Negative reviews themselves aren’t so scary. But on the Internet they spread virally, and if they are ignored, the consequences can be fatal – up to ruined reputation and closing the business. That’s why it’s so important to keep track of any mentions of a company and deal with them correctly. This rule works for any business from famous brands, like a website with live blackjack games, to local stores, selling groceries or clothes.
Here’s what kinds of online reputation management there are, where exactly the reputation is formed and how to build a reputation management system.
What Is Online Reputation Management?
Online reputation management are activities that affect the perception of a company online. These activities can be done by companies as well as professionals they can turn to.
Simply put, reputation is about opinions about a company. These opinions are mostly left by people on the internet, so reputation management happens here too.
Reputation management begins with a strategy and touches on platforms where there are mentions of the business: the company website, publications on social networks, placements in the media, reviews on maps. The main goal is to create a good reputation, that is, to make sure that there are more positive mentions of the company and fewer negative ones.
5 Reasons Why You Should Manage Your Reputation on the Internet
Even if the company has a stable flow of customers and is doing well with profits, managing your online reputation is still important.
It works for the long term. Conventionally – the more good mentions now, the more chances that they will smooth out possible negativity in the future. The reputation of a business is based not only on clients – unscrupulous competitors can also “damage” it. And if you don’t initially work with reputation – then it will be harder to do.
There are 5 more good reasons why you should take care about the company’s reputation on the Internet.
Users Draw Conclusions From Reviews
Statistics and practice show that reviews strongly influence the attitude towards a brand. And if there are a lot of suspicious and negative comments – it reduces trust, and consequently the flow of customers decreases.
Negative Information Goes Viral
In contrast to positive reviews, some ambiguous company publications or negative reviews spread much faster, and major scandals stay on the Internet forever. At the same time, people tend to believe the negative references about the brand more. As a result, the company begins to be associated with something bad, although in fact, it may be wrong.
Negativity Can Attract “Superfluous” Attention
If a company is constantly mentioned negatively, sooner or later it will be noticed not only by ordinary users but also by influential people – big bloggers, mass media, and human rights defenders. And then the consequences can be unpredictable – from a scandal to the closure of the business.
Frequent Negative Mentions Affect Search Engines
If there is too much negative information about a business, it begins to affect not only real people, but also the automatic algorithms. If there is a lot of negative information about a brand, search engines may produce negative results when you type in its name.
Working With Reviews Strengthens Marketing
A company that constantly monitors reviews is more approachable. It sees strengths and can focus on them, and therefore become more successful. But more importantly, when a company takes negative feedback into account, it recognizes its weaknesses and can change for the better.
In the end, all the reasons boil down to one thing: if you don’t manage your reputation, your business won’t be successful. With each negative review, the company loses not only some of its reputation, but also some of its potential profits. Now that more and more processes are moving to the Internet, working with online reputation is becoming the basis for promotion.
How to Manage Your Online Reputation: A 4-Step Guideline
In general, managing your online reputation is an ongoing process, and there is no clear algorithm. The main thing is to communicate adequately on the Internet, to track the negative in time and encourage the positive.
But if you have suspicions that your online reputation is starting to “sag”, it’s more effective to build a strategy and act quickly. Here are the key steps.
Define Your Purpose
Want to reduce the number of negative mentions in search results? Or make your company more recognizable? Determine your main goal – your further actions will depend on it.
An abstract goal like “improve your reputation” won’t do. Concreteness is important here, in order to understand how to act.
Along with the goal, determine the parameters according to which you will realize that you have achieved results – for example, the company appeared in the first five topical queries in the search results. Like the goal, the result indicators are important to formulate specifically.
Select a Channel
Choose which way of reputation management – ORM, SERM, SMRM – suits you best. Start from the goal and consider the company’s capabilities. For example, SERM is less expensive, and ORM is more suitable for large businesses.
After choosing a path, determine the sites with which you will work. For example, if this is SMRM, you don’t have to choose all social networks – it’s enough to take a couple where they talk about you more and where you yourself are more active in marketing.
Decide on a Performer
Who and how will audit these sites? Here you can do it three ways:
- Monitor mentions of the company manually. That is, google the company, go to different sites and there search for the name via Ctrl + F or the search function. But this is long, tedious and not effective.
- Monitor mentions automatically. Special tools, like Google Alerts, will help you in this. This is more effective, but often not free.
- Contact professionals. A simple but expensive variant is to contact an agency or a private expert specializing in online reputation management. The work of a true professional will definitely bring results.
If you’ve never purposefully dealt with online reputation and you’re generally okay with it, start with the second option. Use free monitoring services. They are quite simple to set up: you only need to determine which mentions are used to search for your brand, and the service will automatically send you the statistics.
But if your reputation is already “lame” and you have money, it’s better to turn to professionals – this will be faster and more effective.
Take Action and Improve Your Online Reputation
Depending on the information you find about the company, make adjustments to your marketing strategy. For example, if you find that a lot of negative feedback has been left about your cafe on the charts lately, try to figure out if it’s true. If so, work off the negative: respond to customers, fire unscrupulous employees, conduct training on service, remove some items from the menu. In general, the set of actions depends on the situation.
If you have hired a professional, he will tell you how to act. But in any case, the recommendations that we give below will be useful.
