A brand’s online reputation should be carefully considered and monitored to ensure that it suits its image. Spread across multiple existing digital media, your online reputation can be thousands of threads of content across social media, forums, online newspapers, review sites, blogs and more.
The marvels of digital marketing, branding and advertising have become invaluable, quick and cost effective methods of publicity, expertly targeting those digital platforms where you know your stakeholders are most likely to engage. Controlling such a vast space, however, is not always simple. Afterall, it’s not only the brand or individual who creates content for themselves, but every stakeholder with a phone in their hand or a laptop on their desk.
Whether vlogging about their experience, rating on a review site, posting on social media or writing a piece in a newspaper, every member of your target audience has a global platform to express their opinion – however positive, however negative and however justified it may or may not be.
Each generation is the most tech savvy that has ever been, with all the knowledge of the world and beyond at their fingertips. What’s the capital of Papa New Guinea? In what year was the film Casablanca released? How can I get chewing gum out of my son’s hair? A font of knowledge archiving every piece of information – including those about you, and this is where we locate the cornerstone of your brand’s online reputation.
How to manage online brand reputation?
Digital marketers know that in the customer’s journey to discover and give loyalty to a new brand, one of the initial steps post exposure is to search for the brand online. Once discovered, brands have the chance to directly connect with customers, collate feedback and gather ever important – though maybe difficult to hear – criticism.
Processes by which these issues are handled, color perception and can garner massive affect on online reputation. Experts in online reputation management since 2007, the team at Percepto has observed the importance of active brand-stakeholder engagement within digital spaces. The ability to interact with target audiences increases the rate of retention dramatically.
Retention leads to growth, and growth leads to increased dominance within your market. Online, the potential end goal for a brand is digital dominance – crafting an accurate story for your customers when they search for you. But how? Techniques vary depending on specific needs, including an arsenal of useful digital reputation management tools littered across cyberspace, ready for brands to utilize and bring their online reputation to its maximum potential.
What potential benefits could there be to managing a brand’s reputation online?
Every business has its individual business plan with specific targets and KPIs. Percepto takes this into consideration when structuring bespoke plans for this very reason. Strategies are developed dependent on specific goals.
Brands with a positive online reputation benefit directly from the online activities which can both raise exposure and engagement, and improve narrative control and perception. Indirectly however, these benefits can lead to those more tangible final KPIs, such as an increase in sales volume, revenue or engagement.
How to protect your online brand reputation?
First stages of activity to improve a brand’s online reputation are crucial. Stop. Take a breath and ensure that you know your timings. Collecting statistics and analytics on the initial situation will a give way to more effective and efficient evaluation later one. In depth analysis at the start paves the way for a clearer understanding of what improvements have been made.
Once you understand the landscape of the brand’s narrative, it’s time to take back control and maintain the correct story. Finding platforms, website and publications which can ensure controlled digital real estate of Google’s first pages will start to frame this narrative – and optimization of those pages will keep them higher in the ranking. Engaging with audiences effectively and promptly helps to make sure the conversation around you is balanced, while allowing the brand to show their presence and that they care about their customers.
Arguably the most important element of all of these methodologies is knowing and understanding a brand’s key message, voice and tone. Consistency is vital so that target audiences and stakeholders understand the essence of the brand itself.
Adaptability and flexibility go a long way
Brands should be incredibly aware of their own online reputation through constant analysis and monitoring, able to make necessary additions or changes as soon as possible. Brands who are able to adapt and change according to their target audience’s wants and needs, will find that the benefits will help them in the long run.
Making sure the brand and its touchpoints are relevant, engaging, consistent and appealing goes a long way in retaining and growing their audiences. Some aspects of a brand’s online reputation may be out of their control, but the parts that can be controlled should be extensively reviewed, updated and nurtured.