Your brand image is incredibly important. You certainly do not want people to type your business’ name into a search engine and for the first results to be something negative about your company. Reputation management is a way to ensure that this does not happen, while you make other potential customers aware of your company and what you are doing.

There are a lot of ways to ensure that you are bringing awareness to the public about what your business is. Following these tips will help you get to a point where you can outrank any negative attention that your business may have gotten and your online reputation will be restored. Doing the following steps involves a lot of hard work, but keep in mind that nine out of ten people find out about your business online. If you have not been managing your online reputation, you may have lost a lot of business without even being aware of it.
Managing your online reputation means that negative search results and comments about your company are not as visible as all the good things that are being said about you online.

A Quick Overview of Reputation Management

Reputation management involves three distinct steps. You need to build your reputation, maintain your reputation and sometimes repair your reputation. You already know that building your reputation involves associating yourself with your products, your customers and other companies. This is something that you also need to do online. It is just as important that you build links with associates and clients online as you have personally, perhaps even more, simply because of the huge reach that the internet has.
The following steps are ones that you need to take when it comes to building your reputation in the online world. Not doing so means that the way that your company image, brand and reputation may be taken out of your hands.

Building Your Reputation: The First Steps

The majority of online traffic comes from search engines. You are going to have to do a little bit of research to see where your company is at. Search for your name and see if there are some negative comments or reviews about your company.
Don’t worry too much if there are, since there are things you can do about this. Take a deep breath, read ahead and see how you can restore your company’s reputation.

Monitoring your company’s online reputation is something that you will have to do constantly. There are tools which allow you to keep track of what is being said about you online, in other blogs and in reviews. Using these tools can allow you to address anything particularly negative in a prompt manner and keep your reputation going strong.

It is also important that you establish your tone. The right tone could mean all the difference when it comes to connecting with potential customers. Your tone should fit with your company and what you are trying to do, so if you have a toy store, for instance, you may need to be family friendly, level headed and speak in clear and understandable terms. If your company sells scientific supplies, then you may need to be more specialized in your speech and your tone may be more academic. Whatever you decide on, the important thing is that this tone is consistent in all your online presence.

Social Networking Sites

It is extremely convenient for your customers and your associates to get in touch with you through social networking sites, so it is really important that you make yourself available. If you are not ready to create your social networking profiles yet, you may at least want to reserve your company’s name on the ones that you do plan to create.
You should do extensive research on which social networking sites you want to join. Many people opt for using only the popular ones, but you need to see which ones are good for you and work for your company. For instance, if you have a photography business you will definitely want a Flickr account. That might not be so appealing if you have a copywriting one. It is also important that you focus on those who you are trying to attract to your business. If you want to attract local customers, you may want to stick to the more traditional and popular social networking sites. If you want to attract people from different countries, you may need to do some research about which social networking websites are popular there.

The following is a list of some of the most popular social networks. It is not a comprehensive list, but it should be enough to give you a clear picture of how social networking sites are different and how you can take advantage of them.

LinkedIn is a professional social networking site. Companies need to have a Linkedin so that they can get in touch with contacts that they already have on a professional level. There are also Groups within Linkedin that allow for further networking and connections.

Facebook is the most obvious choice with over fifty million users in the world. It is widely used by companies and individuals around the world. You can make a personal Facebook and have a different page for your business. The two profiles are easily linked together, and you can use plenty of apps to enhance the users’ experience. Incentivize people to join by giving them exclusive discounts or announcing services. Your fans are more likely to share your website with their friends if there is something that they can directly gain from it. This obviously benefits your company.

Twitter is a huge micro-blogging site in which you can update your followers with a maximum of 140 characters. This website is a great platform for conversation and tweets are a great way to get in touch with your customer base. You can look up mentions of your business here and retweet them or try to start a conversation.

Google+ is a social networking site that is Google’s own creation. It is a feature rich website that is tied in with the quality of your business’ website; at least as far as Google’s search algorithm goes. It is also an easy way to connect with customers and associates.

YouTube is a website where you can share, store and view videos. There are many others, too. Vimeo and Ustream are nice alternatives to this. Videos are a great way to send traffic to your site and to give customers a little taste of the people that are behind the scenes. These videos can make all the difference in how the public perceives you and your company.

Flickr is a photo sharing website that allows integration on your blogs and other social networking sites.

There are many other social networking sites available and they all perform different functions. This is why it is important that you pick the right one that suits your company’s needs. You also need to ensure that you have enough time to manage all social networking profiles, so don’t just start opening accounts left and right. If you need to open more, you can do so in the future.

Once you have opened your social networking profiles, complete all of them. Pay attention to detail and include all the information you think is necessary, but do not go overboard. People can only take in a certain amount of information and you do not want to bore them so that they move on to something else.

Pick the best photograph you can for your profiles. It should be professional but it should not be stiff. It is important that you look smiling and welcoming, but not fake or goofy. You can change your photo later on, but attempt to keep it consistent through all the different social networks that you are on.

You should dedicate at least a few minutes a day to checking your company’s social networking page. Your social networking profiles will not serve their purpose unless you are interacting with your customers throughout the day.

Why Blogging Is Important

It seems like it was only a few years ago that everyone had a blog and they used it to vent frustrations and talk about their day. Corporate blogging has become more and more popular over the last few years and it seems to have overtaken this fad. This is because blogging is a great way to keep in touch with your audience and it is a great tool to counteract any negative publicity about your company.

Having a quality blog that you update often with relevant and interesting content can help push the content you have created to the top of the results in several search engines. The more positive content that you have, the less likely it is that your company will be affected by negative publicity.

Knowing how to blog is important. You can’t just put up all your thoughts whenever you want to. The content needs to be original, high quality and relevant to your client base. Remember that you are branding yourself when you blog so think of the image that you want to be associated with your company as you are writing your posts.

Blogging is a commitment and is not something you can just do a couple of times. You need to update your blog regularly so that you can strengthen your following.

It is important to choose the right platform to work on. There are many platforms and they all require a different level of technical expertise. Try to go for whatever seems simple and manageable to you, otherwise you may find that you have a difficult time blogging in general.

When you do blog, choose your topics wisely. They should all be related to what your company does and what you can do for your customers. If you know of something that your customers want you to address, then that might be a good idea. Watch for feedback from the community on social networking sites and take that into account before making your posts. You do not want it to feel artificial and this is a good way to start a conversation.

Find the right tone to blog in. Too formal and you run the risk of being boring, too informal and you may not get taken seriously. Be warm and friendly, but try and be as professional as you can. Remember that you are representing your brand so always think it through before you press that publish button.

You should take full advantage of your social networking profiles and promote any blog posts you make in them. You may be able to link your blog so that it updates your profiles automatically with a link.

Keeping Track of What Is Being Said About Your Company

There are many available tools to monitor what people are saying about you online. All of these tools have their advantages and disadvantages. Some overlap with each other, and some may be good for what you are trying to do, whereas others may not be a great choice. Some of these tools are free and others are professional grade, which means you will have to pay for them. Some people prefer to use many different free tools, whereas some prefer to use just one pro tool that does everything for them.

It is really important that you know what is being said about you online. It allows you to see how many people recognize your brand and how they are speaking about it. What they are saying, how often they are saying it and who they are saying it to are all important parameters that you need to take into account. You need to know how people talk about your brand so that you are able to manage your reputation.

The internet is a big place and everyone gets to participate in it. It is no longer about being able to advertise or publish something about your company, but rather about what other people say. You need these tools to see whether you are succeeding or failing in the eyes of the public. This can be done by monitoring everything that is said about you – you need to check social networking sites, blogs you may have never heard of, forums, IRC rooms, Youtube comments and many others.

This can be extremely time-consuming and a little bit intimidating to try and wrap your mind around. The internet is huge and you probably will not have time to track your brand name manually in all corners of it, so it is important that you use the tools which are available to you for this purpose. They can help make it a little more organized and cut down the amount of work that you have to do considerably which may help bring down your anxiety levels. There are many tools out there available to you and the following is only a mention of some of the most popular ones.