Are you interested in finding ways to manage your brand’s online reputation? Making a good impression plays a significant role in how people view your business.
In fact, research shows that 85% of consumers now research a brand online before making a purchasing decision. This is usually by checking a website, search engine, or social media.
Having a strong reputation makes it easier to connect with your audience or anyone researching your business. Also, if you know people aren’t satisfied, you are able to address their issues.
With consumers now spending more of their time online than ever, it’s essential to understand how to manage your online presence. Here are four tips for you to do this:
1. Monitor any feedback of your brand
To manage your online reputation effectively, you need to ensure you’re monitoring your social footprint and checking what your existing and potential customers are saying about your brand regularly.
Make sure you perform regular searches on the most popular platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, for your product or brand name.
By doing this, you can get an overview about what consumers think of your business and get valuable feedback. It also gives you a chance to respond to any problems that come up.
If you want to make this process more efficient, you can use an online tool like Mention, which will enable you to automate social listening and monitoring.
2. Always respond to customers promptly
Once you start checking people’s feedback online, the next step is to check that you’re responding to any queries or complaints as quickly as possible.
Customers have higher expectations than ever. They expect brands to be sociable and provide an outstanding service. So, make sure your online presence is consistent.
Even in more complex cases or with problems you can’t solve immediately, it’s important to acknowledge them. This will help you build a long-term relationship with your audience.
3. Ask for online reviews
Word-of-mouth recommendations are so powerful for building a strong reputation online. Consumers are more likely to trust brands that have positive feedback.
Because of this, you need to show that your existing customers are happy, which can be achieved by asking them for reviews that can be shown on various platforms.
If you already have a customer base, encourage them to leave a review on your Google listing, on social media, or another online review site like Yelp.
Additionally, if you do a lot of business offline, you can ask customers to leave a review in person or put this information on your business cards. If you don’t have business cards yet or need to update them, you can do this by using a free online tool like BusinessCards.
People are more likely to leave a review when asked, so make sure you do this as often as possible. You could also provide incentives for doing so, like a competition or discount.
4. Always be transparent and honest
If you want to cultivate trust in your brand, it’s vital to be transparent at all times. When you’re promoting your business online, small mistakes can quickly go wrong.
On social media and other online platforms, your audience can see everything you’ve ever said. This means that trying to cover up any problems has the potential for serious backlash.
Always aim for honest, personal, and effective communication with your customers. If you make an error, admit it straight away and apologize, rather than covering it up.
Customers expect an outstanding experience, and failing to provide this can damage your online reputation in a way that’s potentially irreversible.
