Digital Marketing Posted On: Feb 27, 2019
Assume you’re craving to eat pasta at a well-known Italian restaurant. You take out your phone, look up a number of Italian restaurants on Google and find one with less than a 3-star rating. There are negative reviews from customers, no remarks from the restaurant staff, and no social media online reputation management in place.
Would you ever eat at such a place? Of course not. Chances are, you might not even recommend it to your friends and colleagues.
Maintaining an online reputation has become critical in today’s digital age. If you’re not proactively addressing your customers’ problems on forums and social media with an online reputation management strategy, think again.
You may risk damaging your company’s reputation.
Want to save yourself from such risks? Then you need good online reputation management in place.
To put it simply, Online Reputation Management is the practice of using techniques and strategies to maintain the positive public perception of a company or individual on the internet.
It’s not just about acknowledging to criticism or remarks people give on your products and services, but also about knowing when to acknowledge, and how.
Reacting where not required can make you look weird and reacting too late or improperly can cost you good.
This is why staying cautious online and keeping an eagle-eyed vision is important.
With your every move being monitored by customers and competitors, you don’t want to ruin your company’s reputation due to a silly mistake. Do you?
Having said that, a great online reputation management strategy can bring a lot of benefits to your company.
It can help you:
Believe it or not, your good reputation can bring you more business.
According to a report from Huffington Post, it was seen that a half-star rating on Yelp helped boost reservations by 49%.
This means a single rating, a great review, or even media publicity can dramatically ramp up your sales and further grow your brand advocacy.
Many businesses hire online reputation management companies for this simple reason: To increase their credibility and trust amongst customers.
By gaining the trust of your customers with online reputation management techniques you can portray your company as successful and credible on the internet. This leads to positive reviews from customers which directly impact your conversions.
Another significant advantage of doing online reputation management for your company is that it helps resolve conflicts by addressing negative comments.
Here’s how social media online reputation management helped JetBlue Airways address a negative tweet.
The Twitter handle of JetBlue Airways took prompt action and resolved their customer’s query just in time.
By responding directly to negative comments, you’re seen as the one taking the responsibility. This makes you admirable in the eyes of your customers which helps paint a positive picture in their minds.
Thus, a good reputation can help you resolve negative criticism with ease.
A good reputation can also help you emerge as a thought leader.
There’s no doubt that opinions of well-trusted reputed companies and people matter. If your name is well-known in the industry due to your reputation, it can help you come up as a key opinion leader in your industry.
Now that you know how useful online reputation management is for your company, why not learn to do it yourself?
Here are a few tips to get you started:
This is the first thing you must do.
If you’re on social media, make sure you actively keep an eye on mentions, comments, and replies from your customers.
You can take help of plenty of social media monitoring tools like Radian6 or ReputationDefender to help you monitor your pages and social media handles.
You can also use Google Alerts to keep a track of what others are posting about you. For online reviews, you can use review management tools like ReviewPush to help you collect and monitor all your reviews.
Among numerous online reputation management best practices, this a golden rule.
In case of negative comments and customer complaints, make sure you take quick action as soon as you get them. You don’t want to sound harsh as it will do more harm than good and might even hurt your reputation more.
Instead, reply with a quick and polite apology. It’ll get the job and even encourage positive feedback from your side.
Here’s an example from Zappos:
Much, much effective than a long explanation after a long delay.
With prompt replies and timely updates, keeping a nice relationship with your target audience will further strengthen your reputation.
The trick is to engage with your audience humane manner than like a typical company.
Check out how the owner of Vamos Expeditions personally responded to a review on TripAdvisor:
While responding, maintain a friendlier tone. If you’ve launched a new product or a service, ask for friendlier feedback. You can also give away free stuff through contests and promotions.
In case of difficulties faced by your customers, show up at the right time and offer help.
Here’s how Nike’s Support handle takes care of its customers:
This will positively build your relationship with customers and thus will enhance your reputation.
Blogging is an effective technique you can use as a part of your online reputation management strategy.
By sharing vital information, helpful tips, and content surrounding your industry you can educate your audience and further boost your reputation online.
Blogs will not only improve your online reputation as a thought leader but will also help you rank higher organically in search engines.
And yup did we mention traffic? High-quality blogs can bring more traffic to your website too.
Start blogging today.
You can also ask us for help. We offer blogging services for all sorts of businesses and can help you maintain your company’s blog with rich and useful content.
As you can see, online reputation management is crucial for every company be it a startup or a large enterprise. With companies and customers interacting on a closer level, it definitely cannot be overlooked.
By harnessing the power of a robust online reputation management strategy, you can significantly grow your company’s name and reputation tenfold.
Make sure you get an effective strategy in place today. If you’re not sure how, feel free to get in touch with us.
We are a digital marketing agency equipped with a dedicated team of digital marketing experts to help you boost your company’s online reputation with tested techniques and strategies.
Be it handling and monitoring your social media handles or taking care of review management on forums, we do it all.
We also plan and create detailed online reputation management strategies for businesses. Visit our services page and let us help you better.
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