Whether you’re talking about your own personal reputation or one associated with your business or brand, your reputation is by far one of the most valuable assets you have.
Unfortunately, in the fast-paced modern world of the internet, it doesn’t take a lot to damage that reputation in the eyes of many. One study even indicated that businesses with just one highly visible negative article online can potentially lose up to 22% of prospective customers instantly. Keep in mind that this number only increases as more negative content makes its way online.
This is also why protecting your online persona is ultimately about more than just the simple idea of “always doing your best.” Sometimes, for reasons potentially beyond your control, “your best” just isn’t good enough. In those instances, there are a number of advanced reputation management tactics that are absolutely worth exploring.
The Art of Monitoring Versus Responding
In a larger sense, protecting your online persona involves a deeper understanding of two key ideas: monitoring and responding.
Monitoring involves looking online to see the exact nature of the conversations that people are already having about your personal or professional brand. What do opinion leaders say? What do industry rivals think? When your persona comes up in conversation on social media, how is it perceived? This is all important information to have so that you can begin to lean into some of the techniques like those outlined above.
Responding involves taking action to change people’s opinions about you, your business, or both. It’s a more aggressive approach that’s focused on reacting to an event that’s already happened as opposed to one that may or may not occur.
Leveraging Search Engine Optimization
Also called SEO, search engine optimization is the process of optimizing content to make sure that it ranks highly on engines like Google. When you consider that Google alone has about an 85% global market share on all desktop searches as of 2023, meaning that most of the content people find online comes from there, it becomes clear why this is a concept worth focusing on.
Status Labs is just one example of a provider that builds SEO into their larger online reputation management strategy services. The right approach to SEO through optimized content and landing pages can give you back control of your reputation, helping to make sure that the vast majority of what people see online is what you want. Not only can this be a great way to proactively make sure that people are getting the impression of your business that you want to give them, but it can also help react to any type of negative reputational crisis that may be taking place as well.
Being Proactive About Reviews
People are doing more online research than ever these days — this is true regardless of whether you’re talking about looking into the history of an individual or when trying to decide which businesses to work with or buy from. Research has indicated that not only do 99.9% of customers read reviews when they shop online, but nearly 96% of them actually look for negative reviews in particular.
People trust online reviews more than their friends or family members when it comes to forming a reputation about a person or business. That’s why being proactive about reviews is another advanced reputation management tactic worth exploring. With the right approach — like sending messages to clients encouraging them to post feedback and reviews — it’s possible to make sure the ones that prospects do find accurately reflect the real-life experiences that satisfied customers have already had.
In the end, advanced reputation management is a long-term process that can potentially have a significant positive impact if executed properly. Your personal reputation (or that of your business) is what makes you unique. It’s what attracts people to you in the first place. Unfortunately, it could also be seen as a repellent if left unmanaged.
That’s why reputation management is so important — it helps make sure that doesn’t happen, regardless of the situation you happen to find yourself in.
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