Managing Your Online Reputation
Posted by Will Byrd on Fri, Jan 13, 2012 @ 09:09 AM
Managing Your Online Reputation
These days whether you have a brand or you’re an individual, managing your online reputation
is very important. Before the days of the internet people would often have to rely on the opinions of the people they trusted before making any major purchases or decisions.
Being trusted online if you’re promoting any kind of product or service is vital. The general public is far more informed where it comes to making purchases and maintaining a good reputation online will mean bring you more trust, and therefore more sales. So how can search engine optimization help to that end?
Reputation management means dealing with people to find out how they feel about you and your product or services. It’s not just a case of getting a thumbs-up or thumbs down from visitors to your website, although it can be a good indication of how well a comment or written article has been received. You have to dig deeper. It only takes one angry, unhappy customer for you to have a really bad month – or worse.
Reputation management has to be a part of any campaign right from the start so any negativity can be dealt with and nipped in the bud before it gets worse. If you’re running a social media campaign and leave the commenting to a member of staff, it’s important to train her properly to deal with negative comments, and bring increased negative comments to your attention immediately.
Many consumers get frustrated when the only way they can communicate with the person from whom they purchased something is via a comment box or e-mail, so consequently comments can be a lot more vitriolic. There is also a certain breed of people who like to leave negative comments just for the sheer hell of it, and sorting genuine complaints from spurious ones becomes part of the analysis.
Take Note
Sometimes you will see the same complaints from a number of different people and this is the time to sit up and start listening. It may be a valid complaint and should be a trigger for you to improve your product or service if it appears to be substandard in one particular area.
Don’t ignore the people who do complain, the least you should do is to thank them for bringing the point to your attention and tell them you’re working hard to rectify the problem. You should never go head to head with a customer, because before you know it your name and brand could be all over social media sites for all the wrong reasons. Some fans may disappear, and you certainly shouldn’t expect those who remain to sort out a problem for you.
Respond
Being a disgruntled customer is bad enough, but being ignored is even worse. You should respond to all comments, whether positive or negative. If necessary get a phone number and talk to the complainant.
If you’re the kind of person who gets angry and may respond in a way that makes matters worse ask someone else to respond for you, or taken deep breath and write your response in a Word document or on a piece of paper. Taking those few minutes to think about what you’re going to say will help you to think more clearly. Whatever happens you should always remain polite and professional. Off-line it’s called customer service – remember that?
If you do come across frequent negative comments, then you can always put your brand name into any of the major search engines to find out exactly what’s being said can you may be able to get to the root of who started it. Then you could address the issue in three different ways:
Write an Article
Post an article on your blog or website identifying the problem. If necessary explain your opinions on the issue and tell your readers exactly what steps are being taken to resolve the problem.
Do a Press Release
Ditto above but write it as a press release that can be syndicated via third-party websites and blogs.
Social Media
Keep a watchful eye on all the social media sites you use to promote your brand, and send them to the article on your website or the press release, but respond quickly and don’t blame others for the problem as this may only make matters worse. If you find that complaints are genuinely malicious and posted with the aim of destroying your business possibly by a competitor (yes, it happens), then your only choice will be to contact a lawyer.
Be proactive about managing your online reputation by paying careful attention to comments in social media and on your blog, a quick search each week on your name or brand will tell you exactly how you’re doing.