You spend so much time and money crafting and marketing your brand to position your products and services in the minds of consumers. Yet, a few poor reviews or negative comments online can undermine your entire marketing strategy.
For example, you know providing high-quality and responsive customer service is crucial to building and maintaining a brand. If you fail to address online reviews, though — or receive public complaints about long wait times on hold or rude customer service representatives — it can diminish any positive impact.
So, does your online reputation match your brand?
How Brand and Reputation Work Together (or Don’t)
While the brand and reputation are different, they directly impact each other.
Brand is more about relevancy, differentiation, and how you stand out in the minds of potential customers. Reputation is about credibility. While you can build and shape your brand, you can’t buy your reputation. It’s about how customers see you.
A poor reputation won’t overcome negative brand perception.
Reputations are also fragile. As investor Warren Buffet famously said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.”
Ask the folks at Volkswagen, who saw their brand damaged when it was revealed that the company had falsified emission tests, or Martha Stewart, convicted of insider trading. How many people trust credit reporting agency Equifax with their data after one of the largest data breaches of all time, despite years of crafting a brand narrative based on accuracy and security?
While brands can bounce back — and do — it takes time and a lot of money to recover.
In today’s online environment, it may no longer take 20 years to build brands, but that five-minute part is still right on point.
Brand and reputation work hand-in-hand. You must have consistency for quality messages to stick.
How Do You Manage Your Online Reputation to Match Your Brand?
There are two parts to answering these questions and both take work.
Aligning Products and Services with Brand Messaging
First, make sure the products and services you provide are aligned with the marketing messages you use. This takes a comprehensive commitment from everyone associated with your company.
If you say your brand provides the best quality experience, you need to deliver. If you focus your messaging on having the largest selection and fast delivery, you can’t afford stockouts and shipping delays.
Manage Your Online Reputation
The second part of the equation is to monitor and manage your online reputation carefully. While you can control what you say about your company, you can’t control what your customers say. That’s why it’s so important to live up to your brand promises. The better you do that, the more likely customers are to believe it.
Still, things happen and people do talk.
One study showed that 95% of customers will tell others about their experience if they have a problem, but less than half will share details of a positive experience. So, you need to be proactive in protecting your brand and keeping online conversations focused on your message.
Here are the key steps in managing your reputation online.
1. Monitor Online Reviews & Social Media
Keep an eye on your online reviews and respond appropriately. When people are checking out your company, they want to see a significant number of positive reviews to give them confidence in making a purchase. Bad reviews can damage your brand, but there are steps you can take to mitigate the damage or even turn them around.
Engage with people leaving reviews either positive or negative. You can thank people for leaving positive reviews and address concerns directly from negative reviews. When you show potential customers that you take feedback seriously and will take steps to fix any problems, it sends trust signals that can help reinforce your brand messaging.
People understand that problems pop up on occasion. What sets apart great companies is that they work hard to fix problems — and do it quickly.
The same approach applies to social media as well. Pay attention to comments and respond appropriately. You can also use social media to ask for reviews and show off your good reviews. When people do share their reviews on your social sites, use them to encourage additional reviews.
2. Be Transparent and Authentic
It’s important that you are authentic and transparent in how you respond. People can spot marketing-speak and empty promises quickly.
Transparency demonstrates ownership and accountability for problems. Authenticity shows you are genuinely committed to resolving issues and meeting customer expectations. Both build trust and loyalty with customers.
Both online reviews and social media comments can also be useful tools to make sure you are meeting brand expectations. If you see people talking about how you fell short in a particular area, it can help you isolate problems in your organization that need attention.
3. Encourage Brand Advocacy
Another way to connect your brand with your online reputation is by cultivating loyal customers and influencers that will act as advocates for your brand. You can do this by highlighting case studies or testimonials from customers that show how your products or services deliver on your brand messaging, or use influencer marketing to provide similar commentary.
Customers are much more likely these days to believe something from their friends, peers, or online reviewers than what a company says about itself. For example, Gartner’s Global Software Buyer Trends Survey showed that 85% of buyers trust online reviews when making purchases and use online review sites as their preferred channel to learn about a product.
4. Source and Showcase Positive Reviews
You need to be proactive about soliciting reviews from your customers. When you get positive reviews, showcase them. These provide social proof for potential customers and reinforce your brand positioning.
Reviews also have another benefit that helps your brand reputation. Good reviews help increase your odds of showing up for relevant searches on Google. For example, if you search for “best restaurants near me,” Google will start by showing you restaurants with star ratings of four or better on its local map display, which appears above organic search results.
Reviews can play a significant part in search engine optimization, but they play an even bigger role in click-throughs and conversions. According to a McKinsey survey, 95% of products sold had ratings of 3.5 stars or more online. Even a small improvement in your scores can make a big difference. The study showed that an increase from 4.2 stars to 4.4 stars can increase sales by 37% for packaged goods.
Sitejabber Can Help
With Sitejabber, you can manage your online reputation and improve the quantity and quality of your online reviews to keep customers focused on your brand message. This helps build brand loyalty and customer retention while attracting new customers.
You can also automatically collect more reviews, share them on Google and social media, and display them on your website. As an official Google Review partner, Sitejabber can also help you improve your search rankings and gain stars in your paid search ads.
Create a free account today and discover how Sitejabber can help you manage your online reputation.
