Reputation Management

Reputation Management refers to the effort that is put towards influencing the way people feel and think about a brand as well as how you are perceived online. The brand can be that of an individual or a company. Traditionally, it was done through television, radio and other public relations. However, currently, the easiest way to reach a large number of people is through the internet and social media platforms.

Below are some tips to help build your reputation;

1. Reputation Assessment

The first step is a reputation assessment. It refers to the practice of finding out what the public thinks and how they feel about your brand. You can obtain this information by doing a deep google search on the internet. Make sure to search and look at all the comments on the internet and different social media platforms, check star ratings of all review pages too.

You can trigger reactions by doing a post on a commonly used social media platform and reading what the users have to say. It is also important that you look at the images that are associated with your brand. It will give you an idea of what your current reputation is and what you need to do to improve it.

If you are developing a brand for the first time, you do not have to forego this step. Make a point of finding out the reputation of your competitors and the industry in which you are planning to build your business. Find the ones that are doing it successfully and use them as a blueprint for success.

2. Branding

As a business or an individual, it is important to have a brand. In the past, most people did not think about their brand or building one. However, in recent years, it is important to have a clear brand.

If you do your reputation assessment and find that your brand name has been tarnished, the first step would be to rebrand your business or image. To avoid making any mistakes, hire a professional that will help you with rebranding. If you are creating your brand for a new business, learn the do’s and don’ts. Keep in mind that your brand will influence the understanding of your product by the public.

3. Use Social Media

Using social media platforms is an excellent way to build your reputation because you are directly interacting with the public. This not only helps you look like a genuine business, but your social media will climb to the top of your search results allowing more people to see how active you are. Create an account on each platform and build a following!

To maintain your reputation, make sure you respond to comments made by potential customers on different platforms. For instance, if you are a service provider and get bad online reviews or complaints about your product, make sure you do respond.

As much as you respond on social media, also take into account the complaints and how you resolve them. Reach out to the complainers and inform them of the solution. People always want to be heard and it helps to reassure potential customers that you are a good company who looks out for their customers. This will help maintain or build a good reputation and improve the customer experience.

4. SEO

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is a practice that helps to increase the quality and quantity of traffic to your website. It works by increasing the visibility of your page or site to users of all search engines. SEO helps boost the amount of people aware of your business. 

The difference between being rank 5 and rank 1 could simply be updating your page, make sure that your page is as SEO optimised as possible to help boost upwards! This is called on-page SEO. 

To get your website ranking higher in general is called off-page SEO which simply means you have a strong web presence in the form of social media accounts and links from other websites. 

The final piece of the SEO puzzle is to publish high-quality informative articles on your website as often as you can because these articles will help you rank for a multitude of extra search terms located within that article.

So When is the Right Time?

Now. However, below are some specific situations that may force you to go back and assess or repair your reputation;

• When sales of your product reduce
• When you start to get several complaints from customers
• If you are planning on rebranding
• If you are introducing a new product to the market
• If you realise that people do not know about your business
• When you are a brand new business and have the cash to let a professional build your reputation for you.

Conclusion

With the current situation of social distancing due to coronavirus, more people are spending their time online right now, so now is the best time to either build your reputation or get it started.