Online reputation management is an integral strand in most business marketing plans, particularly post-pandemic. A key motivator for many consumers is the effect positive reviews can have on their interest in a brand.
Consumer reviews are a central aspect of good online reputation management, and brands that develop successful customer relationships know how to nurture clear customer communication channels.
Data suggests that 95% of customers read online reviews before making a purchase, with 58% willing to pay more if reviews are positive.
Reputation management experts often highlight the significance of online reputation management for evolving a positive brand image, attracting customers, and enhancing brand credibility.
What Is Online Reputation Management?
Online reputation management is the strategic planning around brand perception, especially on digital platforms. This can involve a range of policies, including consultation with an online reputation management company or collaboration with reputation management services.
As online conversations about companies have become part of our everyday lives, showing up where consumers are talking about you has to be a priority for any sharp-eyed company.
In fact, online reputation management comprises multiple ongoing tactical decisions that align to create clarity in brand positioning, both for employees and customers.
Key Reputation Management Benefits
Many businesses today comment that brand reputation needs clear operational foundations to make a measurable impact, such as:
- Building online credibility through supportive review responses. It is crucial as 97% of consumers who read online reviews also read business replies.
- Planning an online reputation management strategy that aligns with business goals and prioritizes the interests of customers.
- Proactively support your customers who will share news and become your cheerleaders. Word of mouth is everything.
5 Ways To Refine Online Reputation Management
A trustworthy brand reputation isn’t something that happens overnight. It takes time to build, track, and review a comprehensive brand reputation approach. Here are five methods that will help supercharge your reputation management to make your brand visible, trusted, and attractive to customers.
1. Complete a brand reputation audit
It’s helpful to start with a collated online reputation report, analyzing how your company is presented across social channels and review websites, what customers say about your products and services, and how your customer services stack up.
Surveys suggest that 65% of consumers need at least a four-star rating before purchasing from a business, so completing a brand reputation audit will uncover how your customers rate you.
Once you have created an online reputation audit, it’s vital this is shared with all of your organization. This ensures that employees understand brand perception and can contribute to an online reputation program that addresses all your customers’ pain points.
2. Connect with customer chat
Monitoring brand mentions and communication about your business helps you to ensure you’re giving your customers the best service possible while generating data to help evolve your brand.
Customer expectations are high, as 52% of consumers expect a response from a brand within one hour. If a company isn’t on its toes when it comes to media mentions, there’s no doubt that negative reviews will go unanswered, and this may damage brand reputation.
There are some smart tools to help brands collect and analyze brand mentions online, such as monitoring apps and search engine analytics that spot mentions and assemble these in one easy place for evaluation.
This kind of solution saves a ton of time for marketing and customer service teams, as they can streamline analysis to focus on improving customer satisfaction levels.
3. Create compelling content
Customers want to discover how to use products effectively or learn about new solutions coming to the market. The best way of connecting on an emotional level with customers is to talk to them through your content. This could be social media posts, blog articles, or website updates.
If this content feels personalized to their needs, consumers will become repeat buyers, which is gold dust for brands trying to thrive in challenging markets.
Content creation also relies on consistent brand voice and detailed customer research that delves into your customers’ interests and what they need from your products and services.
Once you have a clear brand strategy, content can be easily built into pillars and then disseminated through all of your media channels to talk directly to your audience.
4. Develop your brand voice
The tone of voice is important when it comes to communicating who you are as a brand, what values you stand for, and how you nurture customer relationships. Once you have done the work on your brand voice, then this needs to be consistent throughout all of your communication with customers – in-store, online, and on-call.
Online reputation management requires a clear brand voice throughout every post, message, or campaign. This helps your brand stand out from the crowd and sound clearly above your competitors. Customers need a hook that captures their interest and cuts through all the brand noise they hear every day.
5. Review optimization
It can feel a little instinctive to avoid responding to negative reviews in the hope they will be forgotten. This may be a mistake, as evidence shows addressing negative reviews can actually help your business.
Not only can these reviews deliver valuable insights about customer pain points, but they can also help you boost your online reputation through transparency.
Once customers see you taking the time to answer queries, provide helpful advice, and create solutions that support the customer, then your brand will be seen as more trustworthy and reliable – a key driver for today’s consumers.
Online Reputation Management Transforms Brands
There’s no doubt that managing an effective online reputation management program builds confidence with existing and potential customers. It also delivers increased brand authority metrics and helps you stay ahead of the curve when it comes to the competition.
