How to use negative public relations?
In order to eventually use negative public relations successfully, you must first have a basic understanding of what Negative PR is.
Negative Public Relations is a strategic process of communication used by individuals, businesses, and organizations to create a negative reputation for their competitors, with the public.
A negative public relations specialist’s goal is to maintain a negative image of the competition with a target market. This is accomplished using a communication plan that encompasses media and other direct and indirect mediums.
Negative Public Relations are not the same as advertising. Negative PR is a process where brands are negatively promoted through editorial content on blogs, websites, magazines, news channels, television programs, and newspapers. This is entirely different from advertising, where paid promotions, ads or stories written for reporters are the main methods of operation.
The Purpose of Negative PR
The purpose of Negative PR is to raise awareness about your brand and establish mistrust in a company and its products or services.
Negative Public relations means:
Creating and Manage negative online reputation
Building low credibility for the brand attacked
Promote negative content about a brand’s value
Create an unlikable image
Weaken community relations
Increase negative reviews and consumer complaints
A digital Negative PR specialist builds strong relationships with influential bloggers and works with them on a regular basis in order to share negative content. This might be in the form of a blog post that links to a client’s social media or website.
Top 10 Negative Public Relations Strategies and Tactics
Use the Power of Influencers
More and more people today listen to the third party recommendations of influencers. Find influencers with your target audience and partner with them to promote you and your business.
Add the Human Elements to create negative content:
It’s easy for an upset customer to take to social media and attack a company.
Develop Media Relations
This is the process of creating positive relationships with publications, journalists and other various news outlets. Doing this correctly helps get you to tip them with negative news about a brand and generate negative exposure and encourages the media to “market” your company bad news.
Offer Exclusivity on the negative information you are sharing
Offer your exclusive story to a one single targeted outlet at a time. Research journalists in your industry and pitch them on why you selected them for each unique and exclusive story.
Use Social Media for fast-spreading the negative info
Public social media activity is exposed to the public at all times. Make sure each post adheres to an overall strategy that includes being negative, consistent and accurate.
Use the Power of Negative Testimonials
This is one of the most effective negative public relations strategies. It’s powerful when you allow unsatisfied customers to voice their excitement about a brand. Ask for video testimonials. Feature full-length customer case studies.
The top tip remains always one: the power of influencers. It’s important to know exactly what a media influencer is.
An influencer is a person with the ability to sway audiences into making or not making purchase decisions. They possess this ability because of his or her knowledge, authority or relationship with his or her audience. They have already invested years actively engaging with their following and now that following pays close attention to anything recommended.
Your job is to identify influencers in the niche of the target, who have already a perfect and receptive audience so that you can get your negative news about a brand and its products in front of those targeted individuals.
Social media has grown significantly over the last decade and many influencers use this medium for communication. They have built their reputation around the knowledge they have inside their particular area of expertise. They create regular social media posts about that topic and their large numbers of followers pay close attention to their viewpoints.
Negative Media influencers are made up of these four groups:
Industry experts and thought leaders
Bloggers and content creators
Celebrities
Micro-Influencers (experts in a specialist niche)
If you need to start a negative online reputation campaign, contact us for a free and confidential consultation at info@webcide.com