We currently live in the era of technological advancements and innovations, which is why an increasing number of people use smartphones and social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and of course, Instagram. If you’re a business owner, you might want to learn how to manage your online presence, and if so, the article below could help you understand what you need to do. So, without losing any more time, here are 9 ways that you can successfully manage your brand’s online reputation:
1. Use All Social Media Platforms
One of the first things that you should do is to use all social media platforms. Why should you do this? Well, besides ensuring that your customers can find you no matter what social media platform they use, you can also ensure that you secure the ownership of your brand’s name on those sites – which is way more important. Hence, even if you won’t use some sites such as Pinterest, you should at least register for them.
2. Be Responsive to All Reviews
Your customers have the power to make or break your business, which is why it’s very important to focus on what they are saying about your products or services. Whether they leave positive or negative reviews, it’s very important that you’re responsive to all of them. Keep in mind, you should respond to the negative testimonials by offering solutions to people.
Also, you might want to encourage them to leave reviews, meaning that you shouldn’t be shy about asking for reviews after someone purchases something from you or uses one of your services. You could even offer rewards such as coupons for people who leave reviews on your website or social media page.
3. Being Consistent is The Key
By now, you probably realize that social media websites are crucial when it comes to your online reputation. This is why you should be consistent across all of them since it’ll allow people to learn more about your business and remember it, but more importantly, it’ll show people that your brand is reliable. What does this mean you should do?
Generally speaking, it means that you should use the same logo, colors, and content on all networks. For your online reputation, it’s quite important that you monitor your social media footprint, meaning that you should use different tools that could help you manage your pages better.
4. Bad Links Will Hinder Your SEO Efforts
You might not realize this, but there might be some bad/spammy links that could hurt your SEO efforts. This could lead to you dropping in the Google ranking system, which will impact your online reputation as well. So, if someone has been creating bad links that lead to your site, you must track them down and remove them. Luckily, there are various organizations such as EZ Rankings that could help you with SEO problems, hence, even if you don’t know anything about SEO, they could help.
5. Content is Everything
You’re probably aware that your content prompts people to engage with your brand, and in some cases, it could even influence someone’s purchasing decision. If created in the right way, your content could help you build your online reputation. This is why you must ensure that you post amazing content on all the platforms you use, especially since this could help you with the rankings too, so ensure that your content is high-quality.
6. Always Respond to Messages
They are called ‘social media networks’, which is why you must be sociable. If a client ever reaches out to you by using your social media page or account, you must respond to them as soon as you can. Keep in mind, even if it’s something that you cannot help them with immediately, you should at least show them that you saw the message and that you’ll do what you can for them. Being sociable and engaging with your clients is the key to having a good online reputation.
7. Engage With Your Customers
Social media networks are the key to being successful, which is why you should use them for getting brand advocates. Strive to give your audience a reason to keep following what you’re doing and if you want to encourage engagement, share compelling content, host giveaways, and simply engage with your followers.
As we already mentioned, you could even encourage them to leave reviews by offering some free items or a discount on their next purchase, and the same can be done to increase engagement. One of the easiest ways to do this is to host giveaways where you’ll randomly choose a winner.
8. Being Honest is Crucial
If there is one thing that you should take away from this article, it’s the fact that you must be honest and transparent with your clients. In fact, by being transparent, you’ll build trust. After all, people can easily find negative comments about your organization online, hence, trying to cover up your mistakes, can completely destroy your online reputation.
You must make sure that you admit all of the mistakes you’ve made since there is no point in trying to cover it up, and if a customer complains to you by using various networks, don’t hide what they’ve said, instead, address it immediately. You never know who saw the negative comments, so, never hide them.
9. You Need Realistic Goals
Last on our list, but as important as the other tips we mentioned, is the fact that you must set realistic goals. When setting goals for your online reputation, the very first thing is to ask yourself why you’re even using those platforms. The answer shouldn’t be “because all people are using them”, instead your answer should be “to improve my brand’s visibility”. Remember, no matter what your goals are – such as increasing engagement – they must be realistic.
Conclusion
Although building an online reputation can be daunting – especially if you’re a new business – the aforementioned tips can help you build it, but more importantly, they can help you ensure that you’re doing everything correctly. So, now that you’ve learned more about what you should do, drop everything that you’re doing, and start with the first tip we mentioned – which is ensuring that you use all social media platforms.
