reputation management Archives

How to Protect your Company’s  Online Reputation

Customers are talking about your brand. Through avenues such as social media, online review sites, blog comments, and community forums, your brand has made an impression…and it’s up to you whether that impression is a positive or negative one.

Because of the plethora of social media choices in play, it can be very difficult to monitor the conversations and truly know what’s being said about your brand every minute of the day. Because of this, more companies are investing in online reputation management (ORM).

ORM is the act of monitoring and engaging in activities to understand and improve the overall public impression a company has online. In other words, it’s public relations for the internet.

It’s best to stay abreast of what’s being said about your brand, otherwise you will be playing a game of clean up. When it comes to your business’s online reputation, the “fix it later” approach can result in disaster. Hersh Davis-Nitzberg, founder and CEO of crisis management firm Reputation Control Inc., says that entrepreneurs need to be proactive about managing their online reputation before irreversible damage is done. Here are four steps he recommends you take to protect and improve your business.

1) Be Present…Especially where your Customers are

The number one danger to ORM is when companies are not present where their customers are interacting. Social media is only one avenue where your customers are talking about you online. Your customers are not only tweeting or posting on Instagram about you, but they are also gaining support praising or pummeling you on community forums, or the comment section of review sites.

Unfortunately, on most of these forums, the customer inquiries, concerns, or complaints go unseen and unanswered by a representative of the business. Instead, the forums become support groups for customers as other users share similar questions or poor experiences that they have encountered with in your brand. You definitely do not want this to become a free-for-all bashing your brand.

2) Responding to Negative Content

In most cases, online forums, communities, or review sites allow companies to respond to feedback. When your company or brand receives negative feedback, ideally you should respond as an affirmation. Try not to become defensive or downplay the customer’s experience. The first step is to apologize for the experience and take the conversation offline.

Many review sites and service communities rank high on search engine optimization (SEO). If a company is mentioned negatively on these sites, the best plan of action is to give a short response recognizing the issue, apologizing, then taking the conversation offline. Invite the user to send a direct message or an email. If a company chooses to go back and forth with a consumer, each time the page re-publishes with additional content about the company, search engines will push the content. In turn, the ranking of this negative review can improve.

3) Pushing Positive Content

A key aspect of managing a brand’s online reputation is to create positive content that will rank well in search engine result pages. By constantly pushing out new, credible content you can increase awareness online and build up your brand’s reputation. Quality content could include customer testimonials, related articles, product reviews, press releases, or banner ads on relevant pages that link to your company website.

4) It’s Easier to Build a Good Reputation than Fix a Bad One

Hersh Davis-Nitzberg explains, “It’s easy to ignore your online reputation when everything is going well. But when a crisis strikes, suddenly the information about you on the internet can determine how the media, clients, and even your personal relationships will react. Be on top of your digital footprint before a crisis happens. If you lack an online presence or have a negative reputation, a crisis situation can become a top story. But, if you have established an authentic, positive, and robust reputation, the same event can be a blip on the radar. If something happens, take a step back and look at the big picture. There may not necessarily be a quick fix, but with a solid strategy, you can repair your brand. The biggest mistake you can make in a crisis is to respond without thinking. Quick reactions can turn a minor crisis into a disaster.”

The Importance of Media Monitoring for Businesses

As more individuals use social media and post online reviews, online reputation management
is necessary to the success of a business.

Corporate America has embraced media monitoring. With the growing popularity of social media, third-party reviews websites, blogs, and other digital platforms, maintaining a solid online reputation is necessary for businesses. Media monitoring provides public feedback on the company, its brand, products, and customers and can help head off any public relations crisis. This could potentially save a company’s reputation online and in the public eye.

Clutch, a third-party reviews website for B2B agencies, surveyed 224 digital marketers above the age of 18 and located in the United States. Survey respondents must be employed by a company of more than 100 employees, responsible for day-to-day digital marketing activities, and allocate time and financial resources to online reputation management.

So what can we learn from this survey?

1. Digital Marketers Recognize Online Reputation Management as Necessary to Their Business

54% of digital marketers consider ORM “very necessary” to their company’s success. But according to Ryan Goff, chief marketing officer and social media marketing director at MGH, Inc., an integrated marketing communications agency in Maryland, 100% of companies should dedicate their attention to ORM,. “I was shocked to see that only 54% of executives thought that online reputation management was a necessary function of their business,” said Goff. “As someone who’s played in this space for 11 years, I see it as beyond very necessary. I see it as absolutely critical.”

Online reputation management is critical for businesses to maintain a positive brand identity in the eyes of consumers. As more digital marketers understand the value of ORM in growing their business, they choose to devote more time and energy toward monitoring their brand online.

2. Businesses Monitor Their Online Reputation Frequently

More than 40% of digital marketers monitor their companies’ brand daily, while 21% monitor their online reputation every hour. Because online content circulates rapidly, how people perceive brands can change within seconds. For this reason, businesses always should track what’s being said about them online.

A single negative media mention can damage how people perceive their company. Simon Wadsworth, managing partner at Igniyte, an online reputation management agency in the UK, points to negative media content as a reason why brands lose potential customers. “When people search for brands online, they tend to search for stamps of credibility,” said Wadsworth. “If they find anything negative, that could end up being a significant amount of leads that the business won’t get from people who are put off from using the service.”

By frequently monitoring media mentions, companies can avoid the potential loss of a significant amount of new business leads.

3. Businesses Consider Social Media Most Important Platform for Online Reputation Management

Although there is a plethora of outlets that businesses must be aware of when monitoring their brand online, 46% view social media as the most important platform for monitoring online reputation. Social media gives individuals free-reign to post about their experiences and opinions and this freedom limits the control companies have over their brand reputation.

“You can do everything in your power to boost your reputation on standard search engines like Google or Yahoo by building domain names and creating content. Social media, however, is uncontrollable,” said Juda Engelmayer, president and partner of HeraldPR, a full-service public relations and communications agency in New York. “People can tweet whatever they want, or they can go to Yelp or Facebook to post about a bad experience. This can have a huge effect on search engines.”

However, the rise of social media also presents some benefits for businesses. Social media gives companies the opportunity to converse firsthand with customers, according to Shannon Wilkinson, CEO at Reputation Communications, a reputation management agency in New York. “Social media enables companies to participate in conversations about their products, services, and industries. It also enables them to monitor those conversations to ensure they can be a part of them,” Wilkinson said.

With social media, businesses are able to react and respond quickly to consumers’ inquiries or comments, enabling them to take part in a conversation that might not be available on a blog or reviews website.

Businesses Must Devote Resources to Online Reputation Management

To mitigate the threat of damaging their brand reputation, businesses must devote resources to ORM as a part of their digital marketing strategy.

In-house resources are a preferred option for monitoring online reputation because employees are familiar with their company and can devote time to spreading a positive online brand image at a lower cost to the business.
Online reviews sites also are an important resource to collect positive feedback from users who have experienced their product or services. Half of the businesses surveyed (50%) rely on third-party, online reviews sites to monitor their brand reputation.
Social listening tools, many of which are free, are another way for businesses to monitor their online brand reputation. Tools such as Google Alerts, Reputology, and Yextcan be set up easily and at no cost to businesses that simply are looking for a tool that will notify them when their brand is featured negatively online.
Businesses derive the most value from allocating resources to ORM when they work with a professional agency, according to Andy Beal, the “Original Online Reputation Expert” at Reputation Refinery, a boutique online reputation management firm in North Carolina. “It comes down to expertise. External agencies are experts in knowing where to look, helping you understand who your influencers are, which channels to focus on, what keywords to monitor, and what types of sentiment to look for,” Beal said.

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Corporate Use of Open Source Intelligence

Corporate responsibility and risk management for any corporation goes well beyond what happens within the walls of everyday business. A very overlooked practice for companies of all sizes is digital research on their unique business and industry. With the rise of user generated content and social media, reputation management takes on an entirely new level in 2018. In comes OSINT, or, Open Source Intelligence (the collection and analysis of publicly available data in an intelligence context).

Frank Figliuzzi, Chief Operating Officer of ETS Risk Management, Inc., which consults with global clients on intelligence analysis, insider threat, and investigations puts it this way:

“Increasingly, security leaders systematically incorporate OSINT analysis from proven experts not only to get results, but because it is has become the new professional standard in the industry.”

Of course with the EU Privacy law in effect, hiring an expert in this area is key to be sure your firm is in compliance. With the digital universe doubling in size every two years, the time is now to be sure your business has a plan in place. Archiving and preserving your own online data may be beneficial down the road as well. Lawsuits pop up all the time, and having this data collection secured may help your case. In fact, many corporate attorneys are now insisting on this type of data capture for their clients.

Pew Research updated the stats on the U.S. consumption of social media sites online or on their cellphone.