Marketing has never been easier with the help of the internet. Companies can now easily reach a targeted audience to deliver products, services and information. In the same way, clients can also easily find products and services with the help of the search engines. This freedom and convenience brought by the internet has also created some serious concerns for reputation marketing departments.
Whether legitimate or not, nowadays anyone can create negative reviews on the internet which could tarnish or even ruin any business reputation. If a negative blog or comment gets indexed by search engines, it is only a matter of time before it is seen and a bad image of that business is created. Reputation management is a proactive approach to protect the publicly held opinion of a business from negative internet publicity. Here are some of the proven and tested ways to handle online reputation business relations.
Solicit Positive Reviews
Online reviews are popular because most people turn to reviews before purchasing any service or product, a need that is met through the convenience of the internet. The problem is that there are reviewers who dwell on negative experiences and opinions, which can be handled by proactively promoting positive reviews.
Instead of waiting for negative reviews to surface somewhere on the internet, have a specific page set for receiving positive reviews. Ask satisfied clients to detail that experience about the service or product and post it on a review or testimonials page. This will show that a business is getting feedback and provide a means to show a business’ reputation in a positive light.
Handle Complaints Offline
Having an online review portal doesn’t always deliver positive customer comments. It can be used as a means for complaints to be registered and vented. At such times, the most important way to protect a company’s image is to deal with such issues offline.
Handling negative publicity online could just attract more interest and actually encourage more negative remarks. Everything on the internet is indexed by the search engines, so a negative conversation with an online customer is going to be indexed as well and made available for online reading. Deal with this kind of problem by courteously asking the other party to settle the issue through email or telephone.
Monitor the Internet
Bad online reviews can appear just about anywhere, so it is vital to monitor such comments and rapidly determine the source, which can be done through Google alerts or other similar software. Such an application constantly monitors the internet for content, topics and discussions with certain business keywords.
The software will then send an alert via email if it detects anything needing review. Monitoring the internet is important because it offers the capability to deal with issues before it gets worse and minimize any potential damage effect and reduce the need to clean up negative publicity.
Deliver Positive Content
Search engine ranking is a valuable way to establish and protect a business or individual reputation; correct usage requires delivering positive and optimized content regularly. The objective is to occupy the top 10 listings with at least three links to content that will strengthen a business’ positive regard and ranking.
Protecting the way in which a business is perceived is important in the achievement of internet success because it is clearly documented that the majority of internet users consider reputation and reviews as a main factor in choosing a product or service. Hopefully this article has provided helpful information regarding the effective ways to handle reputation marketing with a global internet exposure!
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