When it comes to your brand’s online reputation, you need to invest in it. Building, repairing, and managing that reputation takes constant work, but your ROI will pay out leaps and bounds.

Your brand’s online reputation should be built by performing proactive steps rather than reacting to an online reputation crisis only when it happens—which is often too late or too difficult to deal with if you didn’t have a strong foundation to building your positive online reputation.

Below are some proactive steps to undertake.

Assess your Company Values

What is your value proposition? What makes your brand, products, and services better than the competition? What qualities does your brand possess that will make your target customers gravitate toward you? These values must be communicated and should resonate well with your target customers. Businesses screw up sometimes, they all do. But if your target customers believe in your values, they will stick with you and look forward to you fixing and overcoming online reputation nightmares.

Executive Branding

Let’s look at something many businesses don’t capitalize on: your executives’ personal brands. It’s estimated by global executives that almost 45% of a company’s market value can be attributed to the CEO’s personal brand.

Employees as Advocates

Businesses spend copious amounts of money on marketing and advertising but often fail to utilize a powerful resource they already have: employees.  Each employee undoubtedly has a personal network of people who value and trust the employee’s opinion.  As a direct result of that trust, any brand message the employee shares through social media has over 550% further reach than the same message brand message being shared by the business, translating to more lead generation.  When it comes to conversion, research data suggests that leads generated by an employee’s social media use are 7 times more likely to convert than a lead generated by other sources.

An Opportunity for Customer Engagement

When a client or customer goes online to voice their opinion, it is an opportunity for the business to engage the commenter and show prospective clients or customers that the business values its relationships.  You should routinely examine as many feedback channels as you can; responding quickly and appropriately can have a lasting impact.

Diligent Monitoring is Necessary

There are too many feedback channels to manage effectively, but monitoring the popular ones is the best place to start. Most of these websites have notification settings and will send you an email when any feedback is submitted.  If you have enough feedback being posted, and you have the resources, it may be beneficial to dedicate someone just to responding to your brand’s feedback, both the good and the bad.

Eliciting Testimonials and Reviews

Some businesses, especially (but not limited to) professional services, often don’t get the reviews that other companies get. In this circumstance, it may be best to employ the services of a business that helps other businesses garner positive reviews.  In some instances, these companies can even intercept negative reviews.

Responding to the negative reviews isn’t the only way to boost brand image from reviews, leveraging customer or client testimonials can help maintain a positive brand image. Whether it’s a positive review on a feedback channel or an independent solicitation, a testimonial can be the difference-maker in a client’s or customer’s decision to buy.

Leveraging Digital Content

The power of digital content is undeniable. Whether it’s through the use of press releases, whitepapers or case studies, blog posts (on your website as well as other websites), videos, or media coverage, the fact remains that buyers are investigating your business and your brand more so than ever before.

This is where your company values must be communicated to build your name as well as your chief executives’ brands that tie into the company’s overall brand messaging. This is also where testimonials, reviews and star ratings come into play—that is when you use them as part of the mix in your digital content.

In the last year, more than 50% of all B2B buyers rely on content more than they did a just a year ago.  Digital content can inform or educate buyers, conveying a sense of trust and reliability for your brand.

Mitigation and Repair

Businesses face threats to their positive reputation that come in 3 categories: 1) Defamation, or falsely speaking negatively of your brand with malicious intent, 2) negative facts about your business that come into light, 3) negative opinion that people form and speak of about your business when they experience an unpleasant encounter.

For #1, taking legal action is often the last and hardest course of action, but sometimes it’s all you can do when defamation strikes. Suing the defaming party often coerces them to stop and even remove the malevolent comments.  With a court order, some feedback channels will remove the damaging material, and a few others won’t get involved, suggesting you take it up with the defamer. In most cases, it’s always a good idea to hire an online reputation service to help you clean up the mess.

Sometimes businesses make mistakes; they’re run by humans. So for #2 and #3, when you encounter a situation where negative press adversely affects your reputation. Your best option for combatting this problem is to overwhelm your audience with your personalized digital content (as we discussed earlier), far offsetting the press coverage. When a client or customer posts a negative review that is truthful or has merit, react quickly. If you’ve made a mistake, admit it!  Offer something in return or try asking the customer or client how you can make things right. More often than not, addressing someone’s complaint and offering to right the wrong will persuade the poster to modify the original post and turn that negative comment into something positive.

This is where the proactive steps you took could dampen the impact of any negative publicity.

Build and Manage (and Repair when Necessary)

With diligent, expeditious, and proactive actions to building your positive reputation and responding wisely to negative information, anyone can successfully maintain a positive online reputation.

The post Invest in Your Brand’s Online Reputation appeared first on Marketing Digest.

An interesting article I read on Marketing Sherpa involved a Northwest University study that showed how customer online reviews affect sales.

Although the article actually put a stamp on most everything I’ve already learned about consumer behavior when it comes to reviews, I still found the article particularly interesting.

Let me share some of the information with you.

Would You Trust a Business with All 5-Star Ratings?

This was one of the questions asked of the study participants.  The result indicated that most consumers felt that if a business had only 5-star ratings, it may seem too good to be true.

In my opinion, having all 5-star reviews does not necessarily mean that the owner is somehow suppressing bad reviews.  If the only customers that habitually leave reviews always leave 5 stars, that is not really under the business owner’s control (besides, what business owner would ask their customers to leave a less than a 5-star review so it looks believable?).  But some people still find it hard to believe.

How about you?  As a consumer, would you rate a business 5 stars for great service?  Well, in my experience, it depends on who you ask.  Some people I know absolutely refuse to leave a 5-star review no matter their customer experience because they feel no business ever does 100% great service.

On the other hand,  some people like to show that they are completely satisfied because some business owner knocked their socks off with superb service, so they choose to leave that 5-star review.

Do the Stars Really Matter?

According to this study, the stars don’t really matter to a lot of consumers.

Why?  Because though they do read other customer online reviews, in many cases, it’s what is written in the review that counts.  In the article, Tom Collinger, the Executive Director of the Spiegel Research Center at Northwestern University, gave this example:  If the person who leaves a two-star review wrote “the food was too spicy” as their reason for the low review, this is not really considered a bad review to someone who loves spicy food. As opposed to the reviewer who wrote that the service was terrible, in which case it would definitely be a reason not to visit that restaurant.

What About The Review Origin?  Does It Count? 

Where the review is coming from is important as well.  Getting an email review is better than someone hopping onto a website and leaving a review.  This is because in most cases,  the email review was written by an actual buyer who received a “thank you” email and somewhere along the line was asked in the email to leave a review of their experience or satisfaction with the product they purchased.  The website review could have been from a non-buyer or anyone, which gives it less credibility.

I once had a complete stranger leave me a two-star review.  He did not write anything or any reason, he just clicked two stars and submit. I guess he just decided to give me a two-star review.

When Consumers Don’t Bother Reading Reviews

One other thought that I believe to be valuable.  Their research showed that there are some cases where other customer online reviews will not influence a buyer.  This scenario is something I had not thought of but makes total sense.

Reviews won’t influence a habitual user of the product. Toothpaste, as in their example, is a product where some people choose to use one and only one brand.  They need no further influence because they have made their choice and will continue to get the same brand of toothpaste no matter what.

Of course, that is also what makes it hard for competitors to edge in and change that habit to make the consumer switch brands, and this would take more than customer online reviews to accomplish.

It’s not until there is a certain amount of risk involved, that a consumer really starts to read reviews.  Products like automobile purchases, athletic shoes, clothing, and electronics, for instance. Especially when purchasing online involves more risk to the consumer so they do a lot more research which involves reading reviews from past users.

What was not surprising to me was the number of reviews they determined that a business would need before a consumer would trust them.  10 is what we’ve always determined to be the average and that seems to still be the case.

Get Control of Your Social Assets

Many business owners would rather avoid dealing with reviews altogether thinking that if they don’t put their business out there for people to review, no one will review them, thereby avoiding getting bad reviews.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.  Consumers can post a review anywhere and if you do not have an existing account, the social platform they use simply creates one for the business owner.

The bad part is, you have no control and cannot even post a reply to negative or positive customer online reviews because you have no account setup with that review platform or directory.  The better way is to create local citations on local review sites and directories and invite your customers to share their experience.  You just need to make sure their experience is a positive one.

If you are worried that you will get many bad customer online reviews, it’s time to take a look at your processes, your policies, and your company practices as a whole because there is obviously an issue that you are ignoring.

My Tips and Suggestions

All in all, there is no real mystery surrounding getting customer reviews.   Remember these few tips.

Ask your previous customers for a review.  Craft a “Thank You” email that you can use to automatically send to all of your customers upon purchase.  If you are using an e-commerce system such as Amazon, alter that email if you are allowed, or better yet, set up your own branded email with a more meaningful message of your appreciation along with a request to review their experience.

Your request for review should be sent depending on when the customer will most likely use it.

For instance, if it was a meal at a restaurant, you can be safe adding the review to the first “Thank you” email.   If the purchase involved something like an electronic device, power tools, or something similar, you might want to follow up a few days later with a request for customer online review.  Just ask the customer about their experience with their purchase and if they have any questions about the product or setup or you can even send best practice tips.  Then simply add the last line asking for a review.

In your review request, set up 3 social platforms for your customers to leave a review.  Why?  Everyone does not have a Google account, or a Facebook or Yelp account.  But there is a good chance that they have at least one of those.  You can substitute any customer online review site or directory where you think you need more reviews.

Well, that’s my thoughts and suggestions about making the best of customer reviews. Just remember, don’t take customer online reviews too lightly, but don’t stress yourself over them either.  Just make it a practice for you and your team to give the best service you can provide to your customers and your business will do well.

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In this digital age when consumers have unlimited information quite literally at their fingertips, online reputation can make or break a business. Having reviews available for potential customers to read is essential for success and has unique advantages. The numbers are clear:

• 90% of customers are influenced by online reviews
• 84% people say they trust online reviews just as much as a personal recommendation

What do you see when you ‘google’ your business? What about when you search for your business on Facebook?

Odds are, this is where your customers are looking, and what you see is what they’ll see when they do. So why not make them see 5-star ratings and glowing reviews that will show them that you are the obvious choice to meet their needs?

After all, when you’re in need of coffee or fresh flowers, a locksmith or plumber, a lawyer or a dentist, don’t you scope out your options first by seeing what others have to say about them? Wouldn’t a business’s high-star ratings or shining reviews make your decision an easy one?

Let positive reviews and 5-star ratings seal the deal for your business, too!

Ramp up Your Business with Google Reviews

Let’s start with Google, the most widely used search engine on the planet that has changed the way we think, search for information, and connect with the world.

Imagine this scenario: You’re on holiday in Felixstowe in Suffolk, in need of coffee. Although you’re in an unfamiliar city without a local guide to point you in the right direction, it’s no matter—Google is all you need to find a cosy local cafe. You pull out your phone and search for coffee shops, and Google instantly provides you with a few options that are close to your location.

From the three cafe listings displayed above, which one would you choose? If you’re like most people, your first choice would be Caffé Nero. With over 30 reviews and an average rating of 4.4 stars, it would be safe to say that customers find just what they’re looking for at Caffé Nero. Costa Coffee Felixstowe might make a delicious coffee as well, but its ratings fall short of Caffé Nero.

And beyond this practical application, Google reviews have even more benefits. Google reviews can also:

• Boost your business’s ranking in Google’s local search results, putting you front and center when consumers search.
• Increase your business’s reputation, credibility, and social proof. Consumers around the world trust Google as an unbiased source of the information they seek.

More clicks and more visitors to your website and shop. Increased visibility + credibility = more business for you.

Let Friends Flock to Your Business through Facebook Reviews

With over 2 billion active users, Facebook is social by design, and that format can be a boon for your business if you capitalise on Facebook reviews. When you make a similar search for coffee shops on Facebook, it not only shows your reviews and total likes, but can also show you what coffee shops your Facebook friends like.

Think about how powerful this could be. Each Facebook user has an average of 338 Facebook friends. And recall that 90% of consumers are influenced by online reviews, and that 84% people trust online reviews just as much as a personal recommendation. That means that for each like, review, or rating your business gets, you will reap a variety of benefits:

• Your business will be visible in newsfeeds of the friends of the person who clicked ‘like’ or left a review—that’s free promotion!
• People are inclined to like what their friends like. So for every like and review your business earns, you gain a greater range of influence.
• The increased exposure that comes with people talking about your business.
• More clicks and more visits to your Facebook page, website, and shop as a result of this increase in exposure, influence, and credibility.

Every Review Matters

Online reviews of any kind are crucial for any business to succeed in this digital age. More consumers than ever before are using search engines and social media sites to help them find what they’re looking for, and the vast majority of us are significantly influenced by a business’s online reputation. That means that every review your business gets is important. Online reviews on any site or platform can be a benefit:

• Reviews build your reputation. Customer reviews build both your visibility and your credibility. They tell your potential customers that your business not only exists, but that it’s just what they’re looking for.
• Reviews allow your satisfied customers to promote your business for you. There’s a reason they call it reputation marketing. When your customers promote your business, you don’t have to spend much on advertising.
• Reviews are user-generated content you can use as material for your content marketing. Reviews can be quoted or referenced in social media posts, paid advertisements, and other promotional materials, further solidifying your reputation and credibility.

So what your potential customers find when they look up your business?

By prioritising online reviews, especially reviews on Google and Facebook, you can ensure that your potential customers see evidence that your business is the right choice to meet their needs.

High-star ratings and positive reviews are the digital social proof that you are a business worthy of trust. Encourage your customers to leave you feedback, and start earning those stars and raving reviews. Collect them, ensure they’re published, and you’ll soon be reaping the rewards!

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Your online reputation will play a crucial role in your online success, and it’s more important than ever to give value to the opinions posted by your customers. According to research carried out by Marketing Land, 90% of consumers have said that online reviews play a significant role in their buying decisions. 88% of today’s consumers trust online reviews just as much as a personal recommendation. What you may not realize is that reviews are also one of the most important factors when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO). Read on to find out more about the impact reviews have on click through in PPC (Pay Per Click) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing).

Receive Noticeable Star Ratings

When star review ratings appear in Google search results, potential customers can quickly decide whether they feel they can trust what you have to offer enough to click through to your website/landing page. This increases traffic, and potentially sales, however, it’s not necessarily an easy task to achieve. Google uses third party review sites to help establish your star rating. You need to have received at least 30 unique reviews over the past year, with the rating averaging 3.5 stars or higher. Since star ratings can result in increased conversion rates, it’s worth your while to find out more about how to take advantage of them, as well as Google’s guidelines regarding how to be eligible.

Reviews Generate Fresh, User Generated Content

Unique content is king when it comes to search engine ranking and reviews are the perfect form of user generated content (UGC). User generated content is one of the easiest and most effective ways to drive unique, original content for your website, and you can bet that your target audience will want to read honest reviews from your previous customers.

Increase Long Tail Keyword Traffic

Because consumers that leave reviews are buyers of your products/services, the language they use is comparable to your target audiences. As a result, a steady flow of reviews will make it possible for you to target more traffic via relevant keywords right from your own customers.

Encourage Social Interaction

Incorporating reviews into your social media strategy as a way to prove the quality of our products or services. Showcasing a collection of impressive reviews on your Facebook business page will help your product or service gain in popularity, increasing the all-important social reach, ultimately generating more sales.

Google Favors Highly Rated Websites

Google takes a website’s ratings into consideration, favoring the ones with the highest ratings. Reviews enhance authority and social proof, meaning that it’s not just about including reviews on your website, you also need to concentrate on finding ways to improve them.

Online Reviews and Local SEO

Local search engines are all about online reviews and for one primary reason – consumers appreciate and rely on online reviews to make their buying decisions. Local SEO is focused on providing consumers with fast, accurate information that they can use immediately or in the future.

If you’re not doing this yet, it’s time to make reviews a part of your online marketing and SEO efforts, improving click throughs in PPC and SEM, ultimately increasing revenue.

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Create a Positive Online Presence with these Reputation Marketing Tips

Some entrepreneurs mistakenly regard a lack of online reputation as a good thing, and a number of entrepreneurs who do monitor their reputations online fail to do so on a personal level. Marketers will need to step up their game and start taking action on protecting their brands’ online reputation with the following steps.

Vital Elements of a Reputation Marketing Strategy

To prevent negative reviews or mentions from destroying a brand’s reputation, marketers will need to help the company or business define an online identity early on, according to Martin Zwilling. In his article for Entrepreneur (@Entrepreneur) titled “6 Keys to a Positive Online Presence and Reputation“, Zwilling listed down the keys in creating a positive online presence and reputation for brands. For one, marketers will have to help brands claim their identity on social media before someone else does and use it against them, since identity theft is as devastating to a business as it is for an individual.

Fresh and relevant blog posts should always be added on their websites on a regular basis. As Zwilling explains, blogging is the best way of helping brands establish themselves as an influencer. Marketers will also need to constantly monitor the web for any negative comments directed to a brand, and do what’s best to address them proactively and directly.

Ways on Building a Positive Reputation

Now that the vital elements have been introduced, what marketers need to do next is to follow these actionable reputation marketing tips from Peter Gasca. In his article for Entrepreneur titled “Take Control of Your Personal Reputation Online With These 6 Tips“, getting control of a brand’s reputation has now become a necessity, and is something that can be done with a few simple steps.

First, marketers will need to ensure that brands have a unique yet consistent username and a personal URL across the web. This username should be secured on as many platforms as possible, be it on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, to ensure better SEO. Once the basics have been covered, marketers will then need to help brands set up a basic profile on each of their sites, including their name, location, and a consistent description of their business.

Gasca explains that, after all these have been accomplished, the next thing marketers will need to do is to create new profiles as new services and platforms come up, along with monitoring the brand’s name and reputation online. More importantly, marketers will need to keep up with the latest reputation marketing news from sources like Marketing Digest.

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Reputation Marketing Insights: The Growing Value of Online Reputation

Most entrepreneurs might wonder how bigger companies were able to establish their brands, and might glean inspiration from these giants. Marketers, however, are able to suggest that branding small businesses simply means managing their own online reputation. In today’s competitive business market, online reputation is something that can make or break a brand.

People Buy from People

In an article in the Guardian titled Why your reputation is key to your brand, building an online reputation is all about creating a human presence for a business. Quoting personal branding expert Jennifer Holloway, the article suggests that small businesses can take advantage of presenting a human side for a business when it comes to branding, which can also build trust among their target audience.

Fortunately for marketers, focusing on personal branding and building a positive online reputation doesn’t call for a vast budget nor difficult and technical strategies. According to Holloway, businesses simply have to present the best versions of themselves to both loyal and potential customers alike.

A Brand’s Reflection

Hannah Martin, co-founder and editorial director of Talented Ladies Club, also shared her own reputation marketing insights in the Guardian article. She suggests that marketers should help businesses find three words that best describe themselves. These words can be used as a starting point in any strategy marketers may have in mind. Martin explained that what businesses do, say, write, or produce reflects a business’ personal brand, thus marketers must guide them on making decisions about what their brand is and what they want to be known for.

Managing Reputation on Social Media

Another article on Memeburn, titled Personal branding and reputation management: what you need to know, presents social media as an effective vehicle in driving communication online. Using top social media channels are also effective methods for personal branding, something that marketers can take advantage of.

Creating Facebook and Twitter profiles for businesses should be at the top of any marketer’s must-do list. Updated Facebook profiles tend to rank well on search engines, thus marketers should add as many fields as possible to make it clear on what type of business the brand has. Aside from these two platforms, LinkedIn is also an indispensable part of any reputation marketing strategy and a great way of gaining personal rankings on search engines. Marketers should also create and upload the profile image for all the brand’s social media channels.

With the growing importance of online reputation among businesses big and small, marketers should do their best to create a positive presence for their brands by following these tips and keeping up-to-date with the latest reputation marketing news from sources like Marketing Digest.

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Reputation Marketing News: Reputation Affects Businesses & Employers

Experts who offer reputation marketing insights state that a great online and offline reputation is vital for business success. According to an article posted at Expertise.com, (@ExpertiseLocal) simply put, a bad reputation translates to poor sales and low profits, while a good reputation can help ensure a thriving business.

Listed below are some of the ways existing reputations can affect the continued viability of businesses, as well as the prospects of employers and their applicants.

How Reputation Affects Businesses

Business owners should heed the following statistics: around 88% of consumers read reviews about products or services before making purchases, and around 79% of consumers consider online and personal recommendations before finalizing their purchases. In other words, a single negative review can impact your business by more than 80%.

If you were a small business owner who largely depended on new customers rather than repeat buyers, your business’s continued viability will literally depend on every good review that you get. Unfortunately, small businesses can lose a large percentage of their customers with just one bad review.

How Reputation Affects Employers’ and Applicants’ Prospects

It is important to remember that it is almost impossible to erase content that has been posted online. It doesn’t matter if the content is true or false; once uploaded it is there for everyone to see. According to Bigmouthmarketing.co, a good reputation will also attract more talented applicants to a company that is looking to hire (which means the company will be getting skilled staff that can provide quality services to customers).

Employers can also assess applicants by examining their online reputations. Around 70% of employers said that they refuse applicants if they find any negative content about them online. Besides it really wouldn’t look too well for your business if you accept an applicant with a questionable reputation, and some of your clients or investors might become wary of doing business with you.

Employers may get an idea of the applicants’ character by examining their social media accounts. Such online information will allow them to determine if the applicants will be a good match for their company or not.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Subscribe to reputation marketing news sites, like Marketing Digest, and get more vital information.

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Reputation Marketing Tips: Monitoring & Addressing Customer Sentiment

For any business, the Internet can either be a helpful ally or a tremendous foe, depending on how their customers perceive them. A good review can convince a lot of people to do business with you, while a single negative review can turn away potential customers.

Before the Internet and Internet-connected devices became the norm, news about customers’ experiences with businesses traveled much slower. If customers didn’t feel satisfied with a product or service, they would raise their concerns to the staff within the business establishment. The staff would then try to address their concerns.

In today’s connected world, however, customers have gained the upper hand. A customer can leave the premises and share their experiences on social media or review sites, making complaints or commendations in the comfort of their own homes.

Many sites that offer reputation marketing tips, like The Huffington Post (@HuffingtonPost), stress the importance of incorporating social media into reputation strategy planning. Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and LinkedIn have become the preferred platforms of many consumers who wish to share their opinions and experiences. It’s no longer uncommon to read about the average Joe’s recent dining experience in a certain restaurant, or his thoughts about a specific event. Instead of trying to censor it, companies should harness this growing openness among consumers.

You can use reputation management tools to monitor customer sentiment online. Such tools can also help you communicate more effectively with your leads and customers, and build a stronger relationship with them. For example, if customers tweet about a great experience, thank them for choosing your business and invite them back. If it was a negative post, converse with them and ask them to return with a promise of better services or a refund, if necessary.

Creating an in-house department or team that focuses on particular tasks—like social media management and public relations campaigns—can greatly improve your reputation management, states an article published in Forbes (@Forbes). Being able to address the concerns of your customers can help you build a great reputation.

It is important that negative reviews are dealt with as quickly as possible, and in a manner that is friendly and professional. Responding to these negative reviews in a defensive manner is even worse than just ignoring the comment altogether. Being able to professionally handle these complaints shows that you are taking their feedback into consideration, and that you intend to do something to fix the problem and provide better services in the future.

Reading up on the latest reputation marketing news from trusted sites like Marketing Digest will give you all the necessary information to strengthen your business and keep your customers happy through your online efforts.

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Manage Your Online Reputation with These Reputation Marketing Insights

In today’s wired world, it’s vital for businesses and business owners to maintain a clean online reputation. In the past, most business owners could count on news traveling slowly, which gave them ample time to formulate a plan to counteract negative publicity.

These days, however, anyone can post negative reviews, comments, and other unsavory content about you and your business, which could negatively impact your reputation and bottom line. Fortunately, reputation marketing news sites like Marketing Digest can arm you with the insights and tactics you’ll need to counteract negative publicity.

Amanda Clark, writing for Business 2 Community (@B2Community), notes that in a world dominated by the Internet, computers, and smartphones, you can pretty much guarantee that the vast majority of your leads and prospects are going to Google you. “People want to know that they’re spending their hard-earned money on something reliable. And for better or worse, they trust Google to tell them that,’ noted Clark.

Consequentially, the information about you and your business that shows up on the first page of Google matters a lot. Since people rarely look beyond the first page of the SERPs, as much as possible you need to ensure that positive information about you and your business shows up on the first page of Google.

Another article written by Anton Koekemoer for Memeburn (@memeburn) offers more actionable reputation marketing insights. He suggests performing a simple search about your brand on Google and other search engines to give you a general impression of your online reputation. What stood out about your brand on the search results? Was the information up-to-date and accurate? Based on the information found on the search results, would you patronize your business if you were a prospect?

While you cannot exactly control the information that shows up on the search results (though you can ask webmasters to take down defamatory blog posts, comments, and similar content), you can counteract negative publicity by publishing positive content about your brand and yourself.

Online reputation management is not an isolated discipline, as it blends elements of traditional marketing, search engine marketing, social media marketing, public relations, and other digital marketing tactics to improve the positive reputation of your brand.

You need to create plenty of great content—in the form of blog posts, press releases, articles, and others—to ensure that the various online channels and search results are flooded with positive content about your brand. While you cannot always remove negative content about yourself and your brand online, you can ensure that the positive content about you outweighs the negative content. This way, you can shape the way leads, prospects, and existing customers regard you and your business.

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Reputation Marketing Tips: Use the Right Tools to Manage ORM Campaigns

Knowledge is power, and there’s nowhere else this adage rings truer than on the Internet. Online marketers and entrepreneurs like you need to stay on top of emerging digital marketing and reputation management trends, as these trends can affect the success of your marketing campaigns. Checking reputation marketing news sites like Marketing Digest on a regular basis can help you stay on top of these trends.

We live in the age of social media and constant connectivity, and businesses that want to maintain a competitive edge need to monitor their online reputation. Listed below are valuable reputation marketing tips you need to take note of.

Want to Manage Your Business’s Online Reputation? You’re Going to Need Tools

Managing your business’s online reputation is a full-time job, and you’re going to need the proper online reputation management (ORM) tools to measure and gather data. Harsh Ajmera’s article on Business 2 Community (@B2Community) lists different software and apps that assist with online reputation management. Another article by Angela Stringfellow on OPENForum (@OPENForum) suggests a few more.

Trackur

Trackur (@trackur) is an affordable and efficient social media monitoring tool that can scan hundreds of millions of websites—including social media channels, blogs, forums, news sites, and media sharing sites. Set the Trackur software up and anytime your brand gets mentioned in any of the sites being monitored, you’ll get a notification. Trackur has built-in analytics to help you identify online trends involving your brand immediately.

BrandsEye

BrandsEye (@brandseye) is an online monitoring and insights tool used by brands and individuals to track online conversations involving their company names, brands, employees, and campaigns. Notifications can be delivered via email, Twitter, SMS, and RSS. BrandsEye also provides users with a reputation score to help them gauge their online reputation.

Google Alerts

Finally, there’s Google’s very own free keyword-tracking tool: Google Alerts. This simple but effective tool should be integrated into any reputation management strategy, as it helps online marketers and entrepreneurs monitor what Google has been indexing. Users can state their keywords, set the scope of their search (making it either comprehensive or specific to media-related sites), and choose the frequency of email alerts.

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