Most savvy business owners are aware that social media channels are rapidly eclipsing traditional media sources as the go-to sources of information for people looking for products and services. Consequently, the reputation of your business has become more important than ever before; a few words from an upset customer on a popular blog somewhere and your business could see real loss of income as people avoid clicking on your site when using search engines. Even if your business serves a local market, review sites like Yelp and Google+ Local ensure that disgruntled people are able to make their displeasure known to the general public.
So what can business owners do to protect themselves against these attacks, and preserve their online reputations? Here is a simple, three step plan you can follow that will help any business improve their brand reputation management, direct from a reputation management consultant:
1. Establish Profiles/Presence Everywhere
The first step in using social media for brand reputation management is ensuring that you are in a position to engage with it, no matter what platform it originates from. This means making sure that all of your contact information is up to date across all platforms, even if you don’t actively use them. Get on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, LinkedIn, literally anything you think current or potential customers may be interested in using to interact with you.
This step will also have the side benefit of improving your local SEO results, as your business contact information will be uniform across a large number of popular sites at the conclusion of the process.
2. Monitor Established Channels
Once you have established yourself across the different social media channels you have selected, you have to monitor them. Listening to what people have to say about your business, its products and services, as well as your company’s employees is key. Make sure that you establish procedures and protocols for dealing with complaints and negative publicity so as to diffuse any situation before it gets out of hand. If a customer has a legitimate complaint, don’t just apologize, take action. Find a solution to resolve the issue and then document it on the review site or social media. Odds are, the person making the complaint will appreciate the response and action you took and share it with their friends online.
3. Use Social Media to Promote Your Business
Once you have your brand reputation management under control through a solid presence on social media and consistent application of good policy, try to take things to the next level and have social media actually generate you some new revenue through brand loyalty or secure new clients. You can usually do so by offering incentives or discounts exclusively available over social media. Think up a few different incentives, and run some promotions, being careful to measure the ROI. You may be surprised; in many cases social media can actually deliver huge returns compared to more traditional advertising channels.
Following this simple three part plan should help businesses of all sorts achieve a much firmer grip on their brand reputation management. They can then focus on developing social media into a legitimate new revenue stream through smart promotion and investment in the future.
