Your reputation is what is keeping you in business. Neglect your reputation, and your business is set to fail. Managing your reputation is an essential part of running your business and should be attended to. Use the following tips to take care of your reputation and keep yourself in business.
To help increase your online presence consider using social media. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn will help you build business presence both online and offline. To use social media effectively you must post statuses regularly. When posting information through a social media website, use keywords, and give your readers information that they actually need.
One of the primary ways you can manage your reputation is to claim your business brand online and take charge of the content about you. Use either KnowEm.com, UserNameCheck.com or NameChk.com to locate every online instance of your business name popping up. You only need to use one, but any of them can let you know if anyone out there is misrepresenting your business or speaking ill of you.
To keep a more careful eye on your business reputation, try setting up an alert system. This is a daily email you receive that lets you know when your company has been mentioned online. They do cost some money and take a short time to set up, but they can give you plenty of useful information.
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.
Bring people that are looking for your site directly to your website. You can do this by using your business name and other identifying words as frequently on your website as possible without being annoying. This will bring searchers to you instead of websites with negative and possible untruthful reviews.
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.
There are quality businesses that provide services in reputation management. While you should always work on this yourself, there is no way that you can handle every aspect of this. So consider hiring a helping hand to give you the support you need in some of these areas.
If you receive negative feedback here and there, you should not remove it. Most businesses will have unsatisfied customers every once in a while. If you only have positive reviews all over the place, people will start wondering if you are doing things to make yourself look better than you are.
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.
When you are responding to a negative comment or review about your company, make sure that you use a professional tone in a respectful way. Your goal is to win over people to your side. If you come across sounding disrespectful to the original poster, you may risk making the matter worse for your company.
When managing your online reputation, always take the high road. The Internet is rife with people who want to vent their frustrations. Don't let them suck you in. Always keep your cool and be the adult in the room. Do your best to resolve any problems. If you are unable to, take the necessary steps to remove the negativity.
Don't rush when defending your firm. Take the time to look at the situation as a whole. Do some fact finding and make sure you can explain your point of view. When present your side in a way which resolves any issue, you build a solid reputation for knowledge and credibility.
Look for the potential good in any online conflict. It is far easier to learn from your own experiences than to simply listen and read about resolving online conflicts. After a conflict is over, seek out the learning opportunities it presented. If the conflict caught the attention of people you would like to know, use it as a springboard to improve your own online social and business circles.
A reputation can be damaged by old content still showing up in search engines, so be proactive in getting it removed. Send a request for content removal to Google and other search engines. Your request will be reviewed and granted for legal reasons, concerns over personal information, or if previously removed content is still showing up due to an old page not being crawled recently.
Have a reputation management team in place to react to a crisis when it occurs. With the constant stream of online interaction, it is inevitable that you will encounter potentially explosive problems, so know ahead of time how you plan to respond quickly. Assemble a team of people with specific roles that can come together on the spot to mitigate any damage before it gets out of control.
Get involved with trade organizations of your industry and share ideas that will improve the industry. New ideas foster growth. If the industry that you are in improves because of contributions made by you, your reputation will benefit from that. You can establish yourself as a leader in your industry.
There is one thing that keeps the customers coming, and that is a good reputation. If you neglect it, it will soon take a life of it's own. Remember the tips listed above to keep your reputation high. It is the best way to keep your business running well.
Orignal From: Look Here For Great Advice About Reputation Management
No comments:
Post a Comment