A company’s online reputation is increasingly becoming its most valuable asset. As a result, protecting it has become a strategic imperative.
What should you do if you are concerned that your company’s online reputation is harmed by a false news article, social media post or video?
Or, what should you do if your brand has been defamed or harassed by an individual or organisation?
Or, what if you have a competitor who has written a false and negative article about your company?
Or, what if a blogger says untrue, damaging things about your brand?
This is where online reputation management services come into the picture. Reputation management is the cornerstone of any brand today.
What Are Online Reputation Management Services?
Online reputation management services protect your corporate and personal reputation and aim to prevent a crisis and stop the spread of damaging information. This way, online reputation management services help you to keep your best interest in mind and go above and beyond to protect your online reputation.
The Elements of Online Reputation Management Services
A successful online reputation management service requires the use of several strategies that will boost a brand’s image online. The most common ones are the following:
Content Creation
Content creation is one of the elements involved in reputation management services.
This includes creating various forms of content, such as articles, blog posts, press releases, wiki sites, whitepapers, business profiles, and more.
Creating high-quality content is your business’s opportunity to represent your vision and mission in the best light possible.
Community Management
Community management means engaging with customers, answering questions, providing feedback, and addressing any problems that customers may be experiencing with your company.
It is also an integral aspect of building a community online and bringing a human touch to your online presence.
Brand reputation is on the line when it comes to social media. If your constantly posting but not responding to your audience, your brand will appear careless and self-absorbed.
Effective community management includes conscious posting and monitoring for negative reviews, as well as responding to your customer’s concerns and queries quickly and with consideration.
Review Current Online Reputation Management Processes
Online reviews profoundly affect a company’s bottom line and brand perception. Reputation management services can help a business manage its online reviews by removing negative ones, getting rid of fake ones, and responding to positive ones.
On the other hand, suppose there are no negative reviews and only positive ones. This feedback will be helpful to enable you to analyse reviews given by your customers. You can use this information to improve your products or services and to build a better understanding of your audience.
Investing in reputation management can also help you gain more reviews on various platforms. This involves reaching out to customers to get new reviews, sending auto-responses, and promoting positive reviews.
Crisis Management
As the name suggests, crisis management is handling crises from a bad review, an online attack, a defamatory statement, or an embarrassing video.
It is a way for businesses to lessen the negative impacts of an online attack of PR crisis. In certain circumstances, it can helo undo the damage, improve brand perception, and maintain goodwill with your customers.
When brands don’t take action in response to a crisis, it can be very difficult to bounce back. It’s as simple as being accountable for what has taken place or responding to the issue at hand.
In 2016, Samsung was put into hot waters due to reports about the Galaxy Note 7 bursting into flames. At that time, airlines prohibited phones onboard, which worsened things. Ultimately, Samsung recalled over two million phones and froze Galaxy Note 7 production.
Samsung responded to the crisis by hiring 700 researchers and creating a battery advisory group to pinpoint the root cause. In addition to this, the brand actively kept the public up to date, taking accountability for the situation and keeping their customers informed.
Online Monitoring and Reporting
Online monitoring and reporting are ways of tracking the conversations surrounding your brand. It helps uncover the conversations that are taking place on social media, on review sites, and in the blogosphere.
Reports are then generated to help the company make important decisions about their reputation and brand management. This may also involve monitoring your reputation results and reporting on how the campaigns are faring.
Monitoring the conversations surrounding your brand is essential, as it gives you first-hand insight into your brand’s reputation and the real-life experiences of your customers, which you can use to inform product reviews or service improvements.
How to Find the Best Online Reputation Management Company for Your Brand?
With the explosion of the internet and the prevalence of social media, managing your online reputation is becoming more important. How can you find the best online reputation management services for your company? Check out the tips below:
Set Your Goals
The first step is clearly defining what you want to accomplish with online reputation and visibility:
- Do you want to increase the overall number of people who know about your brand?
- Do you want to respond to or convey your brand’s point of view about negative social media posts?
- Do you want to show a different side to your company to rebuild your reputation?’
There are different goals that you can set, which is why we highly recommend that you take the time to set these goals before you invest in reputation management. You need to understand the goals behind your reputation management strategy, this will ensure that your approach is effective and takes into consideration your audience.
Identify Specific Services You Need
There is a range of services that reputation management companies commonly provide. You should narrow down the list of providers you are interested in and identify the specific services that interest you.
After you have a shortlist of the best online reputation management services, you should communicate with them and ensure that the services they provide are the ones you are looking for.
Consider Customer Service
Do your research on the online reputation management companies you are interested in. Your research must include looking at the kind of customer service offered by each individual company.
Try to communicate with the online reputation management service provider to see how they respond and if they can answer your questions. Your customer service experience should tell you a lot about how the online reputation management company will provide customer service for you.
In addition, should you move forward with a company, the provider must be transparent and informative about your campaigns. You want a service that will deliver honest feedback and progress updates and make you feel valued.
Consider the Cost
Finally, to determine which online reputation management company can best serve your needs, look at the pricing structure.
- Do they work on a flat-rate fee structure?
- Do they offer a monthly subscription service?
- Are they more interested in a one-time project fee?
- How much do they charge?
If you pay a flat-rate fee, you can expect to be charged whether your company is the subject of a crisis or a non-crisis. In contrast, if you are paying a monthly subscription fee, you will likely be charged more if you are the subject of a crisis. In any case, it is best to ask upfront.
Who Needs Online Reputation Management Services?
Anyone with a public reputation can benefit from reputation management services, and this is because they can help protect your reputation as well as your company’s reputation.
Small Businesses
Small businesses are at a disadvantage because of their limited resources. If your company suffers a crisis, there are fewer resources that you can tap into to help you handle it. Reputation management services can provide a small business with the resources it needs to navigate a crisis successfully.
Large Businesses
When you are a large business, your reputation is at greater risk than smaller businesses. If you experience a crisis, it is more likely to hurt your brand, your employees, and your shareholders. In addition, a crisis in a large business can result in a loss of customers, damage the reputation of other employees in your company, and leave a negative reputation that drags down all of the work you have done to build your business and promote your brand.
Ultimately, online reputation management services can be helpful for anyone concerned about their reputation, even celebrities and political leaders.
Whether you are an individual or a business, a positive reputation will create a good impression that can lead to success. And remember, a single adverse event can ruin your positive reputation.
Wrapping Up
Online reputation management services are increasingly important because the internet is where anyone can post anything about your brand, its products, and its employees. With reputation management, you can protect your best interests and maintain a good relationship with those who matter most, your clients and customers.
