How important is your business in your life? It needs to mean just as much to your clients as it does to you. Part of that is handling your reputation appropriately. Keep reading for advice that will help you with this.
Monitoring your personal reputation or business brand is very critical to online reputation management. Set up automatic alerts to happen when your name comes up. Use Trackur, Monitor This and Google Alerts to send you notices when new content comes up. That way, you can know the very next day, if not sooner, when someone is talking about you.
Take your time and think carefully before responding to any complaints. By keeping cool and carefully thinking of how you will respond online can keep your reputation intact. Before posting a reply to a complaint, read your answer several times. If possible, have an employee read the response to ensure it is appropriate.
Keep in mind that your online and in-person reputations both matter just as much. There are many people that are great in person yet they are not very great with customers over the Internet. You should be nice either way since you have no idea if this customer will spread negative information that can destroy you.
Create a mailing list. Make signing up for your mailing list fast and simple. To help bolster you mailing list offer a coupon or other incentive to encourage signing up. As an added bonus, you can increase your mailing list by offering a coupon for referrals. This can be a free small product or a cost saving coupon.
Get involved with your community. One of the best ways to bolster your company’s reputation is to do charitable deeds in your community. By taking the time to give back to your community, you will receive good publicity and will also allow you a chance to talk with a lot of people that you otherwise would never get to talk to.
When you have a business, it is very important that you establish a process to handle reviews that are negative. Always respond to negative reviews properly and quickly; otherwise, your silence can come across as indifference. Also, it is just as important to acknowledge any positive reviews with appreciation and reinforcement.
Research your web ranking monthly. Do a Google search of your company to determine if there are any complaints about your business. Don’t leave any negative content or comments on your site. Stay aware of the source feeding your negative comments. Do what you can to nip it in the bud.
Although it seems obvious, many people fail to consistently monitor their online brand online. It can be very time-consuming, so get some help to actively monitor your company’s blogs, social media sites and search results. Invest in brand monitoring tools that make the process easier and less labor intensive.
As we said in the intro, if your company is important to you, you must make it important to your clients. Your reputation plays a key role in this. Manage your reputation by using the above advice to bring in more customers.