Where the entire world is going online in one form or another, ignoring Online Reputation Management could be a deadly mistake. Most of the people have heard this term over and again. But still, there are a lot of misconceptions about online reputation management. Some people think it’s about getting more positive reviews, few think it is about customer service, and many have no idea what it is. Even many businesses can’t even imagine how it can impact their business and sales online, and even offline.
In this post, we will discuss the role of online reputation management for businesses and individuals as well.
It doesn’t matter whether you are a small company or a working-class person, Online Reputation Management is necessary for you.
Hence, this post will help you all to manage your online reputation.
What Do People Talk About You?
The world was very different just two decades back, especially online.
Companies were selling their products services to a passive audience.
Customers have no direct way to share their voice except to write letters or call their customer support.
The entire communication was top-down.
Companies advertised and people buy products by seeing those ads.
But, that situation has completely changed now.
People now have a powerful way to express and share their voices, and that is through the internet.
Now, websites are not just static brochures, they are intuitive and interactive.
For online success for any brand or company user-generated content on their website is a must.
Social media is also playing a very big role in providing people a platform to share their voices.
Social media presence and regular interactions with the customers and prospects are vital for the success of any business.
Whether you are a small business or an established brand people are talking about you online.
They tweet about your products, comment on your blog, write their experiences with your brand on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.
They can talk good or bad about you, it depends on their experience with your brand.
It is good if they are talking good about you, but what if they are talking bad about you?
Can You Ignore it?
If you think you can ignore this, or if you think you can keep continue without taking into account people’s voices, opinions, and reviews, think again.
Keep in mind that not only do people view the Internet as their first source of information, but they also trust what it tells them. And, they make decisions based on what they see online.
If someone writes something negative about you online, it can be bad for your online reputation, especially in the long-term, and if you’re not aware of it.
Hence, it is crucial to keep tabs on what people are saying about you online.
Also, you need to take appropriate steps to correct what is wrong and what is bad for your online reputation.
What You Should Actually Be Taking Care Of?
In the online reputation management scenario, there are two types of negative content that you should be aware of.
Social Media Complaints
First, is the social media complaints. You should respond and address the complaints on social networks properly and immediately.
Because, if you respond to them your followers will believe in you that you listen to their voices and offer them to help.
If you don’t have an immediate answer to the complaint at least you can acknowledge the complaint and tell the complainant that you are investigating it and try to resolve it as quickly as you can.
This builds your trust among your social media followers.
Second is the reviews on your Google My Business listing or other review sites.
Negative reviews on these places are very powerful because they are prominent in search engine results.
These negative reviews appear along with your brand name on the first page of Google when some searches for your brand.
These negative reviews can affect your reputation and sales long term and can severely damage your business.
Let’s see what they are:
Negative Reviews
Review sites like mouthshut.com, consumercomplaints.in, complaintsboard.com, sitejabber.com, ripoffreport.com, etc., allow users to express their opinion on your brand.
They share their experiences with your products and services.
Obviously, people write bad about you when they are not happy with you or they couldn’t find a way to communicate with you to get their problems resolved.
Responding to them on these sites is the last option and by the time you respond, its quite late because thousands of other potential customers have already seen the review.
In the world where 86% of people make their purchasing decisions based on what they find about you online, this can be really bad.
Hence, you should make sure that you try to resolve the problems of your customers in time so that they don’t end up writing bad about you on these review sites.
Hate Sites
Many a time people even go even beyond simply writing a negative review about a company or brand.
They create websites or even blogs with your company or brand name with prefixes or suffixes like “scam”, “looters”, “thief” etc.
These websites garner many clicks by the people who search your brand online and try to know everything about you.
Needless to say that such results will make your potential customers run away.
Recruitment Sites
Many recruitment websites like glassdoor.com, trustpilot.com, indeed.com, etc., allow people to review your company so that the potential candidates can know about your company before they join you.
It is mostly rated by your employees.
So, it is also important to treat your employees well so that they don’t rate you badly on these websites which makes it difficult for you to hire fresh talent in your organization.
Negative Media Coverage
Media like print, TV, radio, etc., are important and people do believe in them. Bad publicity in the media can impact your business very negatively.
A classic example is Vijay Mallya and his Kingfisher Airlines which earned a lot of bad publicity.
Another great example of negative media coverage is of Actor Shiney Ahuja which completely ruined his career.
How Can You Take Control of Your Online Reputation?
Since now you understand that managing your online reputation is crucial, so you should take control of it.
We will discuss some points which will help you manage your online reputation and make your customers and prospects trust you.
Be Transparent
Being transparent with customers is necessary for businesses nowadays. No business can operate in the online market without transparency.
They need to be open to hear the criticism and feedback of the customers and respond to them in a timely manner.
Businesses need to engage and involve the customers on social media, etc. so that they can keep communicating with them.
Usually in the case of Businesses being “transparent” means:
- Encouraging and allowing employees to talk about products and services publicly
- Establishing a communication channel to talk directly with the customers and prospects
- Asking for feedback from the customers and making note of their experiences to improve in your products and service process.
- Not hiding or ignoring criticism, and addressing it publicly to build confidence and trust among customers and prospects
Green Peace’s campaign against global fashion brands on discharging hazardous chemicals in seawater is an example of forcing these brands to be transparent in their operations.
Two activists hold a banner that reads: “Never Stop Exploring – But Stop Polluting”.
But, still many small and medium-sized companies do not invest much in establishing communication with the customers.
Or even if they do, their efforts usually are inconsistent and improper.
If you think being transparent is not good for your business, then I guess you need to rethink that.
Respond in Time and Be Polite
Now that you understand how important it is to listen to people’s voices and respond to them in a timely manner, you cannot risk ignoring it.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that besides responding to the criticism or negative feedback you need to be polite.
If you use harsh tone against any such complaint, feedback or critical review you will be sending a wrong message in the public.
Monitor What is Being Talked About You
You always need to keep monitoring what people are saying about you online.
Google alerts, mention.com, and many other such websites help you monitor the sentiments of the people who talk about you.
They help you in social media monitoring and also monitoring the brand mentions.
Which comes handy to monitor and respond.
It is not necessary to always respond to everything but sometimes ignoring or responding too late might cost you a lot.
Always keep a proactive approach for dealing with such cases.
Take Appropriate Steps to Manage Your Online Reputation
Everyone has the right to express their voice about your brand.
However, there are certain boundaries that need to be respected. Some of the negative content online actually is illegal:
- If it uses defamatory and derogatory language
- It publishes wrong information about you or your brand
- It is vindictive and aimed at damaging the company’s or brand’s reputation
How do you react to all of this? How do you defend yourself or your brand from this kind of illegal behavior?
Depending on the situation you can take the help of professional, cyber investigations, the court of the law, or maybe try to connect with the complainant and take it off-line and resolve it.
After that ask them to remove their complaint from every place they have posted it online.
Online Reputation Management for Individuals
So far we discussed the Online Reputation Management for Company’s and Brands. But, it is equally important for individuals as well.
If you think that people are not searching for you online then you are making a terrible mistake. People do search for you online.
There are many reasons people search for you, like:
- Employers doing pre-interview research
- Tenants looking for renting a property and learning about the landlords
- Landlords looking into prospective renters
- Children searching for details of their parents’ “real lives”
- Curious significant others looking for each other’s past and present
- Former colleagues looking to share professional opportunities
- College admissions departments evaluating prospective students
- Insurance companies doing risk assessments for their clients
- Prospective employees looking to know about the hiring managers, reporting managers, bosses, etc.
- Girlfriends or boyfriends looking into your social media accounts to know more about you.
- Bride’s and Groom’s parents searching for information about you before starting a relationship
- Police looking for your social media and other online accounts to verify you
- An immigration officer looking for your social media activities and blogs etc.
- Cybercriminals and thieves looking into your social media to target you.
So there are various reasons people look for you online.
And having a bad reputation or something bad online might land you in trouble.
Hence, you need to keep control of your online reputation in every possible way.
As a caution, do not post anything bad on social media.
Think many times before you post anything online.
Because, it might cause refusal of your application for a job, or maybe cancel your marriage. Or it could do any sort of harm to you.
Need Help With Your Online Reputation Management?
If you or your company’s Online Reputation is not good and you want to make it positive by removing everything bad you can get in touch with us.
We have 10+ years of experience in Online Reputation Management and we have helped over 9 individuals and 16 companies to clean up their bad reputation online and build a positive image and reputation on the web.
If you want to hire us for any of your online reputation management projects, please use the form below to contact us.
