Web Reputation Overhaul
If your company reputation has suffered from unflattering online comments, you may be in need of a reputation makeover. Getting a fresh start and a new image isn’t as hard as you might believe. You can accomplish a quick overhaul by starting with a few basic questions:
1) Who are your customers? Knowing who your customers are allows you to focus on the most damaging comments online. For example, if most of your customers are over 30 and most of the negative comments about your company are posted on sites aimed at pre-teens, you may not have as much to worry about as you believe. Knowing your potential customers also allows you to determine what it would take to bring your customers back. What would your customers respond to? What are your customers looking for in your company?
2) What tone can you or should you take with customers? Knowing your customers allows you to also decide what tone to take. If there are problems with your online reputation, you will want to use the right words and phrases to communicate. Will your customers react best if you clearly lay out all the evidence that the charges against your company are untrue? Or, will your customers react better with a sincere apology? Before you react to bad online comments, make sure that you understand what reaction your customers are looking for.
3) What online resources are you not using right now? If you only have a website, maybe it is time to develop a company blog, a social networking page, feeder sites, an ezine, or a sub-domain for your website. Perhaps it is time to upload photos to photo sharing sites or videos to YouTube. Positive comments across a variety of sites and applications will help bolster your reputation quickly.
4) How can you project sincerity and friendliness more effectively? If your reputation has suffered, your company may be associated with negative images in your customer’s minds. You need to project friendliness and sincerity in order to turn these negative associations around.
5) How much time can you dedicate to your online reputation makeover? A reputation makeover will take time and money. You will need to meet with professionals, develop an action plan, and implement it. You may have to pay for reputation monitoring services or for search engine optimization in order to bolster your site’s visibility on search engines. Be sure to budget both time and money for the makeover.
6) What are the strengths of your current reputation? It is easy to start focusing on the negative comments available online, but you need to focus on the positive as well as the negative in order to change your online image. Are there positive comments being made about your business online? If so, what are they? How can you accentuate those comments and make them more visible online? If there are very few good comments online, consider some of your strengths as a business. What can you develop in your company to create the sorts of customers who will want to comment positively about you on blogs and social networking sites?