5 Business Reputation Management Tips That are Essential for Growing Revenue

by Robert Clough

Are you doing everything you can to master business reputation management? If not, you need to realize how easy it is for one poorly thought-out tweet or aggressive response to a negative review to completely destroy your company.

Of course, not having any sort of reputation at all when it comes to your brand is equally as bad!

Ready to make a change and work to control the narrative around your company? If so, then read on.

In this post, we’ll tell you all about some of the most important online reputation management tips that you simply can’t afford to ignore. From completing your listing on places like Google My Business to considering having a professional vet your social media postings, we’re here to help you to keep your company in excellent standing.

1. Claim Your Business Listings

First up on our list of reputation management tips?  Ensure that you’ve claimed all of your third-party listings. This can mean your social media accounts, your actual webpage, your twitter handle, and even especially your place in digital online directories and review sites.

If you don’t take control of your own Yelp or Google My Business page? You might not realize it, but your competitors — or just some stranger on the Internet — can do it for you. That’s one way to put your brand’s reputation at risk. Completely fill out your listings so that you’re easy to find, and do so as soon as possible after you open your doors for the first time.

2. Increase Online Reviews

One of the most essential business reputation management tools? Making sure that you have plenty of online reviews. After all, over 90% of shoppers say that they always read product or company reviews before they decide to schedule a service appointment or buy something from a brand. So, working to make certain that people are buzzing about your brand online is one of the key online reputation management techniques. But how you respond to both positive and negative reviews (we know the latter can sometimes be a challenge) is just as important as having a long string of reviews from past clients.

First of all, never respond out of emotion. Especially if you’re still upset about what someone has written, walk away and return to your computer to respond only when you’ve calmed down.

Don’t make any accusations or blame the client. Instead, discuss either how you tried to help while working together, or ask if they’d be willing to give you a second chance — on your company, of course.

Don’t just ignore the comment and hope it will eventually get deleted.  Instead, respond professionally, and, if needed, follow up with them in a private message. First of all, this shows future clients that you take complaints seriously. But it also shows that you always take the time to listen to customer feedback and that you frequently read your own reviews.

3. Consider Professional Reputation Management

Of course, sometimes, you just can’t master business reputation management on your own.

It can feel next to impossible to handle the day-to-day operations of your company, while also keeping track of your mentions and reading your reviews. Plus, especially in today’s world, it’s incredibly easy to put your foot in your mouth by making a statement you didn’t even realize was ill-timed or offensive.

Hiring a professional who can track what people are saying about your brand online while at the same time vetting your tweets and press releases is especially invaluable. They can also respond to comments on social media profiles and even on your company blog (more on that in a minute.) This will help you to build a more loyal and engaged following.

4. Start a Company Blog

If you really want to control the narrative around your brand? Make sure your target market is getting the messages that you want them to see by starting a blog for your company. You can blog about social issues that are important to you, let them know about new products, and further explain the motivations behind starting your company. Plus, this helps to promote brand transparency, which seriously strengthens your company’s relationship to its customers.

Blogging is also an awesome way to get more leads and boost your standing in search engine rankings pages. To learn other ways to gather even more leads, check out this post from Earth Web Technologies.

5. Consider Company-Wide Social Media Policies

One of the most important online reputation management techniques? Make sure that your team members are all on the same page when it comes to knowing how to behave online.  Remember that even if a tweet isn’t coming from a branded account, a poor choice of words from a prominent employee on social media can still have serious consequences for your company.

Talk about what is and isn’t acceptable on personal accounts, and frequently check in on your employees’ social media pages to ensure that they’re following the rules. Encourage a private photo-sharing drive at work so that your team members can still enjoy validation and upload envy-inducing photos for everyone to see — without jeopardizing your brand’s reputation in the process.

You’ve Mastered Business Reputation Management: What’s Next?

We hope that this post has helped you to better understand how you can master business reputation management. Of course, claiming your listings and making sure your employees are clear about how to behave on social media is just the beginning.

You also need to consider things like SEO, website speed, the best analytics tools, and much more.

Ready to take your web presence to the next level? We can help you with that. Keep checking back with our blog for more awesome tips on how to stand out online.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.