Small business owners must understand that their online presence is fragile. While several positive reviews you receive may be helpful to build your brand, a single adverse comment by a disgruntled customer or an unscrupulous competitor can be highly destructive. Here are some useful tips how to manage your online reputation:
Create Google Alerts. This will help you receive email alerts whenever your brand gets mentioned online. Set up alerts based on keywords that are appropriate to your company/products/services.
It is helpful to use social media management tools. Platforms such as HootSuite and Radian6 enable you to monitor and suitably respond whenever there is a mention of your brand across various social media platforms.
Regardless whether you are tracking social mentions on major social media sites, create a branded hashtag. This can help your brand to stand out and further enable you track mentions. Use these branded hashtags in your social media user profiles as also your blog posts.
It is worthwhile to set up a Better Business Bureau. Most prospective buyers search BBB for credibility and trustworthiness. This step will go a long way in building trust with potential customers.
It is essential that you track and moderate comments that appear on various forums, review sites, and other online marketplaces. You should promptly respond to both positive and negative comments about your business/brand / products. It is essential that visitors receive exact and not inaccurate information.
Constantly monitoring your competition’s online activity is necessary. This will help you understand how customers interact with other brands in your business segment. This will provide you insight into how you can boost your online reputation and score over your competitors.
Recruit a community manager or engage help desk system to systematically respond to customer feedback as also their complaints. This will establish a foolproof method for addressing all mentions about your business upfront.
Please bear in mind that today the Internet can magnify every negative review and let the whole world know. Zealously safeguard your online reputation and never let few stray reviews destroy the reputation you worked hard and sedulously tried to establish.