Managing Your Business’s Online Reputation in 2024
Most successful businesses recognize that in this day and age, maintaining your reputation is crucial.
Brands and businesses around the world rely on reputation to bring in new customers and profits, as well as to keep their existing customer base satisfied. In the digital era, your online reputation is essentially your business’s reputation.
Reputation management has become an increasingly important aspect of running a business. Because most businesses have an online presence, your online reputation plays a pivotal role in your overall reputation. An entire industry has emerged to address this need, with dozens of companies offering reputation management services. However, in many cases, you can manage your online reputation yourself with minimal effort.
In this article, we will explain what online reputation is, how it affects your business, the consequences of neglecting your online reputation, and how you can manage your online reputation in 2024.
What Does Online Reputation Mean?
Online reputation generally refers to influencing and controlling public relations, customer communications, social media presence, and search results to shape users’ perceptions of your business. It involves actively managing the information and feedback about your business available online to present a positive image to potential and existing customers.
It’s a fairly broad term that encompasses various aspects, such as customer reviews, social media interactions, online news articles, blog posts, and search engine results. Essentially, whenever opinions are held by a large number of users, these collective views contribute to your overall reputation.
A simpler way of thinking of it is this: if you were going to buy a product online, would you be more likely to complete the purchase if the product was rated 5 stars, or 1 star? Most people would choose the 5-star product. This highlights how crucial online reputation is, as it directly influences consumers’ trust and purchasing decisions.
Moreover, online reputation can also impact your business’s ability to attract talent, secure partnerships, and maintain a competitive edge in the market. Positive online reviews and a strong social media presence can differentiate your business from competitors, making it more appealing to both customers and potential employees. Conversely, negative feedback and poor online visibility can deter people from engaging with your brand.
In essence, your online reputation is the digital reflection of your business’s credibility and reliability, making it a critical component of your overall success.
How Valuable is My Online Reputation?
Your company’s online reputation is extremely important in determining the future growth of your business, as well as maintaining a solid customer base.
When people find your business online, they want to get a positive impression at first glance. This means seeing engaging, meaningful content alongside good reviews and customer interactions. A strong online reputation helps establish trust and credibility, which are essential for converting visitors into loyal customers.
The way websites function has changed dramatically over the last few years, evolving from static pages with minimal interaction to dynamic content that users regularly engage with. This shift emphasizes the need for businesses to actively manage their online presence and foster positive interactions with their audience.
Having a good reputation can make a massive difference to the success of your company. If you manage to gain a stellar reputation, you’ll be able to reap many benefits beyond just attracting new customers. A good reputation means people are more likely to recommend you to their friends, which can significantly expand your reach through word-of-mouth marketing.
Moreover, a strong online reputation ensures that your existing customer base is more satisfied with the products and services they receive. Satisfied customers are more likely to become repeat buyers, leave positive reviews, and provide valuable feedback that can help you improve your offerings.
In summary, your online reputation is a valuable asset that can drive customer acquisition, enhance customer loyalty, and ultimately contribute to the long-term success and growth of your business. Investing in reputation management is not just about addressing negative feedback but also about proactively building a positive and trustworthy image in the digital landscape.
What Can Happen if I Neglect My Online Reputation?
In the past, online reputation wasn’t a critical aspect of running a business. However, times have changed, and the internet is now the most popular way to purchase goods or services.
As a result, maintaining your online reputation has become more important than ever. Not everyone realizes this, and there are plenty of companies with spectacularly bad online reputations. Just take a look at Trustpilot to see the reviews of some of the lower-rated businesses.
Failing to uphold your company’s online reputation can have catastrophic consequences. Potential new customers will be turned away when they see inadequate content, poor reviews, or controversial PR, which will, in turn, lower your business’s profit.
Your existing customer base can also be affected by a poor online reputation. If one of your current customers sees a very poor review of your company, for example, they might want to move to a different company. Similarly, if customers hear something controversial about your employees in a press release, they might feel uncomfortable and want to switch to a different provider.
There are many more reasons why you shouldn’t neglect your online reputation, but now we’re going to move on to how you can maintain your online reputation, both actively and passively.
Have You Checked Your Business Reviews?
You may already be aware of product or service reviews, where influencers or popular reviewers evaluate a company’s product or service in terms of price, performance, and other relevant criteria.
What you might not be aware of, though, is just how important reviews can be when trying to improve and build on your company’s online reputation. Reviews can significantly influence potential customers’ perceptions and decisions, making them a critical component of your reputation management strategy.
Positive reviews can enhance your credibility, attract new customers, and boost your search engine rankings. Conversely, negative reviews can deter potential customers and harm your brand’s image. Regularly monitoring and responding to reviews shows that you value customer feedback and are committed to providing excellent service. This proactive approach can help you address any issues quickly, turn negative experiences into positive ones, and continually improve your business based on real customer insights.
Good Reviews
Having a popular reviewer or influencer review your products can make a huge difference to your online reputation, either negatively or positively.
If done correctly, you can significantly boost your exposure and brand awareness, as the reviewer’s followers will see that your company is reputable, and they might even be inclined to become customers. Additionally, you might find that other reviewers will be more likely to review your product, as they will see that your company performs well and provides good products or services.
New customers considering your company’s products will also see that your company offers what they need, making them more likely to choose you over a competitor.
Moreover, your website’s SEO will improve because the reviews will contain backlinks to your website, potentially increasing your chances of ranking higher on search engine results pages.
Getting positive reviews of your business brings a range of additional benefits. Positive feedback helps establish trust, drives more traffic to your site, and can even lead to increased sales.
However, this can also swing in the other direction. Negative reviews of your company can bring a host of problems that you want to avoid at all costs. Negative feedback can deter potential customers, damage your brand’s image, and lower your search engine rankings. Therefore, actively managing and encouraging good reviews is crucial for maintaining a strong online reputation.
Bad Reviews:
Negative reviews for your business will have a massive effect on your online reputation, not just in the short term, but in the long run as well!
As you have probably guessed already, new customers will be completely dissuaded from going with your business for that particular product or service – they’ll be able to see that your business operates at a low standard and provides poor quality goods or services!
This also extends to your current customer base – they may feel the need to switch to a different provider if the service you’re offering isn’t up to scratch.
Your SEO will also be affected by negative reviews, but not in a good way! If a popular reviewer or influencers gives a negative review of your website, it will quite likely rank high in the Google search results pages when people search for your business, meaning one of the first things they’ll see about you is bad reviews!
These factors combined can greatly affect your online reputation and as such, it’s important to try and avoid bad reviews in general.
Review Websites
For many content marketers and business owners, getting reviews for your website in the first place can be a difficult hurdle to overcome.
With the massive selection of product reviewers and influencers out there, how do you know where to start?
Before diving into influencers and reviewers, let’s take a look at websites we can use to gather reviews for our business.
When you create your business and establish your online identity, you should also sign up for review websites where you can collect reviews of your products or services from your own customers.
Many of these websites are free, so you don’t need to account for them in your budget. Once you are set up on one (or ideally more) of these websites, you can prompt your users to submit their own reviews to help further build your brand’s reputation. Adding links to your review pages in your email signatures, for example, is a great way to encourage this.
Trustpilot is a great website for gathering reviews and is widely used by businesses of any kind. This free platform allows users to post their own reviews and lets you reply to customer reviews. For example, if a customer submits a factually incorrect review, you can address it directly.
Yelp is another excellent alternative to Trustpilot. It provides a similar service, allowing customers to submit reviews and comments. Yelp is particularly helpful for businesses that rely on local trade due to its location tools, but it is beneficial for any kind of business and is definitely worth trying out.
Which? is another good website to use when looking for customer reviews. Most business types are included on this site, and as usual, you can gather customer reviews and expand your business reach.
Google allows for reviews of physical locations or businesses, so make sure not to forget about the biggest search engine of all time! Setting up your Google My Business profile can help you collect reviews and improve your local SEO.
Social media websites such as Facebook also commonly allow for reviews to be posted on businesses and companies. As these sites are used by so many people, it’s important to ensure that these reviews are positive. Engaging with your customers on these platforms can also enhance your online reputation and foster a loyal community around your brand.
Things to Avoid
When gathering reviews for your company or business, there are several “black hat” techniques that have been used in the past to get positive reviews. These techniques should be avoided at all costs because search engines have become much smarter and can now easily recognize these types of tactics.
Using these methods will not only fail to improve your online business reputation but could also damage it irreparably. Here are some key practices to avoid:
- Paying for Reviews: Purchasing reviews from websites or other sources is highly discouraged. Google and most other search engines can detect paid reviews, and using them can harm your credibility. Moreover, many sites that sell reviews are not reputable and won’t help build your genuine reputation.
- Posting Fake Reviews: Creating fake reviews on review websites is a risky strategy. If discovered, it can label your business as fraudulent, and you might be banned from obtaining legitimate reviews on these platforms. Authenticity is crucial for trustworthiness.
- Deleting Negative Reviews: While many websites don’t allow for this, some do. However, deleting negative reviews is not advisable as it undermines your company’s integrity and public image. Negative reviews can show that your business is legitimate and that you are transparent with your customers.
- Responding Poorly to Negative Reviews: If a review contains factually incorrect information, it is appropriate to correct it politely. However, avoid arguing or making controversial statements in response to customer reviews. Rude or defensive responses can damage your customer support reputation and drive potential customers away.
By steering clear of these practices, you can build a more authentic and trustworthy online reputation, which will benefit your business in the long run. Instead, focus on providing excellent service, engaging positively with your customers, and encouraging honest feedback.
How to Manage Your Company’s Online Reputation
Many companies today would have you believe that you need to hire their services to maintain a good reputation in the online world.
Fortunately, this is not the case, and there are numerous steps you can take both actively and passively to give your business the best chances of having a good online reputation.
First, let’s start with what you can actively do to improve and maintain your company’s online reputation.
Active Ways to Build Your Online Reputation
In this section, we will cover the steps you can actively take to improve and manage your online business reputation. By this, we mean proactive measures that can be taken whenever necessary, rather than passive measures that need to be implemented over time into your existing company’s structure.
Social Media: Do You Have It?
As you may be aware, social media forms a huge part of the reputation for any business in this day and age. Since interactions between prospective customers, existing customers, and staff members take place on these platforms, it’s important to ensure that all communications are handled professionally and courteously.
Managing social media needs to be done in a proactive manner. The most popular social media platforms are, first and foremost, spaces where content is shared between like-minded individuals and companies. As such, one of the biggest ways you can maintain your online reputation on social media is to regularly share high-quality content with your followers. Good content to share from your business’s social media pages includes:
- Relevant news articles and posts from your industry
- Valuable content from your own website, such as new pages or products
- Well-written and engaging blog articles if you run a company blog
- Promotions or special offers related to your products or services
- Competitions and giveaways
Before doing this, however, you should make sure to fully understand exactly what kind of content your followers are interested in. This can be achieved by using the tools that each respective social media platform offers for researching follower interests. For example, Facebook has an ad targeting service that lets you target particular demographics by their interests, location, or a number of other variables.
To save time managing different social media platforms, it’s worth using a social media management platform. Online platforms such as Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and Social Pilot offer affordable plans with tools to help save time with everything from scheduling posts to creating targeted ads. These tools can streamline your social media strategy and ensure consistent and professional engagement with your audience.
By actively engaging with your audience on social media and sharing relevant, high-quality content, you can significantly enhance your online reputation and foster a positive image for your business.
Blog Posts: Do You Put Your Expertise to Good Use?
Managing and maintaining an active blog for your website is a great way to gain interest in your brand, as well as your products or services. It’s also an effective method for maintaining your online reputation.
Most industries have an active community of like-minded individuals and companies creating content based on their respective products or services. High-quality blog articles deliver useful, interesting, or humorous information to people who are interested in your business.
Consider your favorite brand or company, one you return to time and time again for the products or services you need. Do they run an active blog on their website? Chances are they do. If you are interested in a particular product and see that the company doesn’t run a blog, you might be inclined to think that they aren’t invested in knowing the industry and helping out the customer.
Before you start writing your blog articles, you should research what competitors in your industry are writing about. Take notes on the kind of content they’re producing, the topics they focus on, the news they cover, and how successful their content is.
Don’t copy your competitors. Instead, get an idea of how you can design blog content that will not only provide useful information to your customers but also outshine the content your competitors are delivering.
Some ideas for the types of content you can write about include:
- Current and ongoing news in your relevant industry
- Upcoming promotions, deals, or special offers
- Detailed analysis reports, case studies, or research pieces
- Press releases for your business’s products or services
For example, on our blog, we write on various topics covering everything related to the internet or web hosting, from SEO and WordPress plugins to online marketing.
Passive Steps Can Also Help
Now that you’ve learned how you can actively improve your online reputation, let’s go through some ways you can passively manage your online reputation over the upcoming days, months, and even years.
Customer Communications
The way you communicate with your customers will be the first thing prospective customers see when they interact with your social media pages, reviews, or customer support.
Good communication is essential for maintaining a positive public image and keeping your existing customer base happy.
Customer communications may seem like another way of saying customer service etiquette, but it involves more than just how your customer service agents communicate with customers.
Firstly, how you communicate with your customers over social media channels is very important, as it’s one of the first things prospective customers will see when they search for your company’s name in any search engine.
Common areas where you will most often find yourself speaking to customers include instant messaging systems, comments on posts, FAQ sections, and groups.
Handling instant messaging is fairly straightforward: keep a fast response time, speak politely, and be informative.
Comments on posts can be handled similarly, as long as your replies are informational enough to resolve the query without needing additional comments.
FAQ sections should provide the correct information concisely and clearly.
Communicating in groups on social media can be more complex, depending on the industry. Always remain courteous and polite while providing as much information as possible.
Another key point is to remain transparent with your customers. Don’t withhold important information from them, especially if it involves a technical issue they’ve raised or an important query. While you shouldn’t disclose confidential information, keeping customers informed about what’s happening behind the scenes builds trust.
For anyone coming from a customer service background, handling customer communications may seem like second nature. However, it’s always useful to review your replies to ensure they remain professional and thorough, as potential customers will notice any lack of diligence.
Handling Criticism: Use It to Build Your Brand!
At some point when running your company, no matter what type of business you’re in, you’re going to face some criticism and complaints.
No business is exempt from this—just take a look at the reviews for any company you can think of, and you’ll undoubtedly see some bad reviews riddled with complaints.
Unfortunately, even if you run your business in the most professional manner possible, you may still receive criticism and complaints from time to time.
The most important thing you can do is to ensure you know the correct ways to handle criticism or complaints in a way that doesn’t backfire on you or your reputation. This doesn’t mean that you have to accept any criticism, especially if it’s factually incorrect.
Instant Messaging Platforms:
Complaints over instant messaging platforms are the easiest to handle. Most of the time, you can direct the complainant to a manager’s email address or a support platform. You don’t often need to deal with complaints over instant messaging platforms unless you are experiencing technical issues with your official complaints escalation methods.
Social Media:
Criticism on social media in public-facing posts requires you to communicate in a professional, polite manner. Understand exactly what the customer was unhappy with, explain to them that you’ll make the necessary changes where possible, or explain why you can’t make the changes they want.
The customer isn’t always right, but without an explanation from your side, you may find that your replies can backfire on you. Always aim to be empathetic and clear in your communication.
Review Sites:
Review sites are typically where you’ll find the majority of criticism and complaints against you. Most customers won’t post reviews when they’re satisfied with the service, so you’ll often see more bad reviews than good ones—this is common.
While you don’t always have to reply to reviews, there are instances where you might be inclined to respond to the customer, especially if they have the facts wrong.
When replying to complaints, remain extra polite and courteous, while also making it clear if certain facts in their complaint are inaccurate. Customers will take the negative review less seriously if they see that the person complaining is in the wrong. However, never respond defensively or rudely, as this can damage your reputation further.
By handling criticism professionally and courteously, you can turn negative experiences into opportunities to demonstrate your commitment to customer satisfaction and continuous improvement. This approach can help build a more resilient and respected brand over time.
Feedback from Users
While managing a business or an online website, you will receive feedback from your users from time to time. Whether it’s negative feedback or positive feedback, it’s all constructive and can be used to improve the level of service your company offers.
When possible, try to get feedback from customers as much as possible, because otherwise, you might not be able to recognize where you should focus on improving.
Negative Feedback:
Negative feedback should be used as an opportunity to improve in the areas that have been criticized. If a user complains about a lack of service, specific products, or staff conduct, how can you guarantee that someone else isn’t going to complain about the same thing?
The only way you can guarantee that is if you take the opportunity to fix the issue, where possible. You may not be able to make positive changes from all the feedback you receive, but when you can, try to improve.
Positive Feedback:
Positive feedback doesn’t require you to take as many proactive measures, as nothing has been highlighted as an area that your business lacks. When you receive positive feedback, it helps you realize which aspects of your business are succeeding in making customers happy. You can then build on those aspects and aim to provide an even better experience for your customers.
Conclusion
Managing your online reputation in 2024 requires a strategic approach, focusing on key areas that can significantly impact your business’s perception and success.
Firstly, ensure all of your online interactions with customers are courteous, polite, and friendly. Exceptional customer service is essential for a positive reputation, while poor service can be a major deterrent.
Next, pay close attention to your online reviews on platforms like Trustpilot and Yelp. While you can’t directly change customer reviews, you can reduce negative feedback by actively listening to criticism and making necessary improvements. This proactive approach can help in minimizing bad reviews and enhancing your overall online presence.
Finally, always try to view your business from the perspective of potential customers. This mindset will help you identify areas for improvement and highlight your strengths, ensuring your business remains appealing and trustworthy.
By consistently focusing on these aspects, you can build and maintain a strong online reputation, contributing to the long-term success of your business. For more insights and tools, explore Google My Business, Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Moz, and Buffer.
