It is a great time to be a digital retailer at the moment as technology appears to have had a dramatic peak over the past couple of years. Constantly evolving, the digital world is launching new products and technology at a speedy pace and so with the progression and excitement of Smart Phones, Kindles, I-Pads etc… digital retailers are reaping in some generous rewards for the new technology crazes. But we all know as brilliant as technology is and however it amazes us, our loving gadgets and entertaining apps are all man made and man is not perfect.

So when your company is subject to the backlash of faulty digital goods beyond your control, you find yourself (the retailer) defending your reputation as a reliable supplier. So let’s discuss how you can avoid sharing the brunt of negative media…or overcome this if you fall victim to it.

Public Relations is a great marketing tool for damage control. The digital world is now incredibly social and so instead of the whole ‘word of mouth’ theory where one person relays their experience to ten people, and those ten people do the same and so on; the outspread of a negative experience can be much a greater and at the tip of their fingertips with the delightful accessibility of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. If you aren’t sure how to start re-building your reputation with the use of online digital public relations then fret not, as there are experts out there who know exactly how to deal with scenarios like this. Be sure to source a PR company that specialises in your field and understands your customer base and the focus of Technology Public Relations. PR experts know how to turn a negative into a positive and promote your company and additional services at the same time to the right people.

Many of you may have experienced the negative effects of the faults experienced with some of blackberry’s servers last year which resulted in many customers not being able to access BBM or e-mails and other services that were meant to be available to them from their device. You then experienced an angered customer base demanding returns or compensation even though it was a fault with the manufacturer and not the service provider or the retailer. However as you can imagine, your customer is hypothetically a child with their new toy which they had recently been elated by but now it is broken and they are bored and sad; so they tantrum and you are the parent that is meant to be able to fix it all and look after them. When you can’t (because it is not your fault) there are repercussions and it’s these you need to try and control.

But you can also take advantage of hype that is social media and the online world with various marketing campaigns and communications that start to perform damage control for your company when unexpected horrors like this occur.

If you find in search engine results links to customer complaints about your company are ranking higher than your organic listings then outsourcing a professional company would be a worthy investment as they can help you to dominate the first page of search engine results with good content and knowledge of SEO (search engine optimisation).

You can look to use audio or video campaigns, pictures and generally improve the content regarding your company, services and product across the web and on your site to promote the content you want your desired audience to see. They can also develop preventative measures for any possible future occurrences which should help to be a little more prepared when unforeseen manufacturer faux pars occur.

Public Relations is exactly what is says, relating to your target audience and connecting them to you. So when technology is what your audience wants, it makes sense to keep your marketing campaign relevant to your product and go digital to entice them and keep them excited about your brand.