It’s no secret that we all live in a digital age. Most of us are glued to our smartphones and feel lost without them. When we’re out and about, we use our phones for social media more than we do to call people.
There’s no denying that today’s smartphones are a useful albeit sometimes annoying resource. Many of us even use our phones to leave reviews about places we visit. Examples include restaurants and retail stores.
As a business owner, you will no doubt want to build and grow your online reputation. But, how can you do so if you don’t know what people are saying about your company? And how can you handle both positive and negative comments online? Keep reading this handy cheat sheet to find out how!
Establish your brand online through popular mediums
The first thing you need to do is claim and establish your business name online. Perhaps the obvious thing to do is buy domain names related to your business name. You should use just one of them, and redirect the others to your primary domain.
It goes without saying that you should also establish a website on that domain! Also, don’t forget to use a tool like Google Analytics to track visitors to your website.
Next, you will need to sign up to various popular social platforms relevant to your brand. Most companies will have accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Brands often use other social networks too, such as Instagram and Snapchat.
Signing up to those platforms will help you to track what’s getting said about your brand. And it also means that you can better interact with your target audience.
Join the conversation
There was once a time where people would have about ten or more browser windows open. As you can imagine, it can become tedious to manage one’s online social network profiles.
Those days are long gone. With tools like Chatmeter around, it’s easy to keep a track of who is saying what about your business. All you do is set up such systems to track brand and product names, and they do the rest. Those systems will then highlight when you come up in conversation online. Plus, it will tell you how strong the “chatter” is!
Make sure your customer service doesn’t suck
Let’s say that the system you use tracks a complaint made by a few people. It might be to do with a specific function or element of what you offer. It’s your job to rectify the situation and show that you care.
The thing is, you can’t do that if your customer service is abysmal! That’s why it makes sense to ensure you have a decent support network. Many brands have online customer service agents that monitor and respond to comments online.
If you don’t have good customer service in place, negative comments online will grow. And that will lead to a negative reputation for your brand: and bad news for you!
Final thoughts
As you can see, it’s quite easy to build, grow and manage your online reputation. You just need to have the right tools and people at your disposal!