Social media reputation management is vital to your brand’s success. There are many benefits to building a strong social media reputation for your business. In addition to boosting brand recognition, you can learn valuable information from your customers that can improve your products and services.
When people search for your company, they are likely to find reviews from your existing customers. These reviews, depending on whether they are positive or negative, can either attract new customers or make them click away. A BrightLocal survey shows that 85 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as recommendations from friends and family.
As a business, you need to know what people are saying about you online. Creating a social media reputation management system is a worthwhile investment that will grow your brand and reputation as you expand your client base. It ensures that you are aware of customer concerns and are actively finding ways to address them. Companies that take their social media reputation seriously are more likely to earn customer trust, get more sales and achieve their goals.
What Is Social Media Reputation Management?
Social media reputation management is the process of monitoring and managing user-generated social media content such as reviews to influence the way your brand or business is perceived. It involves many aspects that include online reputation management, reputation repair and review response.
Some organizations have an in-house team to manage social media reputation, while others use social media reputation management software as an alternative. Both of these methods work well but have their pros and cons.
There is also an option to hire agencies that provide social media reputation management services. These professionals specialize in online reputation management, review response and reputation repair. While there is a cost involved, this is a worthwhile investment. A reputation management expert will deliver the best results because of their superior knowledge of online reputation repair services.
How To Manage Your Social Media Reputation
Reading negative reviews about your business can be disheartening but it’s a vital part of growing your company and ensuring success. The good news is that negative feedback can be turned into an opportunity as long as you have a strong social media reputation management strategy.
Steps for handling customer feedback on social media to improve your social reputation:
1. Find Out Your Company’s Current Social Media Reputation
You can’t fix what you don’t know. Use a social media listening software to monitor your brand and discover what people are saying across social media channels.
There is a variety of social media reputation management software that you can use to monitor user feedback about your company and assess its social reputation. You can track your company name, industry keywords, famous personalities that represent your brand and even your competitor’s brand name.
Only when you have gathered data can you assess your company’s reputation. From here, you can start creating a review response process to respond to valid reviews and make the necessary actions to eliminate negative feedback.
2. Create A Review Response Procedure
Your response to customer feedback should be polite, concise and prompt. Setting a definitive guideline on how to respond to negative and positive reviews ensures correct and consistent implementation, no matter who manages your social media profiles.
Focus on creating clear guidelines that outline how to respond to negative reviews. Train your social media staff so they understand what to do in all possible scenarios. Having competent people behind your social media reputation team can be a critical factor in social media online reputation repair.
If you need help, consider hiring a social media reputation management company to lend its expertise in review response services to ensure the best results.
3. Leverage Positive Reviews
An effective social reputation management strategy addresses the feedback of the negative reviews but also sufficiently highlights the positive responses you’ve received from satisfied customers. While you might have to deal with a few dissatisfied customers, you are also likely to be delighted by many happy customers. Take advantage of glowing reviews and feature them on your social media pages, website and blogs. Apply effective search engine optimization (SEO) tactics to make these reviews rank higher in search results and drown out negative ones.
Have a robust system that will track new customers and ask them to leave a review, whether it’s in an email autoresponder or a direct messaging to their social media accounts.
You also can outsource this process of generating positive reviews with a social media reputation management agency. With the expertise and resources of an agency, you get highly tailored review generation methods, with some processes that are automated for optimal results.
4. Solve Problems Fast
Don’t ignore obvious problems with your product or service. If you see a significant amount of feedback about the same concern, get to the bottom of it and come up with a solution. Get in touch with customers who reported the issue and let them know what you’ve done to resolve it. Sometimes, turning a negative review into a positive one can be done with a quick fix that customers appreciate.
5. Monitor All Sources Of Feedback
While it may sound easier if you just monitored one or two social media networks, this approach will cost you in the long run. Comprehensive social reputation management means checking for every brand mention in Google, Facebook, Yelp, Twitter, Instagram, TripAdvisor and other social media networks relevant to your brand. When you have a bird’s eye view of your customer’s feedback, you have the opportunity to improve your social media reputation.
To save time, you can use social media reputation management software to get this done faster. These apps can monitor customer feedback across all digital platforms. You can also get email alerts when someone mentions your brand, which is vital for a timely review response.
6. Track Your ROI
When you have implemented your social media reputation management system for a few months, it’s essential to pause and analyze how it has impacted your business’s revenue. Use analysis tools to track how many customer reviews generated sales. You should be able to get a clear idea of whether your reputation management strategy works and if it has a direct impact on your revenue.
7. Ask For Help
If your company lacks the workforce or resources to handle your social media reputation, get external help from a social media reputation management company like Rize Reviews. Rize offers several vital services that improve your reputation on social media and other online platforms. Hiring a social media reputation management agency can save you time and money with better results.
With the right social media reputation management services, you can save your company’s resources while getting expert help. You don’t have to worry about building strategies and implementing them. You only have to delegate the job to an organization that specializes in social media online reputation repair.
Do’s and Don’ts Of Social Media Reputation Management
Each company is unique and requires a bespoke social reputation management strategy Every business should pursue a distinct strategy when dealing with social media online reputation repair. By crafting a reputation management strategy that suits your brand, you’re likely also creating a strategy that speaks to your customers and prospects too.
However, no matter what industry you’re in, there are general rules that apply to all companies. The idea is always to have the customer’s interests at heart. The goal of social media reputation management is never to hide negative reviews and deceive your customers.
A truly successful social media online reputation repair strategy acknowledges all and any customer feedback. Understanding what has impressed or disappointed your customers helps you improve your products and services. How you tackle the feedback, both positive and negative, is how you attract new customers looking for a business like yours.
Basic principles of excellent social media reputation management:
Do …
• Be respectful and courteous in all review responses
• Apologize sincerely even if it’s not your fault
• Be timely in responding to negative reviews (ideally within 24-48 hours)
• Let the customer know how they can reach you (email or phone number)
• Let the customer know when you have resolved the issue
• Encourage new customers to write a review
• Personalize each response and address the customer by their first name
• Take the conversation offline (to lessen the visibility of negative reviews)
Don’t …
• Argue with the customer
• Bribe or offer “rewards” in exchange for positive reviews
• Ignore negative reviews
• Write “canned” or scripted responses
• Delete negative comments or reviews
• Violate the review guidelines of social media platforms
Implementing an on-point social media reputation management strategy is one of the best problem-solving tasks you can do to grow your business. While it can be daunting, there is great growth potential when done the right way.
Whether you hire a social media reputation management agency or do it within your organization, you can gain valuable insights into your customer’s experiences of your brand and have a better understanding of what they need from your brand. It’s never easy to read scathing reviews about your brand, but it’s the only way you will find out how your business can improve and serve your customers better.
Are you looking for a social media reputation management company to improve your online ratings and reputation? Contact Rize Reviews and get exceptional social media reputation management services that fit your needs and budget.
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