Proactive Media Relations to Save Your Reputation

reputation media relations strategy for business success

If you start to eat healthy during a heart attack, you certainly wouldn't save your life. On the same note, if you wait until your company's crisis is over, maximum reputation damage has occurred. For this reason, the importance of being proactive with crisis management can't be underestimated. According to Tony Wright, an online expert of reputation management, the time to enhance a company's reputation is before a crisis happens. A company should consider improving their online visibility and reputation as a part of an overall, ongoing marketing plan. You should be careful not to underestimate the impact of online comments on the Internet on your company's reputation. There are reasons people complain online: • 31% of people who complain online want to feel they are a member of a community. • 28% are looking for recognition from their peers. Since users of the Internet put a great deal of trust in social networks, they listen to and believe online complaints are accurate: • 90% of users trust the online recommendations that are made by people they know. • 70% of users trust online opinions of people they have never met and are totally unknown to them.

Six Steps to Craft a Proactive Media Relations Plan to Save Your Reputation

STEPS OF REPUTATION MANAGEMENT These steps create a proactive plan for crisis management, but they can also make up a plan for implementing strategies to create buzz for positive news of your brand. Step 1 -- Know where the conversations about your brand could be occurring: • Social Media such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram • Online Reviews • SERP • Blogs • Message Boards • Hate Websites • Social Bookmarking Sites • Location Based Sites such as Gowalla or Foursquare Knowing where the conversations about your brand could occur is only a starting point. You also need to monitor the consumer generated content (CGC) of these conversations with one of the great, available tools such as radian6 or trackur that can minimize the work required to monitor your brand conversations. However, one tool capable of effectively monitoring all the channels does not exist. Step 2 – Strategy of Proactive Review • Do not expect your online reviews to be perfect. They most likely will not be perfect and also should not be perfect. • Your goal for your online reviews should be a ratio of 70% positive and 30% neutral or negative. • Since a tool to effectively monitor your online reviews does not exist, you should monitor them manually. • It is most important to avoid airing your dirty laundry, you should deal with negative reviews only offline whenever possible. Step 3 – Strategies for Getting Positive Reviews • One way to get positive reviews is to simply ask your satisfied customers for reviews. • Recognize the landscape of your review and attempt to shape reviews to affect the Search Engine Results Page (SERPS). You should create a subdomain of the domain that includes information on how someone can leave a positive review. • Employees looking to the future should know how to generate positive reviews. Step 4 -- Identify Influencers • Identify influencers, individuals that influence potential buyers. Tailor your marketing activities around them. Good tools can be purchased to identify the influencers of your potential buyers. • Keep in mind the fact that identification of influencers is an ongoing process. • Establish ongoing relationships with the influencers of your potential buyers. Step 5 – Use Outreach Marketing Strategies to: • Get people to talk about your brand. Consumers don't want to hear you talk about your brand. • Make sure the audience you are communicating with is a relevant audience of your product. You should talk to the right people at the right time. • Communicate one on one using a variety of digital channels such as Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn. • Identify your brand's niche and reach out to prospective customers for products of that niche. • Outreach with personalization to create trust and receive genuine reportage. • Offer something for valuable word of mouth reviews of your product or service. • Know when your network talks about your brand and what the reaction of their audience is. • Produce infographics, how-to or content that can be easily shared by your network contacts. • Ask your network for feedback about your brand. They will gladly share the information. • Say "thank you" for feedback by sending free things in order to keep your brand on their minds. • Elicit product reviews when your brand develops something new. You should send it to your network to be reviewed. • Gather research on industry trends and share the results with your network. Step 6 – Have a Plan for Your Brand • Decide who should be involved in the creation of your plan. • Brainstorm worst case scenarios such as ethics, financial losses or physical disaster. • What will be the specific role of employees and vendors? It is important they understand their role in any crisis. • Evaluate the crisis by taking a look at the impact and reach of the crisis on revenue. If it bothers the CEO, perhaps you should wait for him or her to request this. • Continue monitoring to evaluate the success of the reputation management plan.

Written by

Ronn Torossian

Ronn Torossian is Founder and Chairman of 5W , the AI Communications Firm. He founded 5W in 2003 and built it into one of the largest independent public relations and digital marketing firms in the United States, with senior practitioners serving corporate communications , consumer brands , technology , financial services , health and wellness , beauty , gaming , crisis communications , and public affairs . Under his leadership, 5W defined AI Communications, building brand authority across ChatGPT , Claude , Perplexity , Gemini , and Google AI Overviews, alongside earned media, digital, GEO, and influencer channels. Industry Recognition 5W has been recognized as a top U.S. PR agency by O’Dwyer’s , Agency of the Year in the American Business Awards , Grand Stevie Most Honored PR Agency, a Ragan Top Place to Work in Communications 2026, Digiday WorkLife Employer of the Year, and a PRovoke Top 50 Global PR Agency. Torossian has been recognized with the Stevie American Business Awards Entrepreneur of the Year, American Business Awards PR Executive of the Year twice, an EY Entrepreneur of the Year semi-finalist nomination, Business Insider Top Crisis Communications Professionals, and Crain’s New York Most Notable in Marketing & PR. Research Franchise 5W’s research franchise has become an industry reference for measuring brand visibility inside AI-generated answers, including the AI Visibility Index Series , The GEO Reckoning , The Missing Rung Report, and the 5W AI Power User Study , which identified a 99-point AI favorability gap. Crisis Communications Torossian is one of the world’s foremost crisis communications experts. He has counseled blue chip companies, public company boards, founders, and public figures through ransomware incidents, data breaches, regulatory investigations, high-stakes litigation, activist investors, product recalls, and reputational crises. He has taught crisis communications at Harvard University . Media & Commentary Torossian appears on CNN and CNBC . He is a contributing columnist for Forbes and the New York Observer , his writing on AI communications and brand reputation is published on his personal site, and his commentary has appeared in the Wall Street Journal , Entrepreneur , Adweek , PRWeek , and O’Dwyer’s . Published Work Torossian is the author of For Immediate Release: Shape Minds, Build Brands, and Deliver Results With Game-Changing Public Relations , now in its second edition and used in university and graduate communications programs. He continues that commentary on his own publishing platform , where he writes about reputation, crisis, and AI-mediated discovery. Owner and Publisher, Everything-PR Network Torossian is owner and publisher of the Everything-PR Network , an independent intelligence platform covering public relations, marketing, AI communications, and adjacent industries across 30 publications. Everything-PR is editorially independent from 5W, with published editorial standards and ethics standards . The network is one of the most-cited sources inside ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini for PR and marketing queries. He is also an active investor and advisor, a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) , and serves on nonprofit boards.

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