Maintaining your online reputation can be a tricky exercise, one requiring equal parts diligence, creativity, and being proactive. The buyers’ journey has changed dramatically in the last few years. Consumers now use search engines to look up your company and what people are saying about you. In today’s marketplace, there is nowhere to hide when it comes to your online reputation. That’s why it is more important than ever to be proactive and not leave your online reputation to chance. We’ve complied a handy list you can use each day to help manage your build, promote, and manage you online reputation! 6 Tips to enhance your online reputation on a daily basis!
- Build a ‘Reputation Culture’ in your business – We shouldn’t have to say this, but sometimes we all just need to have a little reminder (me included). Make sure that you build a ‘reputation culture’ in your business by helping your entire team understand the importance of being pleasant, providing great customer service, doing the right thing for your customers, and generally being easy to do business with. If you or your team forget this, ultimately it will catch up to you and people will not want to do business with you. It doesn’t always mean that you are perfect, because that can set unrealistic expectations, but accepting responsibility when a mistake is made and doing what can be done to improve is a vital part of being transparent and letting your customers know that they matter.
- Ask for reviews and feedback – Your happy customers are your best source for positive reviews and feedback. Don’t be bashful about asking for reviews, and make it easy for them to do so. In many cases they will be happy to write a review, but they just need to be asked. The more positive reviews you receive from your raving fans, the more your negative reviews you might have, or get in the future, will be overshadowed. Making asking for reviews part of your daily business processes. However, a quick note of caution … don’t ever make up reviews or ask people who have not done business with you to make up fake reviews. This is a shortcut with disaster in the making.
- Promote your positive reviews – While you want ALL feedback to help you better manage your business, you want to promote your positive reviews in as many places as possible. Promote them on your social media profiles, on your website, and in search results. In other words, turn your positive reviews into a marketing asset and use it daily in your marketing efforts.
- Use negative feedback as an opportunity to improve your business – While we always want positive feedback and reviews, actually receiving negative feedback is a golden opportunity to listen to your customers and learn what you can do to improve your business. Don’t miss this and don’t be afraid of it. Learn how to turn less than stellar experiences into an opportunity to do a heroic recovery with that customer. While it can be hard to hear, getting negative feedback is an amazing opportunity to improve your company and your relationship with your customers. Negative feedback is also real and transparent, and can make your positive reviews stand out even more. Providing a short response online can be valuable, especially for those reading the review in the future.
- Add to the positive and accurate content about your brand – Be sure to move the meter in your direction by contributing positive and accurate content about your brand anywhere you can. This usually involves creating and claiming listings for your company on search engines, directory, review, and social media sites. By claiming ownership of your account on these sites, you can control the listing and contribute a positive and accurate message about your company. What you say about yourself and your brand is what we call your “Digital Footprint“.
- Monitor your online presence on a daily basis – You should be very active about monitoring your brand and what is being said about you. We call this the “Digital Shadow”. You should be monitoring reviews, online mentions of you, your key employees, and your company name, social mentions and conversations, images, and more. There are some great tools to help you do this and we can help.