Protecting Your Online Reputation

Googling the name of your brand doesn’t just bring up your company website; it brings up reviews, social media pages, customer mentions, and usually a whole lot more. Have you tried this trick recently? We recommend that you do – because you never know what you’ll find. And it’s not always good. Many digital marketers are making it an increasingly large priority to manage brand references before they become a problem. And if you’ve ever had a negative review crop up high on a search engine, you probably already know why.

If you want to take a more hands-on approach to your brand management, you can usually easily set up mention alerts for your brand or company name… whether that something is positive or negative. And becoming aware of brand mentions is almost unilaterally the first big step to successful brand management. With these alerts, you can start taking control. But most brand managers don’t stop there.

They’ll also set up alerts for their competitors. Sometimes it’s not just how well you’re managing your own online reputation that can make a big difference: but being aware of what people feel about your competition.

Google Alerts

Believe it or not, Google alerts are perhaps the most useful tool you can have in your arsenal while managing your online reputation. Since Google is the most-used search engine, what appears about your brand on Google matters more than almost any other source. And you can easily make Google alerts not just for your brand, but for other keywords, such as industry news, your competitors, or anything else which might be pertinent to your business or industry. Google alerts are usually sent to your email in an easy-to-parse list with links to sources.

Social Media Alerts

Another important place to monitor your reputation is social media. If you use social media or brand management software, you can probably use them to set up alerts for social media mentions. In most cases, the time delay on alerts for social media mentions is very small, so that you might even be able to interact with conversations happening about your brand in real time. This is an incredibly useful tactic when dealing with negative reviews, allowing you to quickly and effectively pacify upset consumers.

Respond to Bad Reviews

So, you’ve got a bad review, and you can’t get it removed. How do you move forward? In almost all cases, it’s recommended to respond to the review, apologizing for negative experiences and offering to help however you can. The customer is always right, remember, because their opinion about your brand will inevitably influence other people’s opinion of your brand. Give away your service for free, if it’ll help make a difference: in the long term, it’s usually worthwhile.

Using SEO to Help

It’s usually inevitable that something will eventually go wrong, and for negative reviews or an unhappy consumer’s irate rants to stick and remain high in search engine results for your brand. Often, the best response is to simply use SEO to get other information which is more positive about your brand to rank higher.

The Takeaway

There’s an old adage in marketing: it takes 10 good reviews to negate 1 bad one. While those numbers aren’t statistically supported, it’s usually pretty obvious that bad reviews, press, or brand mentions can hurt your business. By aggressively managing your online reputation, you can help protect your business, and keep abreast of public opinion of your brand. Doing so can help you mitigate the damage done by bad reviews, help you work negative information lower in search engine results, and protect your brand’s image. A little like good customer service, it’s a surefire way to identify with common problems and address lingering issues.