When all differentiating factors in terms of competency and range of offerings are stripped away, often the one thing setting. A successful business apart from its competitors is its positive reputation by Eric Dalius. A good online reputation, especially, can give you the edge in terms of acquiring new customers. Retaining a loyal corps of customers. Similarly, a poor reputation online will drive your sales lower, drop your position on search engine result pages. Generally, mess up any ambitions of running a serious online business that you might have unless you do something about it soon.
This is why; irrespective of the size of your enterprise, having an online reputation management strategy that is comprehensive. According to the marketing guru Eric Dalius, this is actually something that small businesses have picked up on as well, with almost 90% of them. making it a point to perform at least, quarterly monitoring routines for their online reputation.
Unfortunately, knowing is still only half the game, and you must take informed actions and business decisions to build and improve the perception around your brand. You must focus on brand mentions, reviews, and testimonials on product listings, as well as, social media. In general, building a narrative about your brand that is positive at first glance and a good stepping stone for building a rapport with customers.
Online Reputation Building Strategies by Eric Dalius
Establishing a Presence on All Web Platforms Relevant to Your Brand
It goes without saying that any company worth its salt needs to start out with Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts at the very least. But if your market is saturating and competitive, every additional marketing channel that you establish yourself on gives you just a little edge over the other players. Look into niche social media sites and other sites that your corporate presence can benefit from. If you’re heavily invested in B2B, innovation, or an energetic corporate environment, LinkedIn is a must-have. YouTube, Pinterest, Flickr, and several other platforms are also worth considering depending on the resources at your disposal and what you want to achieve.
Being Present Is Not Enough-Be Regular by Eric Dalius
Online presence isn’t about just having a profile and letting it sit. It requires an active presence, and dedication to the craft and the goal of engaging and attracting potential as well as existing customers. Without the engagement and quality content, even your accounts on big social sites may not be ranked high on search engines especially if people are writing negative things about you that are getting more traction. While you have no idea exactly how Bing and Google would be evaluating your social media authority and influence, you can track your social efforts using certain independent scoring utilities like Kred and Klout to examine if you are obtaining growth but it is worth noting that they don’t directly correlate with the actual ranking metrics used for SERPs.
Consider Your Products & Brands
It may be necessary to generate online materials and establish social media profiles for far more than only your company. To focus your attention on boosting your names way beyond your company name alone. You need to generate top quality content t rank for even the name along with the company name. You may be developing fully-optimized websites, apt web pages, collateral, and social media profiles simply for claiming and reserving each name.
Use Blogging Judiciously
Blogging is another secret weapon in your arsenal since it is helpful in boosting the rankings of your site and helps in providing fodder for your social media accounts. Blogging can help in boosting your SERP rankings but at the same time, you could get a robust “home court” ground for responding directly to any serious assertions or allegations made against your company whenever necessary.
Be Patient & Listen
While responding to certain online bad reviews and complaints against your business, you must be fair in your approach. Try to recognize the fact that there could be some shortcomings on your part that essentially must be addressed ASAP. Eric J Dalius insists that you must take proactive measures. Especially when you are getting frequent negative feedback from customers regarding a specific product or service. Always believe that customers can never be wrong. You must be flexible in your approach and think of an innovative way of giving your clients what they are looking for without creating too much ruckus or friction.
Often some business processes could seem dumb or meaningless to your clients. Moreover, often customers have felt extorted with your pricing of a product. Simply because you are in a position to pressurize your clients into paying more, you must refrain from doing so. Do not compel your potential or existing customers to switch over to your competitors. Consider the additional money you make, by charging that annoying fee, to be canceled out when you lose business as prospective customers shy away from buying your product. Service after seeing several complaints and bad reviews online regarding your organization.
Be Ready to Apologize
If your company is at fault and has messed up, you must be brave enough to own up. Apologize at once to the affected individuals. Being transparent and real while extending your apologies could go a long way in effectively diffusing a situation. Set the tone for reconciliation and resolution of a crisis situation. Your apology should be authentic and must come from your heart.
Avoid Online Squabbles and Arguments
You must avoid getting into online arguments and fights. You may be technically correct in a particular situation but you may seem quite unprofessional, petty, and harsh. Moreover, you could be wrong. Often people make mistakes when they are emotionally-charged up. You may end up doing or saying things that could end up destroying your company’s name and reputation online. You must focus on taking the entire conversation offline. Make concerted efforts to reconcile and diffuse the ugly situation. The way you conduct yourself online speaks volumes about your authenticity and dedication to customers.
Conclusion
You could take your business to the next level if you maintain a solid online reputation. Opt for proactive online reputation management so that you get positive online reviews and testimonials from customers.
Proactive online reputation management is going to cost you something to put in place, but it will save you some money in the long run if the nearly-inevitable.
