Online Reputation Management for Small business
Brand reputation is one of the key battles that small businesses need to fight in order to gain new customers and increase your profits. For a small business, the reputation of the company and the brand could make or break the business, and so it is vital to protect that reputation, and manage it to the best of your ability. Reputation management is something that no small business can afford to ignore, and dealing with your reputation from the beginning can mean that you get the best start to influencing your customers with positive content.
Set out your social media territory
As small business, you have to be available on social media. Taking control of this field means signing up to every major social network, including:
- YouTube
Make sure you research social networks with strong links to your industry or the sites where most of your competitors can be found. The account name should be the same in each one, so that customers can find you easily. Once you have started all of these social network accounts, keep them up to date. Posting regular content on these sites is one way to stay in contact with past customers while at the same time reaching out to new customers. Social media sites are also one of the best ways to combat negative content, comments or feedback which would otherwise damage your reputation
Use reputation management alerts
One of the most important steps that you can take is to ensure that you set up reputation alerts for the major search engines, including Google, Bing and Yahoo. These will alert you when new posts about your company or you personally are posted online. You can then use it to monitor your brand reputation, and to ensure that you are not affected by negative comments. You can read articles, posts and news bulletins immediately in order to find out information, and to gain more insight into other’s opinions of your brand or business. It can also allow you to read and mitigate any negative information, combat malicious posts, and deal with anything else which might damage your reputation with customers. Staying alert to online remarks about your business can ensure that you keep firm control over your brand name, and will prevent negative content from becoming well-known and part of the general public’s opinion of your brand.