Medium-sized Danish companies rank worse than small businesses for the first time

The analysis shows that the development of negative coverage for medium-sized companies from 2015 is only just under 0.6%, whereas negative coverage of small businesses has more than halved during the period. Experts assess that medium-sized companies are more vulnerable in the media landscape than previously thought.

”The large media outlets have a strong presence online and in Google's search results. If the media choose to publish articles online where companies are mentioned in connection with, for example, poor consumer experiences and general negative coverage, it means that negative stories are visibly available online and easily accessible – forever. So even if a case is no longer current or relevant, it can undeservingly attract a lot of attention in the future. Something that can have consequences for revenue, among other things in the form of a decline in customers who go to competitors without negative coverage online” states William Atak, CEO of SAFEonNET®

The significant decrease in negative coverage for small businesses is considered an extremely positive factor for the Danish business community, while the stagnating figures for medium-sized companies are assessed in the analysis to be a concerning trend.

More than one in five companies affected by negative coverage is an SME

The analysis further confirms that the negative coverage of Danish SMEs accounts for more than 20% of the total coverage. The analysis was conducted on nationwide media, where the interest in writing about large companies is naturally greater. It is therefore noted in the analysis that it is a remarkable trend that small and medium-sized enterprises constitute one fifth of the affected companies.

> Read the results of the 2016 study here

FACT: “50 DAYS OF NEGATIVE COVERAGE” 2016

SAFEonNET® has monitored these eight established news media: DR.dk, TV2.dk, EB.dk, BT.dk, Politiken.dk, Lokalavisen.dk, B.dk, cphpost.dk.

Every day for 50 days, all news articles (amounting to 34,971 news articles) in the selected media have been read and categorized based on whether the articles contained negative coverage and which companies they concerned.

The analysis was conducted from January 17 to March 6, 2016.