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Talk to most entrepreneurs, they will likely stress the importance of a website, the customers, or your social media strategy. But not many may consider another side of business: your own reputation.
Reputation management is something not many people bring up. It’s rather unusual because out of everything in your business, your reputation is the most important and vital part of your business. That much is clear when you consider the following reasons I’ve listed below.
Improves Search Engine Ranking
Your reputation is obviously what other people think about you and your business. As such, it plays roles in all kinds of ways. Thanks to the internet, reputation now is a sort of hidden factor in SEO practices.
Think about. Every day, people have the opportunity of rating your business fro 1 to 5. They can write all kinds of posts on social media, on a blog, or on various official pages. Many people look at those and make all kinds of decisions.
I’ll get to those decisions in a bit, but in terms of SEO, algorithms are made to reveal some of the best reviews and comments of a particular establishment. In other words, if the business has tones of positive reviews, those will be served up whenever you Google the company’s name.
Boosts Trust And Credibility Amongst People
Getting back to customers they make crucial decisions based on our reputation. How other people perceive our business will determine the attitude of other people. After all, you are less likely to buy someone’s product or service if you heard the company cuts corners or has a weaker product or service than others.
At the end of the day, this is similar to word of mouth marketing. If people love what you do, you’ll get plenty of good customers (or clients). Your trust will be solidified and you’ll be able to thrive.
If people dislike what you do, you’ll get nothing but crickets and your business will crumble.
Greater Revenue
This one goes without saying but you can enjoy higher profits when you have good reputation management. It’s fair to say that we as consumers buy based on our emotions and our needs. You won’t buy a drill so you can get some nails. You’re buying a drill so you can make a hole and finish up a project.
All the same, you’ll favour one particular company’s drill over another. Even if they are exactly the same, we will naturally gravitate to one company’s over another. All because we have more trust or see the company in a more positive light than others.
This applies to every company out there amongst a variety of other factors. But above all it’s based on that trust.
All of this translates to greater revenue because if more people see you in a positive light than other similar products, people will naturally lean towards your good and services over others.
It’s Easy To Grow It
Reputation management may seem like a time consuming thing. While everything I’ve listed to this point sounds great, it can take several months or a year to see these efforts pay off. While this can discourage people, I will say that while the process can be long, the actions taken are minimal.
In fact they will hardly get in the way of your business when done properly. All that you need to do is practice these following two steps:
- First you listen and learn. In this day and age, many of the products and services we offer are work in processes. Even the big companies who have been in business for years are in this same boat.
Those companies are still relevant because they listened to their customers and learned from them. Thanks in part to social media, people can better voice their opinion and thoughts of trends and companies can adapt to those changes.
- Second, you implement. Once you have gathered information on peoples thoughts (either through focus groups, social media, or other methods), the next thing is to implement these changes.
Make a point of discussing issues up front. Make blog posts or social media posts about these issues. You want to be judging how people feel about these changes as you go so you know whether your efforts are going the right way or not.
Interaction Is Part Of Reputation Building
Everything that you say and do is crucial. How you engage with reviews and customers is key and will shape the persons view forever.
Even in cases where the person had a bad experience, having a good PR practice and talk to the person can be insightful and helpful. By talking to them you can turn an otherwise bad view of your business into a softer one. Even if they didn’t like your service or product the fact you went out to talk to them means something.
Building Brand To Fend Off False Sites
The beauty of the internet is that anyone can make a website these days. The problem is that literally anyone can make a website. With millions upon millions of domain names available, someone can easily make a website to copy yours and create a “fake site.”
The site is not only misleading, but can tarnish your reputation. How? This person could spread false information, give people bad experiences, or just scam people. These things will leave bad tastes in peoples mouths and this will impact your reputation
There are a number of ways to address that issue but tightening up peoples awareness of you is one way to avoid these issues. By building your reputation, people will become aware of your values, and how you typically serve people. Not only that, but if people are aware of how your website looks or is spelled, people can distinguish between what is real and false.
It’s for this particular reason why brands are encouraged to use the same handles across all platforms they are on. Any change in a handle can suggest that the account is fake and not the genuine person. It’s also why social media sites also have verification badges to reassure people they are engaging with the actual person and not someone else.
Build Up That Reputation
Just because your business is small or medium-sized doesn’t mean you are immune to slander. Like I said, people can come up with all kinds of sites and impersonate you. That is the same case with social media too.
Take extra precaution of who is building your brand, what people are saying, and how you are building your brand. Your reputation can be easily be built, but it can be easily destroyed by all kinds of people and events.
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