How to Repair Your Online Reputation: Effective Reputation Management Strategies
A business’ online reputation is the collective equivalent of all its mentions online. That includes online reviews, results from search engines, and user conversations on social media. If you have several positive reviews with customers singing your praises on Twitter, your business has an excellent online reputation.
On the other hand, an overwhelming number of negative feedback, reviews, and mentions will tank your online reputation. It’s important to note that even the companies with the most positive profiles have negative reviews. This is totally normal.?
But when the majority of your reviews are negative - or even damaging, you’ll need to launch an online reputation management strategy. And quickly before your business suffers irreparable damage.
In this article, we’ll get into all the ways a bad online reputation can affect your business’ growth, sales, and overall health. We’ll also share effective strategies you can use to positively reverse your reputation online for good.
What are the effects of a damaged reputation?
A poor online reputation doesn't just spread the bad word about your brand and business. It can gradually affect your business processes, from sales to employee loyalty. Here are three major ways that a poor online reputation affects your business.
Fewer customers and reduced sales
90% of people will read about a brand before doing business with it, which means that your bad online reputation could repel potential customers. The severity depends on the type of negative reviews your business has online.
If customers are complaining about a specific product, this may only affect this particular service. But if your poor online reputation focuses on customer service, poor hygiene or lack of value for money, most potential buyers will steer clear.
Feedback loop of brand distrust
In a 2015 study , researchers found that people in a social group are likely to distrust a brand if others in their group distrust it as well. According to the study, “it’s in close friends' interest to help each other out and provide feedback. [As a result]? the information is seen as more reliable than many other forms of information.”
The summary is that a bad online reputation can lead more people to dislike your brand, even if they’ve never interacted with you. The fact that people they trust or relate to left you a negative review is enough for them to steer clear of your business.?
Loss of current and potential employees
A bad online reputation can chase away potential employees because nobody wants to work for a disliked brand. It’s the same way that thousands of applicants flock to Google and Apple – they have a stellar reputation, and people want to work with them.
According to Glassdoor, a bad reputation can affect the employees you already have. 84% of employees will consider leaving your company if they received a job offer from a business with a better reputation online.
Top ways to repair online reputation
When left unchecked, a bad online reputation becomes a vicious loop that feeds itself until much of your target audience distrusts or dislikes your brand based on your reputation.?
Thankfully, you can use online reputation management strategies to reverse that process. These six processes to repair your brand reputation can make a huge difference to your perception.
1. Focus on getting more positive reviews
A few negative reviews won’t matter if you have lots of positive feedback. So one of the best keys to managing your online reputation is to gain more positive reviews.?
There are multiple ways to automate your review generation process and gain more online reviews. The easiest is to use a review generation platform.
Review generation platforms can integrate with your customer management systems so that customers receive a prompt after completing a transaction with your business. You can also use the customization options to ask specific questions that lead the customer to post a positive review.
For example, instead of “Please share your experience,” you could say, “Tell us what you loved most about our service.”
Even if you don’t use a review generation platform like EyeRate, you can still gain more reviews and fix your reputation online by simply asking customers. Studies show seven out of ten customers will leave online reviews when asked (BrightLocal ).
领英推荐
2. Address negative reviews ASAP
Promptly responding to negative reviews is critical to online reputation management. When done right, this strategy can do everything from improving your Google search results to attracting new reviews from satisfied customers.
One way to go about this is to comment on negative reviews and offer to make amends with the customer. Doing this will help you kill two birds with one stone.?
First, you could win back that unhappy customer by resolving this issue - giving you another chance at improving your rating.?
Secondly, people tend to trust brands that respond to negative online reviews because it shows they care.
Keep in mind that there's nothing you can do about all your negative reviews. Some people may just not like your service.?
But there is a category of negative review that might be in your power to remove. These may be fake, unreasonable, or posted by a competitor. If you think you have been subjected to malicious or fake reviews, you can try taking the reviews down. To do this, contact the review platform, make your case, and present evidence.?
Many review sites have recommendations for taking down fake reviews (Google , Trustpilot , Yelp ). Follow these to the letter to increase your chances of success.
3. Use positive reviews in your marketing
Since a bad reputation can spread to people who have never used your brand, a good one can spread in the same way. The best way to accomplish this is to share your positive reviews everywhere.?
Focus on using reviews from trusted individuals like well known business owners, celebrities, influencers, public figures, and high-level executives if you have them. Use these reviews to highlight how your product/service delivers an amazing experience.
This level of social proof can be invaluable, especially in our social media driven world.
4. Increase your online presence
Another effective way to repair your online reputation is to get in front of more people. This could include starting a blog and creating profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms.
Update these regularly with new content that highlights your brand and what it does for your customers. This way, people who are researching you will find your content in their search results or social media feeds and see your business in a positive light.?
Additionally, you could also gain loyal brand followers who are attracted to the content you share.
5. Boost employee motivation
Several studies have shown that employee motivation is critical to customer satisfaction. Employees are more approachable, friendly, and effective at their jobs when they are pleased and adequately compensated.
Happy employees means happy customers, which then leads to positive reviews and an improved online reputation. Boost employee motivation by encouraging innovation, involvement, and rewarding effort, and you’ll see your online reputation improve.
6. Keep a close eye on your mentions online
It’s a good idea to monitor how your business is being discussed online and how it affects your online reputation, so you can create a fluid strategy that adapts to and addresses any issues as they develop.
Google Trends is a great free tool that can help you here. You’ll receive alerts when conversations about your brand spike, and you can either harness or mitigate the results.
To learn more about how you can take control of your online reviews, check out “The Online Review Playbook”: