Use these 5 Online Reputation Strategies to Manage your Company’s Brand

You might think that online reputation management isn’t something you ought concern yourself with. I would implore you to reconsider that thought!

According to eMarketer 83% of consumers declare that online reviews sway their opinions about a particular company, and 8 of 10 of these people added that a negative entry online is the cause of them changing their mind regarding that company. Even one negative review, justified or not, can negate all of your finest efforts if you haven’t planned an online reputation strategy to manage it. So to help out with that I’d like to present five strategies your business, and your brand, can implement to monitor and manage your online reputation.

1. Monitoring your brand names – Listening what’s being said about you and your business is critical. There are lots of wonderful free tools to help in this regard. Check out Google Alerts, Hootsuite, and Social Mention and others.
2. Claim all of your social properties – Unclaimed social media sites can be used by your competition for nefarious exploits. Be sure you claim all social sites that could pertain to your brand.
3. Own as much of page one of Google as you can – One assertive way to make sure what individuals learn about you when they Google you is to own most if not all of Google page one for your brand names. This makes it much more difficult for flyby attacks to have much if any impact.
4. Ask for customer reviews – Customer reviews aren’t just gonna magically appear: you must actively court them. Make a point of prompting your clients to write reviews, and do everything possible so that it’s easy for them: links to review sites, examples from other customers, etc. And if you offer incentives, let them know that you’re not attempting to bribe them or influence their review!
5. Engage with your people – Interacting with those writing comments, Facebook posts and tweets is an excellent way to head off any damage from the get-go. Don’t participate in mud-slinging however, no matter how justified you’re feeling! Thank them for their contribution to the discussion, and politely disagree, standing up for yourself. (If they’re not right, of course!)

Online reputation management is incredibly important these days, when customers can tweet, post or video form wherever they happen to be. Don’t forget this one!