A 3-Step Plan to Promoting a Positive Brand Image Online.

A successful user-centric business is highly attentive to the needs of their customers, putting them at the forefront of their core competencies. You can have all the right processes, people, and systems in place, but without a positive reputation with customers and partners, your business will struggle. Therefore, your reputation as a business is imperative to its success.  By remembering that reputation management is central to your business scaling strategy, you can establish and foster a strong relationship with your customers. With their trust, you are able to grow your business by increasing sales and attracting more loyal customers. In this blog, I developed a 3-step plan to effectively manage your brand reputation and successfully promote a positive brand image online. 

Monitor the web for negative content about your brand.

To monitor the web for negative content about your brand, you will need to first choose a software tool that can monitor what is being said about your brand in real-time, no matter where the opinions are posted online. Examples of tools include Google Alerts, Moz,  SproutSocial, BrandMentions, and Awario. With these tools, you can choose the words you would like to monitor, such as your business name, products, services, and employees. Some other elements that are important to monitor include your competitors, industry news topics, and regulations that affect your business. In addition, frequently monitor the search results that appear when you search for relevant terms. These practices will allow you to deeply understand sentiments and gather insight from your audience. From there, you can use the information to develop your business. 

Appropriately respond to negative content online.

Online locations that may have negative content about a brand can include online review sites, scam reporting sites, online forums, press articles, activist organizations, social media, blogs, and informational sites. To appropriately respond to negative content online, remember three Ts: timeliness, transparency, and training.

Timeliness: A quick response will encourage press coverage towards the response instead of focusing on the controversy.  Transparency: Businesses should take responsibility for any wrongdoing and define actions it is taking to resolve the wrong. The public is more likely to trust a company that admits its mistake than one that tries to hide it. Training: A well-thought-out plan can help minimize the damage that a complaint or negative experience could have on your business. If a customer expresses dissatisfaction, your staff needs to know how to address it in an effective way.

There is a final T: take it offline. If there is a long stream of negative complaints online, visibility will increase and search engines will rank the negative content higher. A business should do what it can to take the conversion offline. Respond to the user with an invitation to call or email to resolve the problem. Another idea is to create a social profile that is designated for responding to customer conversation. For example, Comcast has a handle called @comcastcares.  

Ensure that positive content about your brand is at the forefront of search engine results.

Create a variety of positive content to ensure that the majority of brand-related searches show your business in the best light. Include many aspects of your company in your content, such as blogs, ads, social media profiles, directory listings, charity microsites, customer support, product microsites, and cause microsites.  

By implementing the above three steps, you should be able to fill the first page of search results with positive information about your business, which will lead to sustainable growth. After all, your customers drive your business, and by interacting and listening to them, you will be able to make the best improvements for your business that will lead to sustainable, long term growth.  

Written by Kimberly O’Hanlon
Blog for MRKT584: Digital Marketing Platforms
Instructor: Nikki Brown
June 4th, 2022

References:

Larson, J and Draper, S. “Digital Marketing Essentials.” Copyright © 2019 by Edify Publishing 

Rehan, A. “11 Best Media Monitoring Tools for Brand Management.” Geekflare. 21 Apr 2022. https://geekflare.com/brand-monitoring-solution/