The times have changed and cover letters are no longer needed when applying for most jobs. Instead, applicants use a host of social channels, most recently TikTok, to capture the attention of hiring managers. Of course, social media is a two-edged sword when it comes to your job search since it is a widespread practice to check the social media accounts of every potential employee or business partner. Your social media presence helps define your brand and reputation. That’s why it is so important for you to manage your online reputation now before someone check for negative posts.
Below, you can find a guide to successfully manage your online reputation, ensuring that everything people find out about you online paints you in a favorable light, even if you never imagine something might hurt you far into the future. We positioned this in terms of managing your online reputation as a brand but you can follow similar strategies when managing your personal brand.
Managing your online reputation includes things like monitoring your social footprint, managing your reviews, or establishing an online reputation management strategy. Read on and make sure you have nothing to worry about later.
Manage your online reputation
Monitoring Your Social Footprint
The first thing you must do if you want to manage your online reputation is to monitor online mentions of your or your brand. This helps you discover negative information posted online about you in a timely manner when you can still limit the damage. You can use a few tools in order to accomplish this.
One of the most efficient tools for monitoring your footprint is Google Alerts. You can set up alerts for your name, business name, and brand name. Then, every time something publishes on the internet, you get an alert soon afterward.
You can use other social media monitoring tools in conjunction with this to keep track of what people say about you on social media sites, forums, and blogs. And don’t hesitate to post the best reviews on your website, just like other companies (for example, https://www.getweave.com/) to add a counterpoint to this negative information.
Finally, you can outsource this task to a reputation management company in order to make the process much easier. This way, you can focus on your direct tasks and leave monitoring your social footprint to the professionals.
Managing Your Reviews
Maintaining a high rating on websites like Yelp or TripAdvisor is extremely important for your business. When potential customers look for products and brands, many check these sites in order to see what other users think about the services or products offered by your business. Many times, these websites have more authority and engender greater trust than your website since they are more trustworthy and their reviews seem objective. These positive reviews act to negate some types of negative information about you or your brand.
If you do find some negative reviews about your business, it’s essential that you don’t attempt to remove them or argue with the reviewer as this makes the rest of your reviews suspect. Instead, reach out to the reviewer publicly to apologize for whatever failure they detected or demonstrate changes you made to keep the failure from reoccurring, and offer a solution to make them whole again. Such public engagement shows your brand cares about customers and goes a long way to negating the negative review.
Sometimes you run into trolls who are committed to hurting your brand even if you did nothing wrong. If the reviewer refuses to remove an inaccurate or unfair review, you can contact TripAdvisor or Yelp and tell them about the situation. They will often remove a review if it doesn’t fit their website rules.
Establish an Online Reputation Management Strategy
Once you learned how to manage your online reputation, it’s time to develop a strategy for building a positive one.
First of all, you need to determine which platforms are most important for your business and which ones have the most influence over your industry. Depending on your business, the leading platforms can vary. For example, if you own a hotel chain, then Facebook and TripAdvisor are likely your most important platforms. But if you’re trying to build a salon business, then Yelp plays a more vital role in your marketing efforts.
Make sure you have a presence on the most influential platforms and keep interacting with your potential clients via those accounts. By flooding these platforms with positive comments about your brand, you trivialize those few efforts to smear your reputation. If you don’t know where to start, go ahead and hire a reputation manager or an SMM specialist.
These professionals analyze your business and determine which social media networks are best suited for your needs. After that, they help you develop a strategy for managing these sites and increasing your chances of success.
Additionally, you can hire a professional photographer in order to get some better photos of yourself (or your employees). Do not hesitate to use products and services that help improve your online reputation even more. While a positive image is important for success these days, having photos on your website that are high quality and well-edited is even more crucial.
Make sure you never use stock images or outdated photos for any of your accounts. Always hire professionals or find ways to improve your personal photos instead.
Conclusion
Managing your online reputation is one of the most important things you can do for your business. It’s essential to make sure that the people who find you on Google or social media are familiar with your brand, products, and services – and good reviews that people leave on the web.
We hope that the tips mentioned in this article help you establish a positive social footprint and attract more clients to your business. Remember: don’t hesitate to hire a professional reputation manager if you need to. And good luck.
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