Positive Reputation Management – What is it and How Does it Work?

What is Reputation Management you might be asking?  Our Reputation Management definition is as follows – Reputation Management is the process of influencing and controlling how others perceive you, your organization, or your brand in a positive light. It involves reputation monitoring and responding to what people say about you online and even offline, and actively working to shape the public’s perception in a positive way. With the vast amount of information available on the internet, it is easy for potential customers or acquaintances to research a person or a business before deciding to do business with them. The online Reputation Management business has expanded rapidly over the last few years, as businesses and individuals have started to realize the importance that online reputation really has in todays digital world.

Strategic  reputation management, in particular, focuses on highlighting positive aspects of a subject, such as accomplishments, philanthropy, interests and community involvement, to create a favorable image. As we all know, search engines offer the ability to instantly research and scrutinize the character of both individuals, professionals and businesses. Because of this, it has become increasingly imperative to maintain a clean online presence and protect against the potential life altering effects of negative content. So how do you protect yourself and/or your business from a negative portrayal? Read on for more important info. 

The practice and industry of Reputation Management has grown immensely over the past decade. Positive Reputation Management, and companies that work in this field, focus on enhancing your online image and protecting your reputation from negative online content. Business Reputation Management, Small Business Reputation Management and Brand Reputation Management focuses more on your industry and your business’s offerings while Individual Reputation Management can focus on a person’s interests and topics that relate to boosting your search engine results. Building up reputable content and focusing on your keyword strategy to be found under the keywords you need to be ranked for, is vital.

Reputation Management helps people and businesses take control of their online presence.  Mitigate any damages to online reputation and get back a sense of privacy. Online Reputation Management for Businesses can manage brand reputation and protect companies from negative online reviews or false narratives therein protecting their bottom line. Businesses should always also have reputation review management practices in place, as well.  Individuals can use reputation management to defend themselves from reputation threats from the internet that could affect their personal and professional lives. 

How Does It Work?

Reputation management works by actively promoting positive content, monitoring online and offline conversations, and responding to negative feedback. The ability for negative online content to rank prominently on search engines is what Reputation Management works to counteract. Through the creation of high quality positive content, published on domains with trusted authority, Reputation Management campaigns work to outrank negative content on search results while promoting the individual or brand in a positive light. Some key steps to achieving optimal Reputation Management are:

1. Define your values and strengths

The first step in Reputation Management is to define your values and strengths. This involves identifying what makes you or your brand unique and what sets it apart from your competitors. It also involves identifying the values that guide your brand’s decision-making and culture.

2. Reputation monitor online and offline conversations

The next step in  Reputation Management is to monitor online and offline conversations. This involves using social media listening tools to track mentions of you or your brand, monitoring review sites, and setting up Google Alerts for you or your brand’s name to see when you are mentioned. It also involves monitoring traditional media, such as newspapers and magazines, for any mentions.

3. Promote positive content

The third step in Reputation Management is to promote positive content about you or your brand. This involves creating and sharing positive news and stories , such as press releases, awards, and customer testimonials. It also involves creating content that showcases your  strengths and values, such as blog posts, articles, videos, and social media posts.

4. Respond to negative feedback

The fourth step in Reputation Management is to respond to negative feedback. This involves acknowledging and addressing any negative comments or reviews in a timely and professional manner. It also involves taking steps to resolve any issues and prevent them from happening in the future.

5. Engage with your audience!

The fifth step is to engage with your audience. This involves responding to comments and messages on social media, participating in online conversations, and building relationships with influencers and advocates. It also involves soliciting feedback from your audience and using it to improve your brand’s products and services.

Reputation Management strategies can offer customized campaigns for all different scenarios and situations, such as: 

• Improving search results to displace negative content. 
• SEO and online reputation marketing strategies to boost positive online visibility
• Review Management campaigns to help businesses improve brand perception and drive sales 
• Pro active campaigns to monitor search results and shield against negative content 

Reputation management for individuals, and businesses of any size can do far more than just displace negative content. If your brand reputation manager has not considered some of the practices mentioned herein, your company may be losing out on the opportunity to gain new customers. 

What To Expect From Reputation Management 

There are a multitude of Reputation Management Strategies and Capabilities to fit the needs of the client. Some of the more popular deliverables include:

Online Reputation Monitoring

Reputation Monitoring is the practice of scanning the internet to detect all content that appears under your keywords. Being aware of negative content as soon as it appears allows for a swift response, which will mitigate the damages to your online reputation.

Some common methods for monitoring online reputation include using search engines, social media listening tools, and online review monitoring tools. These tools can help individuals and companies track mentions of their name or brand across various online channels and identify any negative comments or reviews.

In addition to monitoring online reputation, it’s also important to take steps to actively manage and improve it. This can involve creating positive content, responding to negative comments or reviews, and engaging with customers and followers on social media.

Overall, online reputation monitoring is an essential practice for anyone who wants to protect and improve their reputation in the digital age. By staying vigilant and proactive, individuals and businesses can maintain a positive online presence and build trust with their audience.

Content Creation

Content creation can be one of the most time consuming aspects of managing online reputation, but is one of the most essential. Creating and publishing new content on a regular basis helps build up your digital footprint with positive narratives and gives an aspect of control over your online presence.  

Remember that you need to know your audience. Before creating any content, it’s important to understand your target audience and who is looking for you. Who are they? What are their interests and needs? This will help you tailor your content to their preferences and make it more engaging. 

There are many different platforms for creating content online, such as blogs, social media, podcasts, and videos. Choose the platform that best suits your skills and goals and make sure to monitor the publication’s effectiveness on the search engine results page. Consistency is key when it comes to creating content online. Set a schedule and stick to it, whether it’s daily, weekly, or monthly. This will help you build an audience and keep them engaged and show the search engines that you are a reputable and legitimate content source. 

Your content should provide value to your audience as well. Whether it’s education, entertainment, or inspiration, make sure your content is useful and relevant to their needs so that you become an important presence in the space. Also, using multimedia such as images, videos, and infographics can make your content more engaging and shareable. People will also begin to find your media and images via the Google Image Pack. Also, your audience wants to connect with real people, not just marketing messages. 

Be authentic and honest in your content, and show your personality and values so people are drawn to you through your voice. Encourage your audience to interact with your content by asking them questions, responding to their comments, and you can try holding polls or surveys! This will help you build a community around your content and brand. Lastly, have fun with your content. Keep learning and evolving. The online world is constantly changing, so it’s important to keep learning and evolving your skills and strategies. Keep up with the latest trends and best practices, and be willing to update and adapt your content as needed on all of your platforms.

Social Media Reputation Management

Reputation management online via social media is more important than it has ever been before. With the exposure that you and your business can gain by using social platforms, this aspect of positive reputation management cannot be ignored by other businesses and individuals, alike. Every reputation management strategy should include social media management as one of its main initiatives. Consistently updating and posting on these platforms generates engagement and positive impressions which not only improve your reputation on these platforms but also in the eyes of google and the other search engines.

Monitoring social platforms is another important aspect of reputation management. Given the widespread influence that any social post can potentially gather, it is essential to consistently remain aware of the narratives and mentions of you and your brand so that you can take action before any problems occur.

Whether it be through blog posts, guest article posts, or updated website content, constantly managing your reputation through content creation will help you rank for more keywords, establish trust with Google and rank better in search results!

• Scheduled Blog Posts
• Professional Website Development and Maintenance
• Featured News Articles 
• Press Releases
• Social Media Management 

• Review Management 
• Email Marketing Campaigns 
• Website Audits and Design 
• Scholarship Campaigns 
• Social Media Management

 The practice of Review Management focuses on 3 things: 

1. Removing fake and harmful reviews where possible. 

So how do you remove online reviews?

In some cases, certain online reviews violate policies set in place by review sites such as Google, trustpilot, birdeye, etc. By flagging the review, and contacting the platform with evidence of policy violations, sometimes the platform will remove the review for you. 

The other way to remove a harmful review is to contact the person who wrote the review and attempt to resolve the issue. If you know who the customer is, and have their contact information in your database, you can reach out to try and settle the problems they had with your product or service and ask them to remove the review. Remember when doing so, its important to hear the customer out, keep emotions in check, and to not escalate the situation any further. 

2. Consistently Respond To Your Reviews – Positive Or Negative

An overlooked and underrated aspect of Review Management, is the practice of consistently responding to your customer feedback online. Responding to online reviews will not only allow you to potentially resolve negative reviews with clients and lead to them being revised or taken down, but can improve your brand’s authority and trust in the eyes of potential customers and Google. The key to benefiting from review response strategies is to do so consistently, regardless the nature of the review, and to never respond emotionally. When responding to negative feedback, its important to remember these responses are public. Staying calm and professional is always the answer, no matter what the review might entail. An emotionally charged response can compound the situation, leading to more negative feedback, and your response could also paint your company in a negative light to future customers. 

Being upfront and responding to customer feedback (good or bad) publicly, shows you are willing to communicate with your clients, build relationships and resolve potential issues. Google awards businesses who do this because it falls into their search quality rating guidelines of EAT (Expertise, Authority, and Trust). By properly responding to reviews, businesses can prove to Google that searchers can trust their brand to have an open and honest dialogue about their products and services.

3. Gaining More Positive Reviews

Maybe the most important aspect of Review Management is the practice of consistently obtaining new positive reviews for your business. Though the quality of reviews and star ratings is most important to online comparison shoppers, the quantity of reviews is a close second, and can be a selling feature for your company. 

So how do you gain more 5 star reviews? 

Funny enough, the easiest and most affective way, is to just ask for them. Encourage your customer service teams to start asking customers to leave a review about their experience (ideally from customers they know are happy with their product or service). You can even offer promotions or discounts to customers who leave a review to help entice them to do so. On the flip side, you can offer bonuses, or other types or prizes to your employees who bring in the most reviews. 

An additional way to bring in more reviews is through email marketing campaigns. Have your marketing team go through your customer email database and send out an email blast encouraging past and current clients to leave a review on their experience with your company. Remember to provide a link to the review platform for easy access, or have your marketing team insert a widget so that the client can leave a review right from the email. 

Search Engine Optimization

All reputation management strategies focus on the utilization of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) best practices.

What is SEO?

SEO is the practice of improving the quality and quantity of online traffic to a website or webpage on search engines, with the goal of making the targeted sites and pages rank higher and become more visible under certain search terms.

SEO and Reputation Management go hand in hand. SEO ensures a person or companies website or content is recognized by Google and ranks under their name, brand or important keywords when searched. 

What are keywords?

Keywords are the common terms used in search engines that are relevant and affiliated to you or your brand. For example, a lawyer named Jon Smith from Plano, Texas would likely have important keywords such as “Lawyers in Plano” or “Attorney Jon Smith”. When practicing Reputation Management its important to identify the keywords you wish you or your brand to rank under. These can be search terms you wish to outperform competitors on, or perhaps certain keywords when searched bring up damaging content to your reputation. Regardless, identifying which keywords are most important to your Reputation Management efforts will help you better organize the rest of your strategies, and target them properly. 

When Is Reputation Management Needed?

The need for Reputation Management Online can usually be categorized into two different situations; a reactionary or precautionary solution to one’s online image. Reputation Management can suit an individual or a business in any scenario. Let’s say you wanted to promote a service or product that your business handles. Reputation management can place a spotlight on that service and utilizing SEO writing strategies through a press release, published article, or a blog entry, create awareness about your business offering and ensure it can be found prominently in search results. Other people will start to find your business or articles thanks to Reputation Management’s keyword strategies and posting your content on more reputable sites with a higher domain authority than any existing negative content. If a negative article or post has been drawing some bad attention towards you or your brand, Reputation Management can help eliminate the potential harmful effects by getting new, positive content to rank ahead of the negatives, and burying them from a searchers view.  

Combat Negative Content 

When your reputation is being tarnished online, Reputation Management can be used to overshadow the negative, mitigate the damages it may cause and enhance your overall online presence. Negative online content left ignored can lead to it spreading or rising in rank on search engines. By building a positive online presence, Reputation Management will help displace negative content from view and allow you to take control of your search results and online narrative. 

Being Proactive With Your Online Reputation 

Brand’s and individuals can use Reputation Management as a way to proactively improve their online reputation and marketing strategies, while simultaneously protecting themselves from any future negative content.  The content created in a Reputation Management campaign will not only enhance search results and online perception, but create a buffer of positive content, mitigating the ability for negative press to rank highly when your name or brand is searched. 

Take Control Of Your Search Results 

Reputation Management allows brands and individuals to have a say in what is said and seen about them online, while protecting their reputation and online privacy. 

Given the nature of the internet, social media, and search engines in general, it has become too easy to tarnish a persons character, or defame an honest business. Reputation Management works to counteract these threats while also offering the best opportunity to accurately depict and promote your true reputation.

Regardless of the reasons you may be considering Reputation Management, the reality is that in todays online landscape, it has never been more important to monitor and protect your name or brand and the conversations being had about them on the internet. The risks and impact of negative content, false narratives, and personal information populated online can be catastrophic. Reputation Management provides a defense against these threats and can give peace of mind to those suffering the effects of negative content or who wish to proactively defend their online presence. 

Word of mouth and community sentiment are no longer the factors which define our reputation. Instead, reputation is judged by what is said and found by doing a quick search online. That is why it’s so important for both people and businesses to take control of their search results through Reputation Management.