Reputation Management 101: Fast-Scaling Your Business
Reputation management influences how stakeholders perceive a brand or a person.
To a great extent, reputation management attempts to alter a vital metric known as “sentiment” by modifying what people view through search, social, and other online interactions. Reputation management can also have an impact on the offline world. Learn how it can scale your business faster.
Why is Reputation Management Important?
It’s not only about appeasing algorithms concerning online reviews but also about how consumers recognize a brand. With customers relying on internet reviews, gaining customer trust is critical. Everyone understands that a company’s reputation is essential for its survival. Once the customer’s trust is earned, the existing customer will tell others about the company.
Online reviews are heavily weighted in determining whether or not to trust a brand. A good reputation management strategy can help a corporation build market trust. As a result, positive feedback might increase potential clients’ faith in the company and indicate that it is more trustworthy than its competitors.
Online reputation management is the best way to maintain your brand’s image and build trust among your customers, employees, and investors. As a result, you can grow your business more effectively and deliver better ROI.
Here are some ways you can do reputation management online.
Assess Your Online Presence
A brand audit is essential in developing an online reputation management strategy. Take stock of and evaluate your complete online presence, which includes your website, blog, social media profiles, and third-party company profiles.
Examine the results of your Google searches as well. What comes up when people search for your brand name and relevant keywords? Is there any off-brand or undesirable outcomes? Are there too many news pieces and insufficient brand assets under your control? Remember, positive mentions are replaced with negative comments overnight.
Actively monitoring brand mentions online is an efficient strategy for managing your brand online. Set up notifications for your brand name and associated keywords, and then respond swiftly to all positive and negative comments, including social media mentions of your brand in blog articles, forums, videos, and so on.
Successful reputation management involves being responsive to negative reviews
You may be tempted to disregard poor internet reviews in the hopes that they will go away, but this is a bad idea. Negative reviews allow your brand to address issues head-on, exhibit customer care, and establish a more honest connection with future customers.
Respond to all reviews, whether positive or negative. Thank customers for their comments, irrespective of the tone and always provide practical solutions.
For example, If a customer has a negative experience, they do not desire a 20% discount for their next purchase, and chances are there will be no subsequent purchase with that strategy. A pragmatic approach would be to go above and beyond to demonstrate to clients that you stand behind your brand and that they can rely on you to make things right.
Investing in SEO is essential for Online Reputation Management
Often, companies use Search Engine Optimization to rank multiple pages on a website for various search queries. Similarly, you can use SEO to push unfavourable search results to the bottom of the page and replace them with positive information you control.
Your branded SEO plan should prioritize optimizing as many controllable web pages for brand-related keywords as possible.
Create helpful content for your website’s reviews and leadership pages. Create backlinks to essential pages that you want to rank on Google’s first page. Positive brand mentions are obtained through digital PR, events, sponsorships, and influencer marketing. Get active on major social media networks such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Claim and optimize relevant third-party accounts, such as Google My Business, Yelp, Trustpilot, and business profiles over which you have complete control.
Current and prospective customers would try to discover a business by searching the name on Google. Because potential clients have no better concept about a company, they will hunt for available web information to make a judgment. As a result, if potential clients discover a terrible reputation, they will not engage in business with you.
No matter the type of business you run, reputation management is critical. Giving special attention to reputation management can help a company dramatically enhance its SEO rankings. At the same time, it can help a company gain consumer trust and, eventually, scale.