Online Reputation Management: How to Maintain and Strengthen
By Cam Oyler
What is it and why is it important?
Trying a new restaurant, getting a roofer to work on your house, or a dependable lawyer are all examples of things that can be daunting in their own ways. When getting ourselves into these types of exploration, learning about what they are about and how successful they are make the difference between your decisions. Online reputation allows for the first-hand account of people who have used or purchased from a certain place or done business with someone. A company will always do their best to promote their business with the positives, but with sites like Yelp and Google My Business, an outside opinion is available and gives good advice and suggestions for future buyers. However, negative feedback or reviews aren’t the end of your business. Managing your online reputation will help retain the status of your business to where you need it to be.
Business News Daily defines online management reputation as, “the strategic monitoring and implementation of tactics to promote positive online content and suppress negative online content”. When someone is exploring a business, they should see the most positive information about your company, while the negative fades away.
An example of a Yelp review page
Ways to Manage Online Reputation:
Monitor Brand Mentions:
The most important aspect of knowing how people negatively feel about your product or business is seeing it for yourself. An article by Semrush states, “The longer it takes for you to respond to negative comments, the bigger the problem might be.” If a poor review of your product goes up, or possibly an allegation towards your company that if not addressed adequately and efficiently will hurt your overall business and image. Being on top of seeing these and addressing them will allow for the least impact to the business success.
Semrush recommends, “You can monitor your brand mentions by setting up a Google Alerts for your brand name. You’ll receive an email when new results for your chosen topic show up in Google Search.” This allows for immediate follow-up if something needs addressed as soon as possible. The ability to quickly respond to positive comments as well is a positive
Keep Information up to date:
When people decide to do business with you, having all the possible and correct information to get the best experience with your company is a must. If something about your business online is incorrect or outdated, that could lead your customer in the wrong direction and lead to a bad experience with you. An article by Hubspot says, “small businesses can make a huge impact just by being trustworthy and offering value to customers.”
Encourage Customer Reviews:
Avoiding customer reviews in fear of receiving negative feedback is something to avoid. Encouraging people to leave an honest review on your business will allow for positive comments that might influence someone to do service with you. Along with that, reviews on your business will increase how much your business is seen online. Semrush says, “they can also occupy real estate on Google. So, when someone searches for your brand, they will (ideally) see those positive reviews.”
Real-World Example:
We have seen examples in the past of businesses taking a large hit on their online reputation. One of those examples happened at TG, a gym in San Diego. A customer, Mark Hunter Jr, got into a dispute with an employee about re-racking weights. According to Hunter in a video he posted on TikTok, the employee was super disrespectful towards him and ended up terminating Hunters membership to the gym. After the video surpassed millions of views, the businesses review pages on Yelp and Google were flooded with people talking about the situation and the employee. The gym needed to make quick work of addressing the situation to the public and fixing their image. They failed to do so as Hunter met with the owner days later, where the owner admitted other issues with the employee, but no plan was made for action and the owner refused to reprimand Hunter or reinstate his membership. The reviews on the gym remain significantly lower than before Hunters video went viral.
In conclusion, everything that is said about your business can be taken into consideration when someone is deciding to support you. Maintaining a good online reputation is key in gaining new customers from their knowledge of what they see about your company online.
Works Cited:
“A Beginner's Guide to Online Reputation Management.” Semrush Blog, https://www.semrush.com/blog/online-reputation-management/.
“The Best Online Reputation Management Services of 2023.” Business News Daily, https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/7901-best-reputation-management-services.html.
Forsey, Caroline. “Reputation Management: How to Protect Your Brand Online in 2023.” HubSpot Blog, HubSpot, 21 Feb. 2023, https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/reputation-management.
Press-Reynolds, Kieran. “A Fitness Influencer Said He Was Unfairly Kicked out of a Gym and His Fans Are Now Spamming the Business with Hilarious Reviews.” Insider, Insider, 23 Feb. 2023, https://www.insider.com/fitness-influencer-mark-hunter-san-diego-gym-incident-viral-kicked-2023-2.