There are various ways to improve your brand’s reputation and increase your chances of online success, starting with these top reputation management tips.
There has never been a more critical time for individuals and businesses to monitor themselves online. When managed properly, your online reputation can make you stand out of the pack. It can also suppress negative content, keeping it from ranking highly on major search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo.
In today’s digital age, consumers are turning more and more to the internet to gain additional insight into companies via online reviews, social platforms, and business listings. According to BrightLocal’s Local Consumer Review Survey, only 3% of consumers report that they never read online reviews — which means that 97% of consumers do.
What does this mean for you? It means it’s crucial that you take an aggressive approach when managing your digital presence. Online reputation management (ORM) services help professionals make better, well-informed decisions that enhance a brand’s reputation. ORM services include:
- Social media management
- Online brand monitoring
- Responding to reviews
- Promoting positive consumer feedback
- Creating high-quality content
Next, we’re going to discuss our top tips for brand reputation management to help you promote customer feedback, increase customer loyalty and improve your business and online presence overall.
If you need immediate help with your reputation management strategy, contact our team of professionals at 844-461-3632 or by filling out the form below.
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6 Reputation Management Tips for Building Your Business
Your brand reputation is your company’s most valuable asset. Having a reputation management strategy is important for businesses of all sizes and ages, whether you’re running a boutique startup or you’ve been at the helm of an enterprise for decades.
The only way to build and maintain a positive brand reputation today is to monitor and nurture it proactively. Here are six ORM tips to help you build an online presence when you’re starting out, safeguard the positive brand reputation you already have, or repair one that’s been damaged.
1. Manage Your Social Media
Managing your social platforms is imperative to your overall brand reputation management. Social media platforms give you a chance to showcase your brand and advertise your products or services to the world in a way that you can control.
Common social platform tips for reputation management include:
- Keep a consistent brand voice to feel more familiar and trustworthy to your audience.
- Actively engage with your audience by responding to their messages and comments.
- Create high-quality social content that entertains, inspires, or educates your audience.
- Go behind the scenes to be more authentic and transparent.
- Humanize your brand by showing the people who work at your company, your company culture, and profiles of happy customers.
In addition to simply using social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, these platforms also provide additional insights into your audience and their behavior. For example, you can usually find your audience’s age range, location and device categories, allowing you to better target the people who are most interested in your brand.
Remember, don’t just monitor your own social profiles — keep an eye on what your employees are doing, too. While you can’t control what your team is posting on their personal social media accounts, you can step in if they’re misrepresenting your brand by including unapproved or negative business information in their posts.
For help managing your social presence, contact a reputation management expert today at 844-461-3632.Â
2. Regularly Monitor Your Brand’s Online Presence
Something that every business owner and vested employee should do is actively monitor their brand. Professionals should always know what the internet is saying about them or their company.
Just one negative article on the first page of Google has the potential to ruin a business’ future success or a business owner’s professional reputation.
Knowing what’s being said online about your company — whether it’s good, bad or neutral — allows you to respond immediately to the most pressing issues. Additionally, make sure those who are associated with you and your business are not saying or doing things online that are detrimental to your brand.
Whether you’re in charge of local businesses or your company has a farther reach, one way to monitor what’s being said online is with Google Alerts. This service lets you add one or more keywords and then sends you an email at a frequency you set whenever those keywords are found online. This is a much easier alternative to Googling your brand name and variations of it every day just to see what’s been recently posted online.
You can also work with an online reputation management company that can handle brand monitoring for you. To learn more or schedule a free consultation, contact us today.
3. Respond to Customer Reviews
Online review sites are the modern version of word-of-mouth marketing. According to the Brand Discovery report from GWI, approximately 50% of internet users post online reviews monthly. While younger users are most likely to post reviews online, it remains a widespread practice across several age groups.
For very popular companies, responding to every single review may not be possible. At the very least, prioritize responding to all negative reviews, as well as exceptionally good reviews, especially if they’re detailed and thoughtfully written.
By directly dealing with negative reviews, you’ll satisfy the unhappy customer. At the same time, you’ll show potential customers who are reading the review that you care about the customer experience. Instead of being put off by what the reviewer wrote, they’ll be glad to see a business owner who doesn’t shy away from a difficult situation.
When you take the time to reply to a positive review, you show your appreciation for your customers, which can increase customer loyalty while gaining new business for you.
No matter what, don’t ignore all of your negative reviews. It’s likely that you’ll miss one or two over time, but completely avoiding them is seriously damaging to your reputation. Consumers typically avoid businesses with negative reviews or bad press that rank highly in search engine results. Your only defense is to proactively reply to reviewers and show your commitment to customer satisfaction.
4. Encourage and Leverage Positive Feedback
Unfortunately, people are far more likely to share their bad experiences than their good ones. That just means it’ll take a bit of effort on your part to encourage other types of reviews.
You can’t directly ask for a positive review, but you can ask that your customers share their experiences online.
Here are a few ways to encourage more reviews in the hopes that your customers have plenty of positive things to say about your brand:
- Simply ask! Sometimes, all a customer needs is a little nudge and a reminder that they can leave a review for your company.
- Personalize your request by using the customer’s name and referring to a specific interaction or purchase.
- Be mindful of when you request a review. Ask for one when the customer experience is still fresh in their mind, but give them long enough to experience the product. For example, you can email them asking for a review 24 hours after they receive their shipment.
- Make it super easy for them by providing the link to the review site.
- Offer an incentive, like entry into a contest or a coupon code to use on their next purchase.
Don’t Forget To Showcase Positive Feedback
Once you have positive reviews, show them off! Showcase them on your social channels and website, and highlight certain customers who have especially compelling stories. Sharing testimonials will encourage others to leave their own.
An easy way to showcase your reviews is with a website plugin, like this one from WooCommerce that helps you request reviews, keep track of them and place them on your website.
If an automated approach isn’t quite enough right now — which can be the case if you’re trying to build an online reputation for a new company or repair a damaged one — working with an ORM specialist can provide more personalized support. Get in touch with us today at 844-461-3632 to discuss your options.
5. Create High-Quality Content
One of the best reputation management tips to improve your online brand is to always create new, high-quality content. Publishing engaging content puts you in control of what’s online and benefits your audience by meeting them wherever they are in the customer journey.
There are so many types of content that your brand can create. Pick and choose the ones that are best suited to your company and audience:
- Blog posts
- Case studies
- Ebooks
- GIFs
- Infographics
- Live streams
- Newsletters
- Podcasts
- Polls and quizzes
- Product reviews
- Social content (images, videos, etc.)
- Tutorials
- User-generated content
- Virtual events
- Webinars
- White papers
Whatever types of content you choose to create, remember the golden rule: Always provide value. Your content should benefit your audience by educating, entertaining or inspiring them, and it should either improve their life or solve a specific problem (or both).
Brands that consistently deliver value through their content are more credible and trustworthy to their audience. In turn, customers will engage more and remain loyal.
6. Hire Professional Online Reputation Management Services
While it would be great if you had the time, interest and know-how to follow all of the above reputation management strategies and tips, it’s not always possible for every business owner to take total control over their online presence. When you’re in need of help with reputation management, an ORM company can provide a variety of services customized to your specific situation and goals, such as:
- Brand Monitoring: ORM companies continuously monitor the internet for new discussions, mentions and reviews related to your company.
- Content Creation: ORM services can include creating and optimizing brand content to improve your online reputation and suppress negative results.
- Review Management: Professional strategies are used to handle negative reviews and encourage more positive ones.
That just scratches the surface of what an ORM company can do for you. With something as important as your brand’s online reputation — which can make or break your chances or success now and in the future — many business owners prefer to leave it in the hands of seasoned pros.
Contact NetReputation Today
With online reviews and social platforms having so much power and influence, your brand reputation can change in an instant. Your place in the industry and the way customers view you — even satisfied customers you thought would be by your side forever — can quickly change as well.
For help with brand reputation management from a team of experts, contact NetReputation today at 844-461-3632 or by filling out the form below.
Request a Free Consultation
by Net Reputation