Before a consumer buys your product or service, they use the internet to research what others are saying about you.. This makes your brand reputation more important than ever. 

Whether you are deterred or delighted by the fact that conversations about your brand are happening without you, reputation management is not an option anymore–it’s a necessity. Nowadays, your brand reputation exists on social media and review sites. Consumers have all of the information they need to make a purchasing decision at their fingertips.

Online brand reputation management has a few key components. It is aimed at creating a positive perception of your brand. It includes monitoring, addressing customers, implementing a plan, and showcasing positive earned media. Under this umbrella of online brand reputation management, there are 7 key elements to creating a positive perception of your brand.

Recognizing that the success of your brand is tied with your online brand reputation can be a little intimidating. Fortunately there are strategies and even tools that can help you create a more positive brand image online. 

Review and Rating Sites are a Priority

Consumers are self-sufficient and prefer to do their own research before making a purchase decision. They often start with review sites.

Afterall,  85% of consumers trust an online review of a brand as much as personal recommendations. Furthermore, consumers read an average of 10 reviews of a product or service before making a purchase decision. This data alone shows you how important it is to get positive reviews of your product or service posted on review sites.

Need to build up your presence on review sites? You can incentivise happy customers to leave you a review with a gift card. You can implement an email marketing campaign asking for reviews. You can even use social media to ask for reviews. 

Proactive Responses to Questions and Concerns 

With customer service largely taking place on social media, everything is public. If a brand doesn’t respond to a question or concern on social, it damages their brand perception because other consumers can witness your brand-consumer interaction. 

Being communicative and responsive when a consumer asks a question albeit on email or social media, causes them to trust you more. And we all know how important brand loyalty is!

Knowledge of Where the Online Conversations are Happening

Consult buyer personas and identify where your consumers are active. This allows you to not spread yourself too thin from guessing where the conversations are taking place. 

Identifying the social media platforms and review sites that your consumers are spending their time can be done by surveying your contact base. Ask them questions about what they expect from brands and their purchasing behavior.

When you know where the conversations are happening, you can glean valuable insights. From the negative brand mentions, you can identify areas of your brand that need improvement. From the positive brand mentions, you can uncover what you’re doing right and scale it.

This monitoring should be done consistently because conversations about your brand are going to continue to evolve.

Active Social Listening

It’s likely that consumers are having conversations about your brand that you don’t even know about. That’s where social listening comes in.

There are a lot of social media platforms to keep up with. Social listening tools help you streamline the process of identifying posts that mention your brand so that you can proactively engage publicly and show your audience that you’re a responsive and credible brand.

With social listening, you’ll set up monitors that will search the digital world for:

• People tagging your brand
• People who mention your brand without tagging you
• Social posts that talk about an affinity your brand has
• Positive and negative sentiment
• Organize direct messages in one place

Earn Consistent Media and Promote it

Reputation management isn’t just about a pulse on what customers are saying, it’s also an opportunity to steer the messaging.

Keep in mind consumers don’t want to hear from your brand. They trust a third party. This means you can incentivise earned media and strategically make sure potential new consumers find it.

There are a few ways to earn third-party media:

• Influencer marketing
• UGC campaigns
• Testimonials

Once this media is earned you can promote it a few ways:

• Integrate quotes from review sites onto your homepage
• Share influencer and UGC via paid social
• Use earned media in your email marketing
• Create a testimonials section on your website

Implementing these approaches to earned media will get that social proof out into the digital world about your brand and positively impact your brand’s reputation.

Conducting Feedback Requests

The best way to get a pulse on your online brand reputation management strategy is to get feedback on your efforts. Every time you interact with a customer, send them a survey.

Keep the survey short so that it’s not inconvenient for your customers to fill it out. Questions should capture information such as customer satisfaction and how likely your customers are to recommend your brand.

Analyzing all the feedback you get every month will exponentially positively increase your brand’s reputation because you’ll be steering your efforts based on data.

A Focus on Transparency

Consumers crave authenticity from the brands they purchase from. The best way to give them authenticity is to be transparent.

Don’t delete negative comments and respond publicly to customer concerns. Engage with both positive and negative brand mentions.

The bottom line, make your customers feel heard and like they are a part of your brand.

What strategies do you implement to keep your online brand reputation positive? I’d love to read all about it in the comments below!