7 Proactive Steps To Protect The Online Reputation Of Your Business
Thursday, January 23, 2020, 6:00 AM | Leave Comment
Sensible marketing was always one of the main prerequisites for a successful business.
These days, when the majority of the social conversation has moved into the virtual environment, it is only expected for businesses to move the bulk of their branding efforts online as well.
However, there is a catch in this whole story.
Unlike any other media outlets, online conversations envelop both ways. The unique situation forces businesses to invest extra effort and take proactive steps to keep their reputation intact.
Let us take a look at a few ways you can tackle this admittedly demanding task.
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Encourage online chatter
Two-way conversation is a double-edged sword. As troublesome as this idea may look at the first glance, if handled properly, it can be transformed into a powerful branding asset. So, instead of blocking negative comments and reviews, you should use them to showcase that you are a reliable and transparent service provider that takes care of its customers. Do your best to promptly respond to such comments, and go out of your way to solve the problems of unsatisfied clients – all in the public eye.
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Engage your customers with blogging
Blogging is an incredibly powerful marketing asset. But, even if we put all these benefits aside, the fact remains that offering free, valuable content does portray you as someone who isn’t necessarily preoccupied with profit, but rather solving the customers’ issues. And this transition from service-provider to problem-solver can only improve your public image and outreach. Therefore, study the basics of efficient blogging and start putting out the written content.
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Work on social skills
Doing any kind of online marketing without establishing a strong social media presence will provide only limited results. So, it’s obvious that your goal should be to gather as many loyal followers that will spread out your content as possible. However, you should be very careful about how you are going to build this following. Overly aggressive and click-bait-y campaigns will work instantly, but expose you as a fraud in the long-term. Instead, be strategic, focus on your target audience and build the content strategy around the audience’s particular needs. The results will appear in time.
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Start doing SEO
We are all aware of just how efficient of a marketing approach SEO can prove to be, if performed properly. However, a lot of people still fail to realize SEO can be equally as successfully used in online reputation management. For instance, if you hire the services of an experienced white label SEO company you will make sure not only that all the optimization tasks are performed efficiently but more importantly under your brand banner. This will position your company as an expert in its field, and greatly improve the public perception of your brand.
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Develop a unique brand voice
Developing a strong, recognizable, and distinct brand voice can only imbue your brand with personality, help you to interact with your audience on a more personal level and encourage two-way dialogue. In recent research, as much as 67% of customers cited shared values as the primary reasons for trusting a company. Don’t miss the opportunity to use these circumstances to your advantage. Also, do your best to keep your approach unified across all marketing channels. Trying to heavily to “tune-in” with different audiences can dilute your brand.
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Keep a good company
Partnerships are beneficial for multiple reasons. Speaking purely from the purely practical perspective – joining resources with another party does make demanding business ventures considerably easier. However, keeping up a good company also raises the profile of your own brand. Even if we talk about something as menial as guest blogging, it is hard to escape the fact that being endorsed by someone that has by now demonstrated a strong staying power gives your company a certain level of credibility that can’t be artificially produced.
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Keep the tracks of important metrics
Finally, all of the things we covered above will be nothing more than empty chatter if you are not able to keep track of the results of your online efforts. Fortunately, the current offer of tools that can help you to gather this valuable feedback is more than extensive.
Here are some of the most notable mentions:
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Google Analytics – A powerful toolkit that generates comprehensive stats and reports about visitors to your website
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Crazy Egg – Probably the easiest ways to build click heat maps
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Compete – Probably not the best standalone package, but does a great job when it comes to clickstream analytics
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Kissinsights from Kiss Metrics – An easy way to gather feedback from website visitors
We hope these few tips gave you some general idea of the steps you can take to protect your company’s reputation even before the damage has been done. The online environment is a pretty egalitarian playing field where everyone has the opportunity to voice their opinion which, admittedly, makes reputation management considerably harder. But, as long as you stay proactive and work with your audience and not against it, you should face no major obstacles.
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Throw us a like at Facebook.com/doable.financeThis article was written By Mike Johnston.
