How To Improve Your Brand Reputation Online
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” Warren Buffett
Creating a successful and authentic online reputation is vital in today’s digital era. Although way back at the beginning of the digital age, many mistakes were made, and the importance of getting it right was largely overlooked.
These days, a brand’s visibility online and reputation can make or break how successful they are. Even if you have made mistakes in the past, how you deal with this today can help you address causes for concern and rectify any problems while allowing you to make sure those mistakes aren’t repeated.
Creating an online image is about more than just having a website and social media accounts. It is about your reputation, including many variables to complete the picture consumers will get of you when they are introduced to your company.
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How Your Online Brand and Reputation Are Made
With every social media comment, review, and blog post, your brand’s online reputation is changing and being re-defined by the public. When someone learns about your company online, they form opinions and make purchasing decisions based on the information they find on your website.
To stay on top of things and keep your company afloat, you must actively manage and improve on all of the feedback you receive from customers and other sources.
You can take proactive measures to improve your online reputation, just as you would with anything else in life. Here are some things you can do to ensure that your brand is always presented in the best light possible.
Strong Branding
The perception of you as a company starts well before a customer interacts with your brand. Be it walking past a physical location, seeing an ad in print or online, or even coming across your social media channels, that first impression counts.
You don’t often get second chances at making first impressions, so you need to be starting strong. To do this, you need an eye-catching branding design and encompasses everything your brand is about. It needs to be done clearly and concisely to make you instantly recognizable.
There are many free and easy websites you can use to help you create the ideal branding for your company; however, if you aren’t skilled in this area, you should consult with a design agency that can help you create the perfect branding that is inclusive of everything you need it to be and scalable for the future too.
Tell Your Story
First, tell your story. Consumers engage with brands when they understand the founder’s motivation. Consider why you chose to sell your product or service and how it influences your life.
Create an “about” page that displays your values and stories. When new visitors arrive on your site, they will likely start here. You’ll get more conversions and engagement if you impress them here.
Consider what a new visitor might seek on your about page. Your tale will likely captivate them if it addresses their concerns or goals. Your reputation is built on these connections. People are more trusting of others who have faced and overcome similar challenges. Make sure your story is constant and is conveyed across your digital avenues such as websites, emails, social media, and so on.
Create A Good Product
Take some time to consider your product or service before you invest even a cent in marketing and branding activities. Determine the value proposition of your product or service and if it is ready to go live or not by analyzing it. In essence, your first and foremost aim should be to provide a superior product.
While you may have invested a significant amount of your essential time and effort into developing excellent marketing techniques to turn your product into a brand, you will not establish a positive reputation if your product is subpar.
However effective you are in drawing your target audience in, if your product or services fall below their expectations, they won’t stick around and will likely leave negative feedback online in their wake too.
The bottom line is that your product should focus your attention before you attempt to market your brand.
Create Guidelines for Negative Feedback
We’ve all seen awkward social media conflicts where two parties clash over negative feedback. Maybe you saw a brand or business owner retaliate over less than favorable reviews. Often this is done in anger and haste. How you react publically to feedback or reviews reflects your brand and can go one of two ways. And it isn’t always going to go your way.
Develop a strategy that your whole team can abide by when interacting with people who publicly air their grievances. Some great tips include;
- Wait until you are calmer and can craft a reasonable response.
- Professionalism should always be your focus when interacting with consumers.
- Respond promptly
- Respond both publicly and privately. Your attention to correcting the situation and addressing the complaint personally can go a long way to building bridges. But making a public response shows others you are dealing with the problem.
Excellent Customer Experience
This definition of customer service includes all contact and engagement with the customer relating to delivering products and services. Your attention to detail determines the quality of the customer experience. And it will be your meticulous attention to detail that will establish your reputation.
Twitter replies, website navigation, invoicing, and email autoresponders should all be designed and implemented to provide the best possible customer experience at each point of contact with the company. A positive customer experience communicates to your clients and prospects that the brand will not forsake them once the sale has been completed. It is also an excellent method of converting customers into brand supporters and promoting good word-of-mouth marketing campaigns.
Get Involved In The Community
Businesses in today’s day and age must, without a doubt, concentrate a significant portion of their efforts on establishing a positive online image; but, they should not forget the importance of establishing a presence and reputation in the local community.
Making appearances at local events, hosting workshop sessions, providing work experience to students from nearby schools, and networking with prominent local figures and business owners are excellent ways to improve how your company is perceived by the community, which could significantly impact your company and your business’ success.
Social Listening
What would have previously been a private dialogue between friends or family members can now be broadcast to the entire world with the touch of a button in today’s technologically advanced world? Many consumers are now taking to their social media networks to express their dissatisfaction with products, services, or companies.
Granted, some complaints can be based on false information, making people make incorrect claims about brands on the internet. You must, however, be aware of how or where this started and be prepared to deal with false reviews as soon as they arise.
Monitoring your brand and engaging in social listening is essential if you want to keep on top of talks about your company and take advantage of opportunities to correct previously disclosed material.
Luckily there are many social listening tools on the market, so you don’t have to spend your days trawling the internet for any and every instance of your brand being mentioned, even if your accounts weren’t tagged. Some of the best social media listening tools are;
- Mention
- Agorapulse
- Hootsuite
- Buffer
- Monday.com
Content Creation
As a marketer in today’s digital age, content creation is critical to your success. This is why you must ensure that you are producing a continuous stream of high-quality, engaging, and valuable content that is tailored to your target customer and has the potential to improve your reputation significantly. It also provides an opportunity to communicate with your target audience and exhibit your expertise.
Improve Brand Reputation Online: Request Feedback
It is critical to make it as simple as possible for customers to provide feedback on products and services. Would you please make an effort to create a climate where constructive criticism is encouraged since your clients want to feel like they have a say?
By providing them with a channel, you limit the likelihood that bad feedback will be spread in locations where you cannot control or regulate it.
Feedback also has the additional benefit of strengthening the product at its core — by identifying the product or service’s shortcomings, you can then work to remedy them and raise customer satisfaction levels. Customers that are pleased with their purchases will bring in more business.
Remember, when it comes to brand identity and reputation, it can be tarnished in an instant. It would be best if you were proactive in making sure there is no reason for negative feedback, and you should be engaging with feedback that requires you to address concerns as a priority.
While you can’t please everyone all of the time, knowing what you can change and improve should be an ongoing development. This can only be achieved by understanding how others perceive your brand, service, or product and where your shortcomings are.
