How can a good Digital Reputation in 2021 define success or failure?
This post will give you a brief about Digital Reputation:
- What is Digital Reputation Management?
- Benefits of Having a Good Digital Reputation
- What Can Damage Your Digital Reputation?
- How to Restore Your Digital Reputation
- 4 Top Tips for Managing your Digital Reputation
- Conclusion
In the online and offline world, reputation is everything nowadays, and this is especially true for businesses with any form of online presence. Even if your business is primarily based offline, you’ll find online reviews can make or break the chance of you receiving future business. Many individuals believe that digital reputation is purely about your social media following or online marketing activities, but that’s far from the truth. Whether you are a small one-person business or a large multi-national company, your business can benefit from digital reputation management. Today we’re going to discuss why this is so important for businesses and what you can do to manage your online reputation.
What is Digital Reputation Management?
Before we go any further, it’s important to understand what exactly constitutes digital reputation management. Your digital reputation, which is also known as an e-reputation, is the reputation of your business or of a person online. It’s influenced by the content you put online and the interactions you have with followers and customers on social media and websites. Online reputation management generally involves updating content online regarding your business in the hope of pushing unwanted or detrimental content further down the list of results in search engines. When used correctly, it will also help push up other content, which you may want consumers to view. With the ever-changing online algorithms, this can be a tricky task for any business.
Another key area of your digital reputation management is looking after and engaging with customers on social media. Social media has its advantages and disadvantages for businesses nowadays, but with everyone having a voice online, your reputation can quickly be damaged with a few poor reviews. User-generated content is becoming more common nowadays, and regular social media posts and interactions are integral for any company that plans to be successful in this day and age. It doesn’t take much for one tweet or Instagram post to be shared by a few influential online personalities for damage to occur to your business. Companies need to ensure they have the personnel assigned to the task of monitoring content and interacting online to avoid damaging your digital reputation and potentially losing customers.
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Benefits of Having a Good Digital Reputation
In order to motivate you and your team to monitor your digital reputation, it’s crucial to understand the benefits this can have to your overall business. While a good digital reputation does not guarantee your company additional business or potential growth, in the digital age, it’s the best chance of you organically increasing your customer numbers and reaching a broader target market. By proactively managing your digital reputation online, you’ll find you gain free feedback from your consumers about what they like and dislike about your product or service. Social media can provide companies with a simple way to receive feedback without spending a fortune on focus groups or customer surveys.
Most consumers nowadays would rather buy from a company which has a good reputation. Online reviews can make or break the chance of someone purchasing your product. Unfortunately, negative reviews and comments usually garner more interest than positive ones, which is why you must be quick to react and resolve any issues that occur. A good digital reputation can also help to build your brand’s image, and customers will begin to associate your product or service with positive emotions or feelings. You can quickly build the trust of customers online. We all know how influential social media and celebrities are, and with a few good product recommendations and reviews online, potential customers will be far more likely to believe the benefits of your new product.
Ultimately, the biggest motivation for managing your digital reputation is the potential for increased sales. When shopping on a site like Amazon, most of us will automatically look at the top-rated products first. This is why you should prioritize looking after your online reputation. A few extra good reviews can be the difference between sales for you or your competition. It’s also a great free marketing tool, and when used effectively, it won’t cost your company a fortune. It may spread the word about your services further than a traditional, expensive marketing campaign. Finally, to help attract more sales, a good digital reputation can also increase your search engine rankings. In turn, this will allow your business to reach a wider audience, which will hopefully result in increased sales.
What Can Damage Your Digital Reputation?
You may be unsure how your digital reputation looks currently or if you should be concerned at all about your online footprint. There are specific actions and sites you do not want to appear when your company is searched for on Google or another search engine. This is why you want to improve your digital reputation, to avoid these actions happening to you. The first cause for concern is excessive negative reviews. While you can try and address the criticism under the negative comment, this isn’t always enough to manage the damage once it’s done.
It’s also worth searching for your company on hate sites, which warn future customers away from potential scams. If these sites come up on the first page or two of your company’s search results, you are in big trouble and will need to figure out a plan to combat this and push these damaging sites further down your results. Finally, media coverage should also be considered. If you own a small business, your media coverage may not stretch to television shows; however, social media coverage can be just as damaging. It only takes a few online influencers to share your product and a poor review, and your company’s reputation can be shattered overnight.
How to Restore Your Digital Reputation
If your company has been the victim of any of these issues listed above, you’ll want to start by taking certain steps to restore your digital reputation. First, you’ll need to decide how severe the comments or online coverage is. In some cases, this content could even be illegal, especially if it uses false information or is purposely posted to damage your reputation by a competitor. In the case of serious incidents, you’ll want to find a good online company that can investigate any attacks on your brand. They can complete a full investigation, which will help you to get a clear confirmation of the purpose behind the damaging actions.
If your reputation has been damaged by online comments that are purely a customer expressing their upset and frustration, you’ll want to begin to adjust your company’s SEO tactics. Search engine optimization is integral for tackling search engine algorithms and will help to push negative coverage about your company further down Google’s rankings. You don’t want the first page or two of Google to show negative information or comments about your company. By increasing positive coverage and news around your company, you’ll be able to hide these comments even if they can’t be removed. When checking out negative online reviews, take the time to read each one and understand the motives behind it. If it contains poor language and makes false claims about your product or service, you can act to get these removed with the correct legal action.
If you’ve found your business is the victim of poor online press coverage, there are ways you can counteract this. If bloggers or YouTubers have previously offered scathing reviews of your products or services, you may want to consider reaching out to them and establishing a good relationship. Creating a relationship with the individuals who previously damaged your reputation may eventually lead them to remove or adjust their content about your company. While this won’t be an overnight process, it’s one way to help minimize your digital reputation’s impact on your company.
4 Top Tips for Managing your Digital Reputation
There are a few tactics that every business should use to manage its digital reputation. Whether you are currently in a good place with your online presence or looking to improve it, you’ll find all of these ideas will be integral to your business’s success online.
Respond Quickly
In our fast-paced world, consumers expect an almost instantaneous reply to messages. When customers reach out to your company on your Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram account, try to ensure they receive a response within a few hours if possible. Companies that quickly respond to customers and resolve their issues are far more likely to avoid any future action or anger. It doesn’t take much for one angry comment online to be reposted all over the internet. Try to effectively respond to every query, which will help to strengthen your customers’ trust and loyalty to your brand. This is especially true for businesses where timeliness is key, such as the travel, transportation, and healthcare industries.
Act Professionally Online
It can be tempting to reply to customers online in a manner that you would chat to your friends on social media, but you need to apply a professional tone online, especially in challenging situations. Sarcastic and short replies can be misinterpreted and will further anger your customers. Use sympathy and apologize to your customers for any issues they are experiencing without trying to retaliate straight away. If you have a customer service team who looks after your online social media presence, ensure they are united in the tone and manner in which they speak to customers. You want to put across a similar tone of voice in every online conversation, which will become synonymous with your brand. While some companies opt for a cheeky or funny style to match their brand, know that there are times where this isn’t appropriate to be used.
Monitor Your Online Presence
Regardless of the size of your business, monitoring the online activity and attention your company is receiving should be a daily part of your routine. This is especially true for large companies, who often employ teams explicitly tasked with this job. By having eyes and ears everywhere online, you can minimize any damaging content before it’s too late. When illegal or improper language and content are posted, you’ll have a better chance of getting it removed when you act immediately. Oftentimes, the company notices this once it’s spread around the internet, and by then, the damage to your digital reputation is done. If you don’t already have anyone monitoring your search engine results and social media accounts, consider who in your business could add this to their job role.
Encourage Reviews
One way to counteract any bad reviews you currently have is to encourage your customers to leave new reviews for your product. While you can’t write reviews yourself or beg people to give you five-star reviews, you can get into a feedback routine every time someone purchases your product or service. If you are reasonably confident about your product’s effectiveness, you can be sure this will help amass more positive reviews, which will increase your average ratings online. When you do receive reviews, including positive ones, be sure to interact and thank the customer for taking the time to review your product. You may find this helps encourage them to leave reviews elsewhere online or share the word about your fantastic service.
Final Thoughts
Digital reputation is integral for a company to succeed in this day and age, and it’s important that this is managed and taken seriously by every business owner. Regardless of your business’s size and how much work you do online, your digital reputation can quickly and easily destroy your reputation and customer base. If you don’t already have members of your team working on your search engine optimization and social media accounts, this is the first step to restoring your digital reputation. While it may take some time and effort to hide any previous negative reviews and coverage, know that your digital reputation will improve if you start to form a strong online presence and frequently engage with your customers.
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