It is no secret that a strong business reputation can be the fine line between success and failure. And with new technology coming to life every day, there’s never been a better time for businesses to build their reputations online.
But as we’ve seen time and again in recent years, not all businesses are created equal when it comes to online reputation management: some are willing and able to protect their brands, while others don’t even know how or where they should begin!
Luckily for you, we have compiled a list of highly significant steps that will help you protect your business’s online reputation.
These five-step processes will help your company maintain its reputation by keeping customers happy and building a strong brand identity that people can trust. But before we get into that, let’s get the big words broken down.
What is Reputation Protection and Reputation Management?
Reputation management is the process of protecting your business’s reputation online. It can be done through a number of methods, such as:
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Social media management
- Content creation and publishing
Reputation protection, on the other hand, helps you manage your online reputation by ensuring that it is consistent with what you want to project about yourself as an organization or individual.
This will ensure that potential customers are fully informed before making a purchasing decision—and keep them coming back for more!
Brand reputation is how a brand is perceived by partners, customers, and other parties. It is the opinion that people have about a brand. This opinion or perception is influenced by a lot of factors, internal and external.
It can equally be changed or influenced by so many factors over time. And that is why the reputation of a brand or a business must be closely managed and monitored. It must be protected.
Some factors that affect your online reputation are reviews and ratings—what people are saying about your company on social media and your response to them.
This is why it is crucial to spend time and money protecting your company’s reputation by taking preventive measures.
Online reputation management services like Techgism craft and implement a myriad of strategies to influence the perception of your brand.
These strategies help drive public opinion about the products and services your brand/business offers.
Some of these strategies are: monitoring your brand mentions across the web, investing in local search engine optimization strategies to help your business rank high in search engines, leveraging the news in public, promoting positive content, encouraging customer reviews, and tracking the performance of your listings, e.t.c.
That being said,
Here are some reasons why you should guard your company’s online reputation:
The online reputation of your business affects the sales you make, leads you generate and boosts the whole marketing process.
Today, the majority of your customers get to search for your business online before they trust you enough to patronize you.
What people think or perceive of your brand affects everything about it. This just shows how important your business’s online reputation is.
1. Statistics come into play here again, as research shows that about 93% of customers are influenced by online reviews. The thing is, every one of us, no matter what it is we want to purchase online, check reviews. Of course, if the majority of what we see is negative, we end up not buying it. It’s just how the human mind works.
2. A positive online reputation gives you a significant competitive edge. It can aid in differentiating you from rivals and possibly serve as the decisive reason for someone choosing you over them.
3. Negative online reviews can harm a business’s image, affect sales, and even result in legal action. It is just the online version of word-of-mouth.
4. Businesses with bad reputations are disadvantaged when vying for consumers’ or leads. Additionally, bad online reputations can result in employment losses, lower profitability, and lowered company value.
5. People are more attracted to companies with strong reputations. They are viewed as delivering more worth.
Protecting your brand’s reputation has to do with developing tactics that influence or shape how the public perceives a company.
It influences how the general public feels about a company and its goods.
Everything that matters deserves to be protected. For business owners, brands, and organizations, the importance of having a stable online presence cannot be overemphasized.
Equally important is the protection of the online presence of your business. The online reputation of a brand, organization, or business can make or mar that business.
This is where reputation protection comes into play. It is of the utmost importance that the reputation of your brand is protected. So to start with, let’s look at what brand reputation is. Keep reading this post to find out the easiest steps unveiled on how to protect the reputation of your business online.
Reputation protection versus reputation management
When it comes to reputation management, there are two types of strategies:
- Reputation protection is the proactive strategy used to build your business’s online reputation by avoiding negative content and responding within 48 hours. This means that you’re always working on the offensive instead of letting negative reviews sit in your inbox for days or weeks before responding.
- Reputation management takes a reactive approach instead. The goal here is not just removing bad content but also preventing it from appearing in the first place by focusing mostly on monitoring what people say about you online (and how they say it).
How Reputation Protection differs from Reputation Repair
Reputation protection is a proactive approach. It’s designed to prevent negative reviews from appearing on your business profile, and it’s more likely to work in the long term than reputation repair because of this. Reputation protection is also more effective at stopping negative content before it goes live, whereas reputation repair can only be done once something has already been posted online by someone who might not know better—and even then, it might not work as well hoped!
5 easy steps to protect your business’s online reputation.
- Manage complaints professionally and promptly – It’s important that you manage customer complaints professionally, even if they are not legitimate. If a customer has issues with your business, the best thing you can do is try to address their concerns as quickly as possible. In some cases, this may mean taking responsibility for an issue yourself (e.g., if a customer thinks they were sold the wrong item). In other cases, it may mean getting someone else involved in resolving the issue (e.g., if there are multiple complaints about something happening at one time).
- Conduct reviews of your company’s performance on a weekly basis – If necessary or appropriate, conduct monthly reviews of how well you have handled customer issues over time so that you can identify patterns or trends that could affect future performance when it comes to resolving customer concerns or preventing negative feedback from spreading online through social media channels such as Twitter or Facebook groups dedicated specifically towards discussing these types of topics exclusively related only within those communities themselves rather than anywhere else outside where people might find out about them accidentally later on down road when searching across various search engines like Google etcetera…
Step 1: Manage complaints professionally and promptly
It’s important to respond to customer complaints in a professional and timely manner.
There are several ways you can respond:
- Use social media channels such as Facebook or Twitter to address the issue directly with your customers. Make sure that any information posted is accurate, and respond in a professional manner with facts about the situation. If there’s something you need more time for, let them know that as well (“Thanks for contacting us! We’ll get back with you shortly”). This will help build trust between you and your potential customers—and it shows that they’re important enough for reputational protection services like ours!
Step 2: Conduct reviews of your company’s performance on a weekly basis—and take immediate action if needed.
The second step to protecting your business’s reputation is to conduct reviews of your company’s performance on a weekly basis and take immediate action if needed.
To monitor your business’s performance, you can use multiple methods:
- Set up alerts with Google Analytics or another tool that will notify you when something unusual happens (for example, a new review comes in). You could also set up automated emails that notify you about negative comments. This way, if there are any issues with customers or clients not happy with their experience with your company, then at least they’ll get an email telling them so!
- Ask for feedback from current and former employees (or even strangers) about how things are going at work; this should give managers an idea of what needs improvement in terms of customer service as well as employee satisfaction.”
Step 3: Brand and protect your business name and logo
- Brand and protect your business name and logo
Protecting your business name, logo, and other assets is important because it can help you protect your reputation online. You should never use a generic term like “the” or “a.” Instead, use specific terms that reflect who you are as a company. For example: rather than saying “The Amazing Race” (which implies nothing about the race), say something like “The Amazing Race® Experiences.” This will make people more aware of what they’re getting into when they visit your site or follow along on social media—and it makes sense for SEO purposes too!
Step 4: Monitor your social media accounts for negative feedback
You should also monitor your social media accounts for negative feedback about your business. This can help you stay on top of customer complaints and identify potential issues with the way you’re doing things.
You can use tools like Hootsuite or Sprout Social to monitor multiple social media sites simultaneously, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Step 5: Regularly google your business
As much as you can, Google your own business. If you get a sniff of bad reviews when you check your business on search engines, then you will know where the problem stems from and can effectively dispel it.
When you check the internet from the perspective of a customer, you can come across reviews that you never even knew were there.
Doing this regularly gives you an upper hand and gives your business a very good edge. Be the first observer of your own business and take charge of online reviews.
Conclusion
Your business’s reputation has never been more valuable; protecting it has never been more crucial.
Your reputation is your greatest asset and liability, but it can also be your brand and business.
Your reputation is what people say about you when you walk into a room or search for information online.
It determines how much money you make, how many customers come through your door, what kind of employees want to work with you and even whether they stay on year after year—or leave in anger!
Reputation protection is an essential part of business today. As the world becomes more connected and social, it’s important for companies to stay aware of what’s happening in their local communities and across the globe.
If you don’t have a reputation management plan in place, and if brand protection isn’t a part of your search engine marketing strategies and crisis management plan, you’re throwing money away.
So, start now! Contact us at Techgism Digital today.
