The majority of business is already done online, and your online presence will only become more important in the future. The internet puts the power back in the consumers’ hands. Not only can everyone tell the world about their experience with each business, more and more consumers are checking reviews before they even set foot inside the business. Today, every business needs a strong online reputation management strategy.
The technological world evolves quickly, and to ensure the greatest profitability, businesses need to develop a relationship with a diligent and knowledgeable digital marketing expert who keeps up with all the new trends. Read on to discover six tips for improving your online reputation quickly.
Why Online Reputation Is Crucial
Many customers consider a Google review to be as trustworthy as a personal recommendation, so businesses have to monitor their online reputation. Any good online reputation management strategy is complex and multifaceted. Your business has to have a professional-looking online presence, and you and your employees must be trained to interact with customers appropriately when you are online.
Finally, you need a system to monitor relevant online discussions and provide you with convenient, actionable reports. Online reputation management strategy is in a constant state of evolution, and you must be able to implement new tactics and abandon old ones or risk falling behind competitors. Here are some important tips to consider.
6 Tips for Online Reputation Management Strategy
1. Don’t Try to Do It Alone
Many businesses make the mistake of attempting to handle their online reputation management strategy in-house. Running a business poses a unique set of challenges, and your reputation management strategy can be too much to add to an already demanding work schedule.
Reputation management is as important to the health of your business as your legal representation or your contracted accountant. Just because an employee is social media savvy does not mean they are qualified to handle your fundamental online reputation strategy. A business that assigns online reputation management to its employees often sees an increase of hours wasted on social media with no benefit to the reputation of the business.
Without a knowledgeable strategy, these individuals often use ineffective marketing tactics and often fail to obtain an accurate overall picture. The result is that decision-makers in the business do not have the information when they need it, and the money spent is ultimately thrown away.
2. Focus on Results-Driven Tactics
A professional consultant will allow you to capitalize on results-driven tactics that are much more affordable than traditional strategies. Ever-evolving smart tools allow businesses to scan the internet and harvest information. This information is then interpreted and supplied in the form of an actionable report that shows up as a text message or email.
This format allows business owners to get a quick glimpse of their online reputation while they’re having their coffee in the morning and alerts them immediately when they must take action. Smart monitoring and marketing tools are much more efficient than traditional strategies.
Smart tools allow you to target potential clients so you can focus on the specific individuals who are most likely to be interested in your goods and services. Businesses often discover that when they switch to an online reputation management company, they see dramatic savings and improved effectiveness over traditional marketing efforts.
3. Monitor the Discussion
With smart reports, you can see what people are saying the moment they say it. The days of the anonymous customer suggestion box have long since passed. Today, when customers have a complaint, they are much more likely to post about it on social media with the hope and assumption that the criticism will get back to the business.
If you never see a social media complaint, you are unable to correct the situation, and it reflects poorly on your business. With smart reports, you can be assured of receiving notifications whenever there is a problem. This allows you to turn a potentially negative situation into a positive for your company.
Potential customers observe how a company interacts with online complaints, and if you conduct yourself well, you can earn the trust of new clients even if the initial complaint was unfair or unreasonable. Capitalizing on opportunities for social media interaction between a business and its clients is one of the best and most affordable ways to improve online reputation.
4. Assure Correct Information
One of the most vital components of an effective online reputation management strategy is also the simplest. It is important that every online listing regarding your business shows the correct information. Unfortunately, may web services copy their information from preexisting sources.
If a listing is incorrect, or your information changes, the incorrect information could proliferate throughout the web. If customers obtain bad information and arrive at your business when it’s closed, the result could be an unfair, negative review.
Smart monitoring tools will help you stay on top of all your listings to ensure that your customers always have the right information. The more you can do to eliminate the possibility of bad reviews, the better it is for your online reputation.
5. Bury Negative Reviews
Many individuals report that when they are looking for goods and services, their research goes no farther than the star rating of a business. No business is invulnerable to receiving a few one-star reviews from unfortunate customer interactions that may or may not have anything to do with the level of service provided.
You can manage a few one-star reviews, and they won’t hurt your business provided it’s clear that those reviews are an aberration. When a one-star review is clearly fake, you have the option to report those reviews to the host site. This will initiate a review and, if you’re lucky, the review will be taken down.
However, a more proactive tactic is to ensure you have plenty of five-star reviews to offset any negative comments. You can use in-store and digital promotions to cultivate five-star reviews, so your star rating remains healthy even after you receive a few unfair comments.
6. Have Clear Expectations for Employees
Everyone who works for your business will reflect on your business. Your employees have to understand the effect they can have on the reputation of your business both when they are working as employees and when they interact online in their spare time.
You can’t over-emphasize how detrimental an inappropriate online interaction with a customer can be. A discourteous response from a social media account linked to your business has the potential to go viral and cause enormous damage to your online reputation.
It’s important that you have a clear and courteous conversation with your employees so that they understand what is expected of them in their online interactions. Workshops and regular refresher courses are also encouraged. It is always better to prevent an online reputation crisis and develop employees who are assets.
Improve Your Online Reputation Quickly
The internet can be very intimidating, and it’s often unfair. The good news that it is possible to improve your online reputation quickly and affordably by following these and other sound reputation management tactics. If you would like to develop a relationship with a customer-first company that focuses on online reputation management strategy, contact DM Collective today.