Step 1: Monitor And Manage Your Online Reputation

Why Do You Need To Monitor And Manage Your Online Reputation?

Are you trying every trick in the book to keep afloat in this economy?

Don’t worry… you are NOT alone.

Customers and prospects are clutching their wallets more than ever trying to make ends meet. This is why it’s so important to do everything you can to ensure that your business reputation is kept “clean.”

What does this mean?

As you know, people who have had a bad experience with a business are quick to go online and vent to the world about it. Frustrated consumers are MUCH more likely to write a review and use this as an outlet for their frustration than satisfied customers. When they do, this has a major impact on the business ability to generate new customers.

One of the main reasons most people research products or services online before purchasing is because they want to see what other people are saying and if they have had  problems with a product or service.

Just ask yourself – do YOU contact businesses who have bad reviews posted online? Imagine how much potential business you could miss out on if someone posted bad reviews about your business… (By the way – you can calculate the exact amount of
lost business you will experience if you lose only ONE customer per month this way by using our “Customer Lifetime Value Calculator“)

So as a business owner, it’s extremely important to stay on top of what’s being said about you online.

The advent of the Internet has shifted the power balance towards consumers – they have gained a much stronger and instant influence on the market. What’s said about you and your business on the Web can dramatically affect you personally as well as your company, both positively and negatively.

But do you constantly monitor your name, the name of your business, your products and even your employees in Google, Facebook, Twitter, and all the other thousands of search engines, online directories, social media and customer review sites out there on the web? And if so, do you have a routine to do this every day?

If not, this is a MAJOR profit leak.

Let’s say someone was actually giving you bad reviews online… there are ways to fix it. But if you don’t even know about it, those reviews could be killing your ability to get new customers and you don’t even realize it.

If you don’t have a regular routine of checking in, people might be talking about you behind your back without you knowing. Wouldn’t you want to be aware of the looming threats and reputation attacks on your business?

You Need An Alarm System

You need to keep an eye on what is being said about you online. But since it is virtually impossible to do this manually, you need an Internet monitoring service that regularly scans the Internet, collects all the information into an easy to digest overview, and notifies you whenever your name is mentioned on the Internet. This way, you can react immediately when something gets published about you – be it good or bad.

If you always know what is going on on the Internet, you can react quickly if problems arise and straighten them out before they damage your reputation for good. Or you can reply and thank users for leaving a positive review. This is the easiest way to build a positive reputation – simply by demonstrating that you care, that you are on top of things and by reinforcing the positive reviews that you already have.

Would You Like To Know What Is Currently Being Said About Your Business On The Internet? Then Request Your PERSONAL Review Analysis! It’s FREE!

Step 2: Build And Protect Your Online Reputation

Why Do You Need To Build An Online Reputation And Protect It?

The Internet has changed the way we do business. Even if you are not concerned with ecommerce, the Internet can have a dramatic impact on your personal and your business’ reputation. Nowadays you can search just about any of your friends, find out what they did last weekend and who they did it with. You can find photos, videos and much more from the comfort of your own home. Not only can you do this with friends, but with businesses, too.

Want to find a great Chinese food place? Do a quick search on Yelp.com or Yellowpages.com and within seconds you will have pages of results, all with reviews posted by current or ex-customers. Within seconds you will get an impression and possibly make long-term decisions about a business that you may have never even seen, except for a picture on a computer screen.

While this advance in technology has allowed us to connect on a level never before possible, it has also brought with it a laundry list of detriments. The problem isn’t the technology itself, but the speed with which it enters our lives.

The Internet Has Turned Into The American Wild West Of Old

The expansion of the Internet is outrunning and outgunning law enforcement, social norms and ethics. Anybody with an internet connection and a keyboard can say anything they want, about whomever they want, yet likely never have to face any type of criminal punishment.

Imagine a world where it was possible for a major corporation to send a single email to YouTube, forcing them to remove 50,000 videos due to copyright infringement. While in that same world, if someone were to post a scandalous video of you or your family, you would have no legal power to remove it. Seems like an unfair and lopsided world, doesn’t it? Welcome to the current Internet age that we live in.

Hackers, angry customers, competitors, ex-spouses, disgruntled ex-employees, stalkers, bored teenagers, and other malicious types are all able to take advantage of the loopholes in legal protection that should be protecting businesses and everyday people alike from fraudulent, slanderous and sometimes violent communication on the web.

Unfortunately, the law has lagged behind the expansion of the Internet. Just like those pioneer towns of the American Wild West, we as Internet users and businesses must find a way to keep our businesses, reputation and livelihoods safe from others.

What Can You Do To Protect Your Online Reputation?

While there isn’t much you can do to prevent ill-meaning individuals from slandering and spreading their lies if they really want to, there are quite a few things you can do to keep the damage small. Even if individuals are much less determined to destroy your reputation (or even your business or your family), a negative review that is posted just for fun, or from a temporary frustration, can hurt your reputation just as much. Luckily, there is something that you could do to protect your business from those negative customer reviews.

The first step is to implement a system that lets you build a history of positive and supportive customer reviews to simply outnumber the negative ratings.

Where There Is Rain, There Is Rainbows. And In This Case, There IS A Pot Of Gold Waiting For You!

Not everything about this development is bad.

Customer reviews can increase your online credibility and sales tremendously. They are the best type of advertising you can possibly get.

AND IT IS ALL FREE!

All you have to do is to find a way to get your satisfied customers to take action and let the world know that they are happy with your products and services.

Many entrepreneurs traditionally rely on word-of-mouth from customer recommendations to grow their business. Some don’t even advertise because they have built a loyal and stable customer following over many years. This concept worked in former times and it still works today. But remember what we said about the speed of the Internet? With the right strategy and technology, you can leverage this speed and accelerate your word-of-mouth marketing by tapping into the growing network of Internet contacts that your customers have nowadays. What formerly took many years, can now be achieved in just a few months.

It’s In Your Hands – Will You LOSE Business Or GAIN Business?

This is the positive side of this new development on the web… Social media and review sites are very popular. They can funnel a lot of traffic to your website and bring in new customers. While it is true that negative reviews and ratings can burn down your reputation in no time, it is also true that they have the power to uplift your business to new heights. All you need is the right type of strategy and a good toolkit.

Just think about it – whom would YOU call? A business with lots of positive reviews, a business with several negative reviews or a business with no reviews at all?

Actually… there IS a way to achieve all these goals. To learn more about how to multiply your customer recommendations, get more reviews and better ratings, while reducing negative ratings, simply give us a call!

Step 3: Market And Control Your Online Reputation

Why Do You Need To Market And Control Your Online Reputation?

Until a few years ago, entrepreneurs and their marketing specialists determined how they wanted to present their company in public and in the media. But since the advent of the Web2.0 with it’s user generated content, social media, communities and customer review sites, users gain more and more control over the publicity of any company. Consumers are talking with their peers about products or services on the Internet, for everyone to see. This not only directly influences buying decisions but a company’s public image as well.

This is why it is important to develop an Online Reputation Management strategy that allows you to ACTIVELY influence what people read about your business on the Internet.

Don’t Lose Control! If YOU Don’t Take Control Over Your Online Reputation – Your CUSTOMERS Will Do!

In other words… Online Reputation Management is also about gaining back control about your public image. A properly executed and advanced Online Reputation Management campaign puts you back into the driver’s seat.

Don’t let just anybody determine the faith of your company! YOU need to steer your business success and your public image.

How Can You Take Back Control?

Online Reputation Management has several components.

1. Step 1: Monitor & Manage
   You need to track any publications about a business and respond to them in a timely and professional manner.
2. Step 2: Build & Protect
   Implement a system that catches unhappy customers before they turn to the Internet and encourages satisfied customers to publish positive reviews on a website that you or an ORM agency controls.
3. Step 3: Market & Control
   Your positive customer reviews are your best marketing assets. You can use them to control what people will find when they are searching for your business name in the search engines.

Dominate The Search Engines…

While getting a lot of positive reviews and bury the negative ones with them is a good strategy for the review sites, it might not be enough to keep the negative reviews out of the search engine results. When people are looking for your business they still can find those pesky negative reviews in the search result pages.

So if you are unable to get a negative review RE-MOVED, you still have the option to MOVE it. In this case this means moving a listing further down on the search engine results pages (SERPs). If you get enough first-page listings of your own website and profiles to dominate the first page, then you can literally “push” the negative reviews further down in the list and kick them off the first page. 

This doesn’t mean the negative review is gone… It’s just so that  very few customers will really click through to the second or third page when they do a search. In other words – you have pushed the negative reviews “out of sight”.  Remember, 95% of all searchers will never go past the first page.

… And CRUSH Your Competition!

This uses the same principles of search engine optimization that you would use to attract more traffic to your website. However the approach is different. You not only want to get the TOP position but your goal is to block the COMPLETE first page of Google.

This also means that no other competitor has a chance to get any traffic from the search engines for the keywords that you are dominating! You would get almost the complete search engine traffic and thus all the customers. This is almost as if your business would be the only listing in the Yellow Pages…

It might well be that the drama of  finding negative reviews could turn into a strike of luck. You might have to invest thousands of Dollar for Online Reputation Management, but the result might not only be a restored reputation but more traffic to your website and more customers than ever!

The First Online Reputation Management Mistake

Unfortunately, business owners make one common mistake… They mistake Online Reputation Managers with fire fighters and only call them when their house is already burning! Only AFTER their reputation is already damaged by negative comments and reviews, they call for help.

This is a huge mistake.  You should implement Online Reputation Management not only to “fix” problems, but as an integrated part of your marketing strategy. Otherwise you will be leaving A LOT of money on the table if you don’t provide social proof. If you haven’t done so already, download our free report “Word-of-Mouth 2.0” to learn how you can use Online Reputation Management to get more customer referrals and recommendations. This is a totally different approach than to call for help in case of emergency.

You can imagine Online Reputation Management more in the sense of  “Online Brand Management” rather than “Reputation Repair”.

Show Your Best Face Forward

To ensure that your customers will find only positive content about your business when they search for it on the Internet, you can spread information about your business all across the Internet and establish an online PRESENCE – and not just a website. You can use the positive reviews you have built in step 2 (Build & Protect) and use them for the following channels:

– Social Media
– Press Releases
– Articles, reports, tutorials, ecourses, whitepapers or PowerPoint presentations
– Review commercial videos (for your own website as well as on YouTube and other video sites)
– In your printed promotion materials like flyers, brochures, business cards
– On your website
– In your business conversation (quotes, invoices, emails etc.)

This is a pro-active approach to Online Reputation Management that is very similar to traditional advertising and marketing. This strategey allows you to show your best face forward, establish yourself as an expert and the go-to company in your area, and lets you stay in control how your company is being presented on the Internet and perceived by your customers and business partners.

This is the right strategy if you need to recover your online reputation. Pushing negative publications out of the top Search Engine Result Pages allows you not only to stay in control of your public brand image, it also shields your business against negative reviews. But the best strategy is to focus on customer satisfaction and to catch and remedy negative reviews BEFORE they happen.