‘There’s No Such Thing as Bad Publicity’: Maintaining a Positive Brand Reputation Online

Customer leaving positive feedback for a business online: Image by Feedpik 

You may have heard the phrase “there’s no such thing as bad publicity”, and even though there may be some truth to that, it isn’t quite that simple. In order to use the public’s perception of your brand (no matter how good or bad) to your own advantage, you need to be following online reputation management best practices.  

What is Online Reputation Management?  

Online reputation management (ORM) is the practice of positively influencing the public’s perception of your brand online. This can either mean actively creating a positive image surrounding your brand, or quickly working to reduce any negativity around it. 

Proper online reputation management is very important to your brands overall success as it helps strengthen your relationships with customers, which in turn leads to increased sales.

Customer leaving a ‘recommend’ review on a brand’s website: Image by Feedpik

The 4 Key Tactics to Effective Online Reputation Management

Managing your online reputation can feel like a never-ending uphill battle, especially in periods of bad press, however, with the right tactics you will be able to successfully navigate any situation that arises.

After completing an initial online reputation audit, you should implement these 4 key tactics of effective ORM for your brand.

1. Stay Consistent Across Platforms

If there’s one thing customers appreciate, its consistency. Customers want to receive the same product, service, and experience wherever they encounter your brand.

Your brand’s reputation is built when your brand promise is consistently delivered with each customer interaction. Therefore, having inconsistent branding can lead to your brand’s reputation being damaged. To prevent this from happening, you should:

• establish a consistent tone of voice for your brand

• establish guidelines for communicating with customers

Going forward, you should use these guidelines and tone of voice when posting content and interacting with customers.

2. Effectively Manage a Crisis

Man stopping a crisis from progressing: Image by Feedpik

Once in a while, you brand might face a ‘crisis’, where an event or situation is threatening your reputation as well as the loyalty and trust of your customers. Not only can it harm your brand image, but it can also have a negative impact on your sales, and even lead to legal challenges.

By following these three steps, you can significantly minimize the impact of a crisis when it occurs:  

• Accept responsibility for your mistake

• Apologize sincerely to whoever was impacted by your mistake

• Take actions to prevent the mistake from happening again 

To easily recall these steps in times of crisis just think about the acronym ‘RAP’.

3. Encourage Online Customer Reviews

You may be under the assumption that encouraging reviews from your customers is a risky thing to do, and therefore something you should avoid, however, openly asking for your customers feedback can be very beneficial for your online reputation.

Having customers leave truthful reviews on websites like Google and Yelp can increase your brands online visibility and improve your brand’s ranking on search engine results pages (SERP’s).

If you want to increase the number of reviews that your brand receives you can start by:

• Making a call to action (CTA) with a link asking the customer to write a review.

• Responding to every customer review (in your consistent tone of voice) so that customers see you are listening and are there to support them.

• Offering a discount for completing a review, which is a great way to get more customers to click the link.

4. Respond and Learn from Negative Online Reviews

Upset customer on the phone trying to reach a customer service agent: Image by Feedpik

Sometimes customers are upset with their experience of your brand and this can lead them to write a negative review or send you angry emails. 

Regardless of how they express their dissatisfaction, here are some tips to help you deal with their negative online reviews: 

• Respond to the customers concern quickly. If you wait too long to respond, it can make the customer feel ignored.

• Respond empathetically to the customer’s concern. People like being understood and listened to and are more likely to act positively in return.

• You can learn from this customer feedback and tweak your product, service, or branding to ensure that your future customers are happy.

Now that you know these 4 useful tactics for managing your brands online reputation, you can start using them to your advantage today. If you have any questions about online reputation management or other digital marketing topics, feel free to reach out to me!