Online Reputation Management with Social Media

If you are looking to establish yourself, build a positive brand image, or even find a new gig, starting with social platforms is your number one bet. Social media is the voice to customers, a powerful tool for businesses, a great connector between potential consumers and brands. This means you can build meaningful connections more easily, create brand awareness while standing out among the host of other competitors. Well, all these are possible, when done right. Not to forget that unhappy customers have made these platforms their go-to when a service or product falls short of their expectations. When not addressed, that brand that you have invested in for years might simply go down drail.

Hence, businesses cannot afford to wing it anymore when it comes to social media reputation management. If social media is part of your online reputation management tool, here are ways you can ensure it is working for and not against you.

Know Where Your Target Audience Is

The internet world is huge and everyone is not your audience. More reasons why you need to identify where your target audience is active and position yourself there. One way to go is to know which social platforms other organizations in your market are being active, chances are those platforms are good for your business. Whether its potential customers, influencers, or competitors, identifying your target market will help you to:

Know which social platforms to be active on and connect with the audience

Understand the tone and language your audience will love

Know what your competitors are doing

Identify trends within your market that will give insights into how to make a customizable effective strategy

The understanding of their personas will help businesses to know how to engage with the audience and serve them better. The era of “spray and pray” is long gone and brands need to spend their quality time on the audience that will feel connected, engaged with them. When you post content that resonates with them regularly, you build relationships and foster a strong sense of community.

Focus on Building Meaningful Relationships

It’’s ok to use your social platforms to shares about your products and services, business happenings, updates about your organizations, and many more. After all, its all part of creating brand awareness. However, that human touch will make a whole lot of difference about how the audience perceives your brand. Businesses today are going all the way out to communicate with their followers on a personal level. Plus, share jokes, funny memes, useful information, and create an environment where they can share common interests and experiences. Moreover, give them an inside scoop of your business. This can be a video of you and your team day out, a photo of the team working on the latest project. The bottom line is no one wants to connect with a cold, faceless, brand.

Leverage Useful Tools For Monitoring What’s Being Said About You

Here is another critical aspect of the brand reputation management brand reputation management guide. Keeping abreast of the buzz about your brand is important to maintain a positive brand image. unfortunately, it is one part that most brands neglected the most. Whether it’s about your company, the product or services you offer, or even the names of key employees in the company, keep a tab of any mentions, reviews, or discussions that revolve around your brand. This activity has been made easy, thanks to various tools that give you a break down of the effective contents, trends, and any mentions.

If you are just starting out, setting up an account with google alert to alert you about any mentions or comments is one way to go. Plus, you can use hoot suite to track where your brand is being mentioned. Moreover, claim your presence on leading review platforms such as to monitor reviews and respond accordingly.

Have a Strategy for Responding to Negative Comments

In a world where potential customers trust online reviews and will likely read more than 3 before making buying decisions, one negative review sure goes a long way.

It is understandable. Businesses won’t always satisfy customers and there will sometimes be trolls and negativity. When this happens, businesses have got different options. Either to ignore, delete the comment, respond back with negativity, or put your personal relation skills to work. You will want to choose the latter in your best interest and that is why having a strategy for negative reviews come in. Here is a professional reputation management plan to follow when it comes to negative reviews:

While it takes all strength not to respond with aggressiveness, it pays to respond politely to negative comments

Resist the urge to delete comments, this might hamper your image as users might think you have something to hide

Be honest and transparent when responding to mentions or comments

Listen to their problems and offer solutions

Check up with the status to see if they are satisfied.

This way customers will feel heard, valued, and will likely patronize you again.

Be Active

Whether for personal online reputation management or business reputation management, how do you intend to take advantage of social media without being active?

This goes beyond setting up accounts on social platforms and putting up posts once in a month. To stay on top of your audience’s mind, you have to be active on these platforms and put out content they will love. The point is, your followers expect more updates and posts from you. Hence, if your social media accounts are as silence as dead, you are likely missing out on a lot of opportunities