With the advent of the internet, manage the brand reputationit has become more complex. More and more companies and well-known personalities (actors, politicians, artists …) are using brand reputation management services in order to optimize their image on the web.
This phenomenon affects every channel of the web: from search engine results to social channels and today more than ever it is important to be aware of the tactics and procedure to follow to take care of your online brand.
But let’s see immediately what is the brand reputation.
What is brand reputation?
For brand reputationwe mean how a brand, an individual or a company is perceived by others. A positive reputation can lead users to trust your brand, positively influencing the turnover as well. Conversely, a bad reputation can harm your business , driving away users who won’t trust your company , you, and your products or services.
While in the past brands easily shaped their reputations through advertising and public relations activities, today it is much more difficult to protect their brand. With social media, it literally takes seconds to damage the image of a company or individual and, for this reason, managing online reputation becomes crucial.
This is the business of brand reputation management. Here are some tips to create a positive online image .
Manage the brand reputation on social channels
One of the first goals is to gain credibility and make yourself known and found online . The tools to do this are SEO , press releases, and using social media to grab attention and engage your niche.
The analytics of the site and those of social platforms will help you understand whether your content is gaining traction online .
Use a tool to monitor your brand reputation online
Observing how industry leaders and your competitors perform in general can help you understand what works with your audience, seize new opportunities, and take prompt action if problems arise.
You can monitor online conversations around your name and specific keywords using brand monitoring tools, such as Hootsuite , BrandWatch , Mention and Google Alerts for news and content.
Act consistently and consistently
Considering the level of transparency that can be achieved online , it is practically impossible to avoid any kind of problem. Anyone can comment and the worst thing a brand can do is remain silent during a crisis.
The best approach in this case is to build a solid online reputation and talk to your users. The worst part is letting the bad news be all that users can find about you online .
Anyone can write about you online : a competitor can blog against you, or an unsatisfied customer can leave you a bad review. This is why it is important that there is also some positive content online about you. Now let’s talk about some actions you can take to protect yours brand reputation.
Clean up your brand reputation or online presence
If you search Google for content about you and your brand, what do you get? What image of you can someone make, based on the results of a search alone? If it comes to negative things under your control, such as old web pages, unpleasant photos etc., the solution is clear.
Delete this content and clean up your presence or digital footprint to improve yours brand reputation.
Review your social media activity and clean your feed of any updates that may harm you or are controversial.
Register your brand name as a domain
This is a way to make sure no one can take it and pretend to be you. This could be a big damage to yours brand reputation and many spammers take advantage of it to create fake news and click bait in order to acquire traffic with your image.
Use this domain to build content about you and your brand, about awards won and press mentions.
This way you can try to control what users will find when they search for information about you or your brand.
Register your brand name on social media
Similarly, create social accounts with your name to prevent someone from taking your name. Then proceed to optimize the various profiles, in order to benefit from them in terms of SEO.
Maintain an active presence on social media
An active presence on social platforms allows your profiles to rank better in search results and generate traffic to your website.
By interacting with users and building a fan and follower phase, you will gain authority, both for your brand and for the content you publish.
But remember that users know the difference between authentic updates and automatic activity. Try to convey your personality and actively participate in conversations to improve yours brand reputation.
Regularly post new content
Building and optimizing social sites and profiles is only the first step. What is important to rank high in search results is to build quality content that is useful for users and constantly updated.
Create articles, videos, guest blog posts and presentations, looking for the meeting point between what your audience is looking for and the topics that help you showcase your experience and skills. This way you can use the content to build credibility and authority.
Register and verify your account on Google My Business
When users search for you online , does a card appear on Google with contact information and your business address ? Claim ownership of these cards, as they allow you to communicate valuable information to your users.
It also prevents someone else from verifying and checking them. Don’t underestimate these resources, as they allow you to upload photos and information about your business and the products you offer.
Manage reviews
Online reviews influence user perception and purchase decision making. Having lots of positive reviews and managing negative ones is important to yours brand reputation.
Encourage customers to leave reviews on Google, Facebook and other dedicated platforms. Add testimonials and citations to your site.
To encourage users, you can place a dedicated call-to-action on the site, on your signature in emails, and even in your site’s store. There are special plugins to implement a WordPress review system .
If you receive negative comments, try to respond to the author, inviting him to dialogue and trying to move the conversation to private channels, such as emails and private messages on Facebook and Twitter. This way, users will be able to see that you are active and participating in the discussion, showing interest in their point of view and willingness to improve.
Conclusion
Partners and potential customers search the internet for information about your brand and the products and services you offer. What they find can influence the perception of the credibility and reliability of your business , directly influencing purchasing decisions and, consequently, your online turnover .
For this reason it is important to control the conversation and actively protect your own brand reputation. In this guide we have seen some of the actions to be taken to build and manage your online image . Many of these tactics and strategies apply to both brands and individuals.
The first step is always to evaluate the current situation by searching your name on Google and analyzing the results.
Have you ever analyzed what is being said about you online ?
You already use these techniques to protect yours brand reputation?
Have you ever had to react to negative conversations to control the conversation and protect your online image ?
