Business Reputation Management: To Sue or Not to Sue When Your Business' Competitors Turn Negative

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As many seasoned entrepreneurs, CMOs, and in-house lawyers have learned, brand protection has evolved, or perhaps turned, into a blood sport. Some industries are fiercer than others, but in the ever-changing world of and, more and more, companies are finding themselves victims of smear campaigns.

They are sometimes disguised as an onslaught of negative customer feedback. And, at other times, through cleverly orchestrated "whisper campaigns" on social media, industry forums or chat rooms. These reputation attacks are just another set of tools of the trade for some unscrupulous competitors and the marketing agencies they hire.

Related: How to Manage (and Repair) Your Business' Online Reputation

And with the ability to recruit overseas teams using remote recruitment platforms, malicious actors are bolder than ever: slander with impunity while remaining anonymous via fake accounts and in a country that makes the process untenable.

So what does this enterprising and shrewd CEO do in the face of such an attack? Every reputation crisis is different, but here are some tips for dealing with emergency reputation in such a situation:

Assess the problem

Does it feel natural, or are there signs of an artificial effort? Search:

Profiles of online posters and authors who appear to have never posted comments, reviews or articles in the past. Do they have deep profiles on , and other social media platforms? If not, chances are you are dealing with a bot or a puppet deployed by a competitor.

Another tell-tale sign of black hat sabotage is when the “unhappy customer or customer” actually has a solid online presence, but also has a habit of posting mostly negative reviews. Here's exactly what it looks like: An agency has been hired to launch another corporate attack and is reusing its previous online profiles to do so. Examine them carefully. Have many of them also reviewed the same companies in the past? What are the odds that the same three people are posting negative reviews of your wealth management fund and also complaining about the same plastic surgery center a year ago?

Related: Having trouble with fake reviews? Here's how to fix the problem

Build a team

The team starts with your internal collaborators. For larger companies, be sure to include your in-house attorney, marketing manager, and designated crisis manager in an emergency roundtable. Do we suspect who it might be? Is there a strategic way to stifle this without recruiting outside resources?

don't react

Gut reactions almost never work. Like a good player, you have to analyze the field and think a few moves before you act. And we are talking about three-dimensional failures occupying both legal, digital and crisis dimensions.

Don't fight fire with fire

Once you identify the culprit, you may be inclined to respond in kind and become negative yourself. The myriad reasons why this is a horrible idea are beyond the scope of this article. But trust me, don't. Write to me if you need to be dissuaded.

Hire the right team

Your team should consist of lawyers, public relations professionals and reputation management experts. Sometimes a well-written formal notice or TRO will solve the problem. Or it could make things worse (remember the Streisand effect). Your PR agency will need to begin implementing its crisis communications initiative and media blitz of positive content while the reputation management company researches ways to remove offensive content and provide backup to the agency. public relations by lending SEO juice to new, positive articles once they're live. It's not enough to just post...