Reputation management may sound like something only necessary for celebrities and high-profile companies who screw up. But even small business owners with clean histories should be concerned with their online reputation and take active measures to positively influence their online image.
Through reputation management, a person or company influences and shapes the public perception of themselves or the company. They do so through creating good perceptions and actively dealing with negative ones. This article discusses how to influence public perceptions online.
Reputation management is not just for crisis situations and companies who do something wrong. Literally anything can happen online and you need to be aware of the conversations concerning your company whether they’re true or not. Your reputation can take a hit through no fault of your own. Everyone has disgruntled and irrational customers and unhappy people are the ones who are the most vocal.
You need to be on top of what’s being said about your company and influence the conversation for good.
Here are seven questions–and answers–about reputation management that every small business owner should know.
1. What falls under reputation management?
Reputation management encompasses anything you can and should do to positively influence your reputation. Notice I haven’t and won’t say “control your reputation” because a reputation is others’ perceptions of you, which you cannot control 100%. You can influence their perceptions, but cannot control all factors that shape a person’s perception of your company or brand.
Activities related to reputation management fall under two categories: proactive and reactive. Through proactive actions you positively shape people’s perceptions. Through reactive actions, you attempt to repair the negative perceptions that are a result of some negative event or set of events.
These actions can happen through social media, review sites, and general PR pieces such as press, events, and other community-outreach opportunities.
2. How do I check my online reputation?
If you are unaware of your current online reputation, the first step is to simply Google yourself or your company. Use an incognito window in order to get the best picture of what others see.
Scroll through the results and check whatever articles, reviews, and even images pop up. By understanding what’s being said about you online you can get a good gauge for what your reputation is. (And if nothing or very little shows up, you know you have work to do on your PR and SEO.)
Next, search specific sites such as Yelp, TripAdvisor, Angie’s List, and other business directories specific to your industry. These sites are built on reviews and are widely popular so understanding what conversations are being had on these platforms about your business is vital.
Then check social media. Even if you don’t have a company Twitter account or Facebook page, search for you company name to see if people have mentioned you on social media. And if you do have company pages, search for your company name outside your page in order to capture conversations about you that didn’t bother to use your official Twitter handle. Twitter in particular is a favorite medium to use to gripe about (and, at times, compliment) companies. Know what’s being said and by whom.
Read all the reviews you can find about your business. Reviews are the key to understanding others’ perceptions of your company.
3. How can I have reviews online if I haven’t registered my business on a review site?
Review sites and business directories including Google My Business allow anyone to set up company profiles for any company. They’re in the business of getting information to consumers and they don’t wait around for businesses to officially sign themselves up.
So your company is likely on Google and other business directories regardless if you created your own profile. And if you didn’t create your business profile, it’s likely some of the information about your business is incorrect.
Google et al. push heavily for people to leave reviews and suggestions for businesses they visit so reviews of your business likely exist online whether you’re aware of them or not. It’s best to get on top of your reputation management now so you’re not left in the dark.
4. How does my online reputation affect my business?
The answer to this question is simple. Online reputation is very similar to “real” or offline reputation. If you’re known as the best restaurant in town, you fill up every evening. If you’re known for horrible customer service, your dining room stays sparse. The better your online reputation, the better you’ll rank in a Google search and the more traffic and conversions you’ll have on your website.
In order to be seen on a local search within Google and co., you need a certain number of reviews. However, since Google’s goal is to put the best search results in front of the user, if your reviews are negative and therefore you have a poor online reputation, you won’t show up in local packs or any other part of the search engine results page.
So you need positive results–and a lot of them–to rank well. Essentially, you need a strong, positive online reputation.
Even if you do show up online somewhere (on TripAdvisor or Yelp, etc.) despite negative reviews, no one will click through to your website. People trust online reviews from strangers as much as they trust word of mouth recommendations from their friends. Businesses, especially small businesses, live and die by their online reputations.
5. How can I get rid of a negative review?
If you find that you have received negative reviews online, you have a few options of how to address them. Likely you will not be able to get rid of the review. While some sites have dispute and remove capabilities, many do not, including the big players such as Google. Usually only through legal action could you maybe get a site to remove a negative review.
And even in cases where you can remove the negative comments at will, like your company Facebook page, you won’t want to. Artificially controlling the conversations about your company is an effective way to have reputation management backfire or blow up in your face.
Rather, you have a few options which are much more effective in dealing with negative reviews:
1. Leave a response.
Many places allow for responses to reviews, including Google My Business. Proactively addressing customer concerns in a public forum can go a long way in repairing any damage done by a negative review. With any response, do not respond out of anger or other negative emotion. Keep things professional. People are watching.
2. Actively encourage customers to leave reviews.
Reviews are usually chronological, with the most recent reviews at the top of the list. A negative review will eventually get buried as more people leave reviews and you can speed up the process by actively encouraging everyone who walks through your doors or visits your website to leave a review.
3. Don’t sweat one negative review.
People understand a negative review from time to time. Many people are savvy and know that angry people talk much more than happy people. If you have dozens of “great customer service” or “amazing products!” reviews, one “this place is the worst company ever to exist” won’t hurt your reputation significantly. And, as discussed above, how you respond can build your reputation even stronger than it was before.
6. How long does reputation management take?
This question is very difficult to answer: it depends on how serious the situation is.
If you’re starting from scratch, i.e. if your company profiles don’t exist online or, if they do, you don’t have negative reviews and there isn’t any other negative press about you, then it’s much easier and quicker. You’re just trying to build a positive reputation without battling a negative one. Take control of your online profiles, start encouraging reviews, be active on social media, and do things in your community. Your reputation management will pay off relatively quickly.
If you’re battling a negative reputation, you have more time and work ahead of you before you come out on top. If your poor reputation seems to be online only (if reviews online are poor but on the street people love you and your sales are great) then you have the strength of your offline reputation to counteract the negative reviews online. Encourage your loyal customers to review you online and the offline reputation will spill over and reverse the online reputation.
If you have a poor online reputation and it’s an accurate representation of your offline reputation, then you have a long, hard battle ahead of you which cannot be succinctly described in this article. No amount of online reputation management can cover poor products, poor customer service, and poor quality. The first step in reputation management is an honest assessment of your company’s operations and services or products. Fix your core business, then go to work online and offline to fix your reputation. You may need an (expensive) professional reputation management team to help.
7. How do I monitor my reputation management on an ongoing basis?
By now you’ve taken control of your online profiles, you’re up-to-date on the social media conversations about your business, and you’re consistently seeking reviews from happy customers. Now you need to stay on top of your reputation management moving forward.
Numerous software tools exist online that will help you monitor and respond to reviews and social media mentions, and engage in other reputation management activities. Additionally, you could hire a social media or SEO company that specializes in local search to monitor and address your online presence and reputation for you.
Just remember the main considerations in reputation management are reviews, social media (not just your company profiles, but any mentions of your company name), and other traditional PR pieces.
If you have an awesome business, encourage people to tell each other about it and your reputation online will blossom.
Caz Bevan
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