Effective Ways to Manage Your Business's Online Reputation

With a host of digital tools gaining popularity over the years, more and more businesses are implementing these to strengthen their marketing strategies. In an attempt to meet and exceed customer expectations, all businesses are looking for ways to extend their reach to existing and potential customers.

A business's reputation is a primary aspect that customers tend to check before they decide to avail themselves of the products and services offered by it. As many as 75 percent of consumers say that word-of-mouth is a key influencer in their purchasing decisions. With the internet dissolving barriers among customers, word-of-mouth can travel at the speed of light. Therefore, your business's online reputation can have a major impact on lead generation and retention.

Ideally, if you search your business's name online, you should be able to see the links to your website, social media profiles etc. –primarily the things that you can control. Results containing negative reviews can hurt your business's prospects. Therefore, you need to have the right strategies in place to manage your business's online reputation. Let's take a look at some of these.

Online Reputation Management Tips

Claim Your Brand Name

Regardless of whether you create your business profiles on social media or other platforms, chances are they already exist. You would need to claim these before anyone starts misrepresenting your brand by controlling these profiles. There are various resources that you can use for this purpose.

Once you have claimed the profiles, you can concentrate on optimizing these by adding high-quality visuals, engaging content, contact information, a link to your website etc.

Monitor Your Brand's Reputation

It is important to find out what people are saying about you. With the popularity of digital tools, people have taken their concerns, questions and feedback online. You can use Google alerts to get notified about mentions of your brand name, keywords that you use etc. every time someone uses these on the web.

Respond to Criticism

Negative reviews and feedback can affect your business's reputation considerably. The only way to deal with these is by responding quickly. This can minimize the damage that negative reviews can cause. A quick response also signifies that you care about your consumers and you are committed to make their experience with your business a smooth one. For this, an excellent internet connection with a good WiFi connectivity is of utmost importance.

If there has been a mistake from your end, it is wise to own up to it and create solutions. While being professional is crucial, a generic response may not yield the best results when you are addressing criticism. If necessary, you can consider dealing with the problem offline.

Pay Attention to Your Social Media Accounts

The power of social media is no stranger to us. With 2.1 billion active social media users, it is important to make the most of these platforms to build your business's online reputation. The first step is to optimize your business profile.

You can post engaging and interactive content, organize online quizzes and contests with an incentive, respond to customers' concerns etc. This will increase your influence among your customers. The strength of your social media account will build trust and credibility and will be highly effective in outranking the negative comments.

Register in Reputable Local Business Directories

Getting your business registered in popular directories can help in improving the credibility of your brand. Therefore, it is important to get your business listed in as many of these as possible. This will also help in countering the negative comments that your business receives.

Publish Quality Content

Posting informative and relevant content can help in improving your website's rank in Google search results for specific keywords. Such good quality content can outperform any negative feedback that your business receives, thus reducing the harm caused.

Publishing guest blog posts is also a very effective way to build reputation. An author profile with the brand name mentioned can be a good opportunity to improve your brand's reputation.

Consistency is highly important while managing your business's online reputation. Investing in proactive online reputation management can pay off in the long run by mitigating damage and the losses that these may cause. You should also review the steps that you plan to take for reputation management before implementing them to ensure that they work.

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This article, "Effective Ways to Manage Your Business's Online Reputation" was first published on Small Business Trends