Reputation Management and Social Media

The right social media strategy manages your online reputation.

I recently came across a quote from Steve Dorfman, Founder of Driven to Excel, a company that helps businesses improve their customer experience. It said, “You can either affect your online reputation or be at the affect of it.” It brought up a great point:

When social media changed the landscape of what a company’s online presence should look like, it also changed the idea of reputation management as a whole. There’s no longer a trickle-down approach when it comes to a company’s interaction with their customers. Customers now have the power to tweet, retweet, share, and comment on anything your business says, does, or produces. And, the scary thing is that it’s easy to do and even easier for others to see.

Here are Five Keys to Managing Your Reputation Through Social Media

1. Claim your online space. As a company, you need to approach your online space like you’re a settler of the New World. You need to have a legitimate business presence on every social media outlet, from Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram to Twitter, Vine and Pinterest. If you don’t claim your space, you’re giving someone else the chance to do it.
2. Know your target audience. You have to know who your customers are and what they want, and then direct all of your content towards those people. Consistency is key. A random post or comment that doesn’t fall in line with your company’s “character” can be detrimental to your brand as a whole. What to know how to target multi-generational audiences? Read our blog, Target Market Analysis – Know Your Generation.
3. Interact with your customers intelligently. You have to be candid and sincere. If you aren’t, people will know it. Customers expect quick one-to-one interactions via social media. You have to respond to comments, especially negative ones, quickly and courteously. Ignoring a problem will just make it worse. Don’t be aggressive or defensive if someone has something negative to say; simply try to step in their shoes and craft a response that recognizes their issue and reacts to it in civilly.
4. Proactively monitor your business. If you don’t know what people are saying about you, then you can’t respond to it. There are many tools out there that troll social media sites for you and compile what’s trending about your business – the good, the bad and the ugly.
5. Combat the bad with SEO. Let’s be honest, no one is going to find something if it’s on the fourth page of Google. If you get your good, positive content front and center, then it’s less likely that someone will find the negative comment lurking on page four of Google, Yahoo or Bing.

A solid social media strategy is the best way to control your reputation. You can shape the way the public sees you and your business by merely influencing your online information. Like Steve says, if you don’t shape it yourself, then you are basically letting someone else do it for you - and that person may not be one of your biggest fans.

Conveyance Marketing Group is a marketing and web development company with a passion for delivering strategic, sustainable and affordable marketing and web solutions to start-ups and small businesses. Our service offerings include video, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), inbound marketing, graphic design, logo design, advertising and web design. Our creativity is limitless, let us help accelerate the growth of your company! Contact us today for more information on how we can help you.