Branding and Online Reputation Management
What does online reputation management mean? It is really divided into two different aspects: positive content and fire-fighting. Most businesses make the mistake of concentrating upon one or other of these aspects, with the result that they are not able to take complete control of their reputations. They constantly have to either generate positive content in order to outrank negative remarks, or they have to fight fires by managing the online bad press. In order to fully manage the reputation of your business, you have to combine managing your positive content with reducing the impact of negative comments.
Positive content for better branding
All businesses working in the current age need to be able to present their brand to online viewers in a positive and constructive manner. This means that you have to be able to generate content across a variety of platforms, from social media to websites to blogs to article posting sites. The key point to all of this positive content is that it has to be relevant to your company ethos, and it has to benefit your brand image in some way. Your content should always enhance your company’s reputation and should be well-written, correctly spelled, and provide relevant or important information to your customers. The way that you handle your posting will also affect your reputation and can influence how viewers see your brand. For example, constantly posting the same Tweet on social media, effectively spamming your followers, will quickly reduce the number of followers, and cast a shadow over your brand reputation. Creative content should be new, original, and have something fresh and interesting to say.
Fighting fires: handling negative comments
Reputation management can involve a lot of fire-fighting, or reducing the impact of negative comments. Fire-fighting starts with regularly monitoring search engines to check for online reviews, social media posts or other network’s comments about your business. You can do this manually, which is a time-consuming task or you can use software tools that alert you when new content is posted about you or your business. Being able to keep an eye on negative content is essential. Another important element is being able to deal with negative comments, either by addressing them directly (but not linking to the comment), or by asking for the comment to be removed. You have to manage negative comments as you would any other form of negative or unfortunate incidents in your business environment.