Why Should You Care About Reputation Management? Well, it’s a fact that search, blogs, and more recently social media have put the flow of information firmly in the user’s hands and this can have wide-ranging implications for businesses – from the biggest brands to the most concise companies.
What is Reputation Management and Why Should You Care About It?
By Way of Introduction
Reputation management is, in its most basic sense, all about trying to:
1. Listen to what people are saying about your online
2. Reacting to this and trying to paint a favorable impression
In the past, the worst companies had to worry about was getting bad press from word of mouth, or in the worst cases, in the actual press. However, the arrival of the information age has heralded the dawn of online reviews, social media, and a near-infinite variety of online news sources.
This means that the age-old problem of projecting a good image has been magnified ten-fold and companies that fail to act quickly enough can see their reputation decimated overnight (if not quicker).
Listening
For this guide, we’ll assume your business already has some sort of reputation. However, if you’re just starting – you’ll have a great opportunity to build one from the ground up.
Listening is arguably the most important step in reputation management and can also provide some valuable intelligence for companies and their marketing departments. This step simply involves monitoring social channels, search results, and other online sources for chatter about a brand.
Once this is identified, trends can be extrapolated and a management strategy can be put together. However, despite being fairly straightforward – this step is deceptively resource-intensive and you’ll need to devote the proper time and effort if you’re to enjoy success in this area.
Maintaining
If you’re not already engaged in some sort of SEO for your brand, you should be. This is one of the key pillars of reputation management, as well as providing a whole host of marketing benefits. Professionals from essaywriterfree.net emphasize, that by preparing a proper online portfolio, you’ll be able to ensure that searches for your company turn up the results you’d prefer prospects to see – rather than disparaging reviews or unfavorable news stories.
However, the best you can hope for here is a balance. Even the biggest brands can’t deflect bad press or reviews but with the proper techniques, you’ll be able to even things out on this front.
Reacting
Once you’ve identified a problem trend, or are hit by some bad news, you can start to address the problem. However, this won’t be an easy task by any definition – as it’s nigh-impossible to convey a false impression with any lasting effect. Behaving transparently, pragmatically, and appropriately is the best way to garner a positive reputation.
For instance, while it’s all too tempting to ignore negative comments – particularly on social media – by addressing problems, you’ll show your prospective customers that you’re serious about service. However, using social media as a customer service tool is a slippery slope, so once again, make sure you’ve got sufficient resources to deal with this.
Similarly, if a negative story is in the public eye – it’s no use hiding under a rock and hoping it will go away. Instead, you should take the initiative, releasing responses and talking to the media to reveal how you’ll be addressing and solving the issue at hand.
With reputation management, you want to take a holistic view of your online presence. This involves limiting the information available to those searching for you, as well as ensuring what you do provide paints a favorable picture.
But, by promoting your brand with honesty and a view towards improving customer service practices – you’ll be a few steps ahead of those who let reputation management take a back seat in their marketing.
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