Internet is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, internet provides you easy access to an inconceivably large audience and thus can be a tremendous help in building your brand and promoting your business.
On the other hand, a stray adverse review or negative comment by an unhappy customer or a disgruntled employee or an unethical competitor can tarnish your brand reputation.
For this reason, you must learn to manage your online reputation. Here are five comprehensive online reputation management tips that you will find highly useful:
- The first lesson is to be proactive by regularly posting your own positive content online. Never wait for someone else to post information about your company and then react. Instead, initiate a discussion or conversation on your own. This will ensure that online readers regularly come across content that you created highlighting all the positive aspects of your business. Having your own website is the best way to make sure people are reading accurate information about you or your company.
- Merely monitoring social networks will not suffice. You should make it a point to reply promptly to all reviews/comments – both positive and negative. Surveys reveal that more than 68 percent of consumers expect brands to respond to their social-media comments and answer their queries. When you interact in a timely fashion, people will get the impression that you care for your customers.
- Internet is all about communications. Social networks are fine for sending out short messages. For elaborate communications – things like new-product announcements or market forecasts – writing a blog is ideal. By blogging you can share inside information on your company and engage with your most enthusiastic fans. You can request happy customers to post favorable reviews about your brand.
2. Try to take an active role in social media. The success formula is to link your social networks to your website and remain active on each of the network. Regular activity on your part will ensure that your users know exactly where to find official updates and correct information. If you have nothing to hide, then you can fearlessly continue to post appropriate content consistently.
3. It is extremely important that you constantly monitor what people are saying online about your brand/business/products. You will be in a fit position to tackle any problems or threats to your company’s reputation only if you know what’s being said about you. Google Alerts can be the ideal tool for this purpose. You can choose how often Google checks for new listings, how many results to show you and what email address to use for receiving alerts.