Protect your online reputation

The digital dark arts and the threat they pose to your online reputation is very real. From an Online Reputation Management (ORM) standpoint, it’s not just old social media posts and outdated online content you need to concern yourself with. 

Review sites can be undermining your brand confidence, bot accounts can spread misinformation about you and your brand, the dark web is a hot-bed for sensitive company information, and phishing emails are targeting company directors with the sole intent of gaining access and causing chaos across search results. 

Online threats have a real-world impact on your business and your bottom line.  So, how do you start to fight back? 

Where to start with your online reputation

In modern business, your online identity and digital reputation are everything. Making sure you are putting your best foot forward and producing positive digital content that well represents your business is crucial.   So too is being aware of all the threats to your online reputation that are out there and working to mitigate them.   It helps to think of your online presence as a garden, and the first page of your Google search results is the flower beds. This is where your prized assets belong. But, don’t neglect the bushes in the back. Reputationally damaging content can be lurking here. This content needs to be found and weeded out.   This is online reputation management in a nutshell.  

Scrutinise your stakeholders' online presence  

Like it or not, the online presence and reputation of your leadership have a direct impact on your operations.  Business leaders are now heavily scrutinised through their corporate and personal online platforms. It’s therefore important to audit your entire stakeholder ecosystem, locating any reputational risks that may arise, to prepare you for any and all eventualities.   Because the C-suite and stakeholder community now comes with greater online visibility, the risk of negative exposure is increased. 

Be aware of your detractors  

Unfortunately, there is a lot of negativity on social media and it can have the potential to damage your brand’s reputation. This could be an individual or a group of online users with an agenda against your brand. Whatever the reasoning, any agendas or negativity, it is important to be aware of brand detractors, even if what they are writing is hard to read.  

Mapping out your brand detractors, working out whether they are bot accounts or real users, will give you a benchmark to work from.  

From here you can either address the issues with an active community management approach or respond to negativity in earnest. It is also possible to actively participate in mediation with detractors, but this kind of activity should always be taken offline, or at least not in the public domain.

Don’t disregard online reviews 

The headline says it all. One of the first things your target audience looks for when interested in purchasing products and services is your online reviews in Google search. 

Your potential customers are looking to understand more about your business, and reviews will sway the decision-making process.  

• 90% of people are influenced by online reviews. 
• 89% of consumers consider reviews before visiting a business. 
• 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. 
• 72% of consumers say positive reviews make them trust a business more. 
• Consumers are likely to spend 31% more money at a business with excellent reviews. 
• The average business on Google has 39 reviews. 

Positive reviews are worth a huge amount as they significantly increase your brand’s trust and with that an increase in brand loyalty. Personal recommendations will influence a potential new customer, while unhappy customers will look for platforms where to share their negative experiences.   

Reacting positively to negativity  

How you react to negative reviews is so important, because the right response to a negative review can change the perception of your business. 96% of consumers who read online reviews will also read that business’s response. A business that is seen to be responding and reacting to online negativity will, in the long-term, endear more brand trust and loyalty.  

Monitor novel social media channels  

New social media channels are constantly being created. It wasn’t long ago that no one had heard of TikTok and now it’s a household name with over one billion active users. New channels present new opportunities to communicate with your audience, but they can also pose a reputational risk if you aren’t aware of them, and how your brand is represented within them.  

Being aware of these channels, even if you are active in them in a day-to-day sense, gives you a more holistic view of your online reputation. 

Decide your key search terms   

Google is the gateway for consumer interactions, and in most cases, it is the ‘first impression’ of your business. Knowing what users are searching to find your company is a pre-requisite, and where many companies go wrong is only concerning themselves with core keywords. 

Whilecore keywordsare important, they shouldn’t be the sole focus of a search engine results page (SERP) review. When creating a SERP plan, consider how your ranking complementary keywords that dovetail nicely with your services and core keywords. And make sure that when people are searching for ‘businesses near me’ that your Google listings have up-to-date location information. 

Knowledge is power  

The internet’s memory is infinite and that can be a scary prospect for business owners. But this is the reality and the world we work in now;it means that reputation management is so much more complex than it used to be.  

Ultimately, the more you know the better; knowledge really is power in this situation. The more you know about how your brand’s online reputation is represented the easier you can arm yourself to protect your reputation and your search results.