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Nowadays, managing your brand's online reputation correctly is more important than ever. As you know, today's customers are very demanding, very well informed and, before buying any product or service, they do prior research online to look for other users' opinions and compare the different options. That's why it's so important to have a good digital identity.
First of all, I would like to explain the difference between image and brand. We could say that the brand image is the psychological-emotional dimension that others have of your brand, what it transmits to them. While the brand itself or identity is the set of visual elements that represent your brand.
A bad online reputation is very damaging to the brand and, furthermore, very difficult to correct. That is why it is much better to focus your efforts on managing the digital reputation crisis in the most correct way in online marketing. Do you want to know how to do it and how to measure reputation? In this article we will tell you. But first, let's see what it is exactly.
Page Contents
1. What is online reputation?
2. Difference between online reputation and brand image
3. How does online reputation influence your brand?
4. Keys to correctly managing online reputation
5. Online reputation management: online reputation tools
6. What solutions to take in case of negative reviews
1. What is online reputation?
You've probably heard a lot about how important online reputation is. But are you clear on what it is? It's a concept that is sometimes misunderstood or simplified. It goes far beyond the opinions your users have about you.
Online reputation is the set of elements that constitute the prestige of a brand on the Internet. These are basically grouped into:
Internal factors: These are the digital actions you carry out from your own brand, such as creating content on your website or blog and posting on social media. Therefore, they depend on you.
External factors: These are the opinions that users express on forums and social networks and which, therefore, are beyond your control.
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2. Difference between online reputation and brand image
These two concepts are often confused, so we want to clarify that they are not the same. The main difference between them is that brand image refers exclusively to those actions that are under our control, that is, to what we have called internal factors, such as advertising actions and messages.
However, online reputation, in addition to these, also includes the opinions, comments and publications of third parties about our company.
3. How does online reputation influence your brand?
Your brand's online reputation is critical to the growth of your business. If it is positive, it results in loyalty and trust from consumers, and this results in increased conversions, which is ultimately your main objective. Nowadays, competition between brands is very high, which is why taking care of your online reputation has become a priority. Keep in mind that your brand's online presence is constant. It is active on social networks, forums or search engines 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
One of the keys to a positive presence is for your brand to have authority. Well, authority is directly related to online reputation . If this is well managed, your website will be a reference in its sector, and will attract a good flow of organic traffic. On the contrary, a bad online reputation will drastically reduce its authority and result in the loss of customers. If the website is well positioned in Google results but has negative reviews, many users will not access it. You probably do this yourself. As consumers, we place a lot of importance on the experiences of other people. The same thing happens when someone searches for information about a company by typing its name into Google and, in most of the results, critical opinions about it are shown.
Obviously, this has a very negative impact and represents a major problem for any brand. On the contrary, a well-managed online reputation will give you brand authority and better positioning in search engines, as well as trust from your customers.
4. Keys to correctly managing online reputation
As we have seen, we cannot control the external factors that make up our digital reputation , that is, the opinions that third parties post about our company on the Internet. But, luckily, what we can do is implement strategies focused on ensuring that these opinions are positive so that they generate a good online reputation for our brand. Do you know how to improve your online reputation? Below we give you the keys that you must put into practice if you want to keep it in optimal shape:
4.1 Be transparent
Consumers value transparency. It generates trust and projects honesty on the part of the brand. Therefore, whenever you can, publish statistics or data that may be of interest to your audience. You can also use social media to show images of your daily life or your work method. Your followers will see that your brand is close to you and this will generate empathy with them.
4.2 Take great care in your dealings with the customer
Customers are your priority, so you must do your best to try to satisfy them. Be quick and efficient in your responses when users contact you through online forms to ask questions, and always be available. In the event of possible complaints, be receptive and express your point of view in a polite manner. Customer support and attention is one of the aspects that users value most when deciding on one company or another.
4.3 Take advantage of negative opinions
Nobody likes to receive criticism or negative comments, but you should accept them as something positive when they are constructive, as they contain essential information to help you improve aspects of your business that may be failing. Therefore, pay close attention to negative opinions and see them as an opportunity to correct what is not working.
4.4 Add testimonials and comments
As we have been saying, nowadays users value the positive opinions of other consumers and, in fact, they are often the trigger that makes them choose one brand or another. That is why it is important that if you offer a service, you enable a testimonials section on your website or through Google My Business .
4.5 Work on your SEO
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is essential for the belgium telegram phone number list visibility of any online business. If you are not present where users are looking for you, you will easily be overtaken by your competition. It is also a great ally for your brand's online reputation, as it will help your audience access the content they are interested in.
4.6 Do content marketing
Content marketing consists of generating valuable content for your users, focused on capturing leads . Thanks to this marketing strategy, awareness of your brand and your product or service will increase and you will be able to position your company as a reference on those topics in which your audience is interested.
The content you generate can be of different types: whitepapers, blog articles or audiovisual content, among many others. You should focus on working on those that best fit the profile of your buyer persona .
At the NothingAD agency we carry out inbound marketing strategies ; if you have not yet heard of this term, we recommend our article: Benefits of inbound marketing in your business.
4.7 Take care of your web development
A well-built and user-friendly website is essential for a good user experience , something that will undoubtedly influence their opinion of your brand.
In addition, it will improve the bounce rate, which will also have an impact on your website's positioning. It is important to keep a close eye on the Google Search Console tool, because it allows us to see if the website has coverage problems or any other type of problem in order to resolve it as soon as possible.
4.8 Good social media management
This is one of the most important aspects of your brand's online reputation . Social media is a great tool to connect with your customers. You don't need to be on all of them, as this can make you lose focus, but only on those where your audience is.
Keep in mind that social media management is much more complex than it may initially seem, which is why it is important that the person in charge of this task is qualified and has knowledge of its business-oriented use.
4.9 Don't forget to cultivate your online reputation
Online and offline reputation are interconnected. For this reason, good management of a company's online reputation also requires taking offline reputation into account. Although both operate in different areas, they feed off each other and together form a whole.
For example, in the event of a brand reputation crisis, it can easily move from one area to another, so it is preferable to address both
