“Perception is reality.”
We’ve all heard this cliché before, and, when it comes to your online reputation, it’s 100% true. No matter how great your business is, it only takes a few bad reviews to completely tarnish your online presence.
In fact, it’s estimated that it takes 40 positive customer reviews to negate the damage done by one single bad review! This just goes to show how important online personal reputation management is for all types of businesses.
If you want to proactively hack your online reputation, there are some things you can do to stay in. Take a look at these smart business reputation tricks that can help put you back on top of your game. Another option is finding a Personal reputation management to do the work for you.
Online Reputation Marketing vs. Reputation Management
Before we go any further, we need to take a moment to explain the difference between reputation management and online reputation marketing. Although these terms are often used interchangeably, they’re not the same.
While reputation management is basically making defensive moves after reviews come in, an online reputation marketing strategy takes an offensive approach. It involves incorporating your reviews into your marketing strategy.
With online reputation management, you’re constantly working on getting excellent reviews and actively using them to promote your business.
Reputation management is often used to repair a business’s online reputation after it’s already been damaged. On the other hand, online reputation marketing is focused on boosting your brand’s already good reputation. This will have an excellent impact on your brand image but isn’t designed to boost your search results.
When you implement this strategy, the marketing initiatives you employ will lead to more potential customers to start researching your brand. For this reason, you’ll need plenty of positive content on the first page of search results to support your image when they start to do their research.
Our Top 8 Online Reputation Marketing Tips
Now that we’ve made this important distinction, let’s take a look at some of the best online reputation marketing ideas. Put these into practice and you’ll start noticing a difference before you know it.
1. Proactively Seek Positive Reviews
First, you need to have plenty of good reviews for this strategy to work. It’s also been shown that the majority of consumers don’t put much faith in reviews that are more than three months old.
For this reason, this isn’t a “set it and forget it” type of strategy. You’ll need to make efforts to continually seek positive reviews.
2. Use Reviews in Email Campaigns
Whether you’re sending out a weekly newsletter or an occasional email drip, you’ll want to include some of your positive reviews in your marketing campaign. Use them as a footer in your email, turn them into graphics, or use your imagination to incorporate them in other creative ways.
3. Include Reviews on Your Website
If you’re not already incorporating positive reviews into your website design, you’re making a mistake. Tucking them away onto a “testimonials” page isn’t always your best strategy, either. Positive reviews are very powerful, so look for prominent locations to feature them.
4. Use Them as Social Media Posts
Social media is an extremely powerful marketing tool, so don’t forget to put your reviews on there! Use a tool like Canva to create professional-looking graphics that you can share on your profiles.
5. Put Your Reviews in Your Videos
Do you host a YouTube channel or regularly create videos? This is another excellent opportunity to get your reviews out in front of potential customers. You don’t have to overdo it, just one or two at the beginning or end is enough to get your point across.
6. Add Links to Review Sites Everywhere You Can
Do you have a ton of positive reviews on sites like Google, Yelp, or TripAdvisor? If so, you’ll want to include links to those sites everywhere you can! Put them in your social media profiles, add them to your email signatures, put them on your website footers, and more!
7. Handle Negative Reviews
So, you’ve got your system working and everything is going well – then you notice that you’ve received a terrible review! While you definitely don’t want to panic, you also shouldn’t ignore it.
Make sure to respond right away and do your best to resolve the situation to the customer’s satisfaction. Most reasonable people understand that you can’t please everyone, and if you can show that you went above and beyond to remedy the situation, this can sometimes work in your favor.
Beyond that, the best you can usually do is to ramp up your effort for getting more positive reviews in an effort to give the negative one less credibility.
8. Don’t Stop with Customers
Most companies focus on customer reviews, but, if you really want to maximize this strategy, don’t stop there. Positive employee reviews, for example, on sites like Glassdoor, will help you get certified as a “great place to work.”
Customers are more inclined to do business with companies that treat their employees well, so this holds more weight than you may think.
Corporate social responsibility (CSS) is another way to earn favor among potential consumers. Bill yourself as a “brand that cares” and you’ll earn plenty of favorable press. Save these articles and incorporate them into your website and other marketing materials.
Not only is social and environmental responsibility the right thing to do, but it can go a long way towards building your company’s online reputation.
Hack Your Business and Your Life
Now that you understand the basics of online reputation marketing, you’re ready to take control and start building up your brand!
Looking for even more tech and business hacks? Browse a few more of our blog posts!
Factors to Consider for Online Reputation Management