a client of the sponsoring company. Because of this, they can sometimes be seen as artificial, promoting only the products they’re paid for rather than the brands they really relate to and advocate.

What’s more, fake influencers abound and can take advantage of willing brands. Without influence over a real audience, they can drain your marketing budget and even damage your brand reputation.

A better approach is to look within your organization to find brand advocates. Using employees as content creators gives consumers a real look behind the brand. No one knows you better than your own people. Look for internal influencers at all levels of your brand. Find ways they can help you improve your communication and internal and external reputation.

Reputation management can be as easy as handing off the responsibility to a specialist. A corporate communications expert can help with everything from developing reputation PR strategies to executing those strategies to monitoring results, and everything in between.

There are various PR techniques that a PR manager or a PR firm may deploy to help you manage your reputation, but one of them will likely be social and media monitoring. Companies like Meltwater that specialize in social listening and media monitoring already have the tools, resources, and (most importantly) the time needed to present your brand in the right light. Using a solution like Meltwater, corporate communications experts can gauge how certain brand management tactics might affect public perception. This eliminates some of the guesswork regarding how to best manage your brand image.

Now that you have a firm grip on what reputation PR is and why you need it, let’s look at examples of brands that got it right.

Part of a brand’s reputation isn’t just about the issues that customers experience. It's also how the brand is prepared to manage those issues.

To connect with users that reached out to Nike on Twitter, Nike created a separate Twitter handle for customer support (it’s @NikeService, by the way).

From a reputation PR perspective, this move is genius for two reasons:

First and foremost, it gives customers a direct way to contact Nike and ensure their request is seen by the right people. This can speed up resolution which, in turn, can create happy, loyal customers.

And second, it means that these customer-related issues aren’t seen on Nike’s main Twitter page. People that engage with Nike’s main Twitter aren’t inundated with bad impressions of the brand, even if they’re not the ones experiencing issues.

Other brands can put this strategy to work, too. If you don’t have one already, set up a separate customer service channel on your social media profiles and make it easy for customers to get in touch.

Remember the Tide Pod Challenge? What may have started as an online joke ultimately led to a PR nightmare for the laundry detergent brand. Teens filmed themselves eating the brightly colored Tide laundry pods, resulting in an average of one ER visit per day in 2012-2013.

In response, Tide partnered with the New England Patriot’s Rob Gronkowski to tweet a reminder that the pods were for laundry, not eating. Tide’s parent company, Procter and Gamble, also worked to have the Tide Pod Challenge videos removed from social media in an effort to stop the trend.

https://www.facebook.com/102202618230/videos/10155319188423231

This was the very definition of public relations crisis management. The Tide Pod Challenge was an event that a brand could never have fathomed and was beyond its control. However, the company took ownership of the event by working to end it and prevent others from taking part. Quick communication was key and helped put Tide in a positive light.

Not all reputation PR takes place because of negative press. Take Aerie, for example. The accessories and intimates brand of American Eagle launched the AerieREAL campaign to promote body positivity and inclusivity among its target audience – teens and younger Millennials – because the brand knew those were issues its audience cared about.

The brand brought authenticity to the campaign by hiring models of all sizes and skin tones, including some with beauty marks and tattoos. Aerie upheld its beliefs by becoming the first major retailer to sponsor the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA).

Reputation Management

Online Reputation Repair: Everything You Need to Know

Reputation PR: Definition, Strategies & Examples

Why Personal Reputation Management Is the Key for Your Success

The Ultimate Guide To Integrating Corporate Social Responsibility

Optimize Supply Chain Risk Management with Media Intelligence

How Brands Should Apologize

Why is Reputation Important?

Online Reputation Management: The Basics

How to Appropriately Respond to Negative Reviews Online

5 Reasons Why Your PR Team Could Save Your Company’s Image

Corporate Sustainability: What’s Trending?

Managing Brand Reputation in an Online World

Reputation Management

Online Reputation Repair: Everything You Need to Know

Reputation PR: Definition, Strategies & Examples

Why Personal Reputation Management Is the Key for Your Success

The Ultimate Guide To Integrating Corporate Social Responsibility

Optimize Supply Chain Risk Management with Media Intelligence

How Brands Should Apologize

Why is Reputation Important?

Online Reputation Management: The Basics

How to Appropriately Respond to Negative Reviews Online

5 Reasons Why Your PR Team Could Save Your Company’s Image

Corporate Sustainability: What’s Trending?

Managing Brand Reputation in an Online World

Interested in learning how Meltwater can help you? Fill out the form to learn more.