Online Brand Reputation Management
A strong brand reputation is invaluable, and in the online space where people don’t get to connect with you physically, it is even more important. The internet has amplified the voice of the consumer, making every review, social media post, and customer interaction a potential asset or liability. Through our digital marketing services, we have aided dozens of businesses with aspects of reputation management, using a strategic approach to help maintain a solid reputation or mitigate and repair after a negative remark.
It’s about monitoring your online presence, addressing content which could be damaging to it, and using customer feedback to solve problems before they escalate, while collecting and amplifying positive feedback so it is easily findable for potential customers, partners and even employees (see our Employer Branding package for more on this).
Why Reputation Management Matters
Your brand’s online reputation can be one of your strongest assets or your biggest liability. A positive reputation builds loyalty and increases customer confidence in your brand and product, ultimately driving sales and bottom-line growth. Conversely, a negative reputation can lead to a decrease in consumer trust and a loss in revenue. A single bad reference point can be written off as an outlier, but if poor feedback starts to grow, even a handful of reviews or comments can be detrimental to your business.
Benefits of Proactive Reputation Management
Builds Trust
In high-competition sectors, brand clarity helps define a Unique Value Proposition (UVP) and brand personality, setting your business apart from your competitors.
Attracts Talent
In high-competition sectors, brand clarity helps define a Unique Value Proposition (UVP) and brand personality, setting your business apart from your competitors.
Increases Sales
Consistent messaging across all channels builds trust and reliability with your audience, enhancing brand recognition and loyalty.
Improves Visibility
A clear brand vision aligns messaging across marketing, social media, product development, and customer interactions, fostering cohesion and continuity.
What does our reputation management service include?
Reputation management can be provided as an ongoing service or ad-hoc if you need some extra support to establish or repair your relationship.
As with most of our services, we tailor to your needs, but your reputation management service is likely to include the following:
- Review Management: We monitor and manage reviews across various platforms to ensure your brand is perceived positively. This includes regular and automated approaches to increase your reviews and timely follow-up with all reviews submitted.
- Social Media Monitoring: Keeping an eye on what people say about your brand on social media and responding appropriately. This is known as social listening and we cannot emphasize its importance enough (see this article for more about social listening).
- Crisis Management: If your brand faces a reputational issue, we provide swift and strategic action to mitigate damage and find a crowd-pleasing way for you to address the issue moving forward.
- Content Creation: We can create positive and SEO-friendly content to promote a positive image of your brand.
- Legitimacy Markers: We help establish trust signals such as certifications, awards, and accreditations that affirm your brand’s credibility. This may also involve aligning with relevant industry or local organizations and publishing content with these bodies or local press to raise public sentiment and legitimacy.
How does it work?
Our Chief Marketer Lynn will meet with you to discuss your current brand reputation and how you are monitoring and maintaining it. She will send you a report outlining how we can support you best and how we suggest you approach it. From there, the process is entirely bespoke. You can choose which elements you are comfortable for us to move forward with.
Frequently Asked Questions About Reputation Management
Online brand reputation management is the process of monitoring and influencing your business’s digital reputation and credibility. This involves handling negative reviews, promoting positive experiences, and maintaining a positive brand image across the internet. When people search for your business, you want them to like what they see, no matter which platform they find you on. Online Reputation Management can make this happen.
The nature of the intenet is that your online reputation can be accessed by anyone at any time. And you don’t get to okay what’s out there! A strong online reputation helps to attract and retain customers, influences buyer decisions, and can even impact your rankings in search engines. We all know that the people who shout the loudest are those that rate you a 10/10 or a 1/10, so ensuring there are more of the former is essential to grow your business.
Monitoring your brand’s online reputation can be done through various methods, including setting up alerts for your brand name, regularly checking review sites, and engaging with your audience on social media platforms.
Negative reviews should be addressed promptly and professionally. Acknowledge the issue, apologize if necessary, and offer a solution or compensation if appropriate. It’s important to show that you take customer feedback seriously and are committed to improving their experience, but as the internet is a public forum, doing so openly and showing your audience how you will prevent the issue in future will help to turn that negative into a positive… especially if a future review verifies this is no longer an issue.
While it’s often not possible to remove negative content, especially if it’s on third-party sites, there are strategies to mitigate its impact. This includes responding to the content, creating positive content to outrank the negative, and in some cases, requesting removal, although this is at the discretion of the third-party.
Improving your online reputation is a gradual process. We wish we could wave a magic wand for you, but it can take weeks to months to see significant changes, depending on the severity of the reputation issues and the effectiveness of the strategies implemented. We promise we will work diligently to help you improve your reputation in the quickest way we can.
It’s important to monitor your online reputation regularly. For most businesses, a monthly check-in may be sufficient, but for those in highly competitive or high-visibility industries, weekly monitoring (or more) may be necessary.
