Having an online reputation management strategy is not a nice to have anymore, but a must have. Keeping track of your brand online and how others are talking about you can provide you with a huge advantage, no matter what niche you are in. Depending on the level of service you provide and the awareness of your business, there could be hundreds of your customers and other people talking about your business online. Do you know what they are talking about?
Creating a process for monitoring your business online might sound like a daunting task, but it isn’t. There are many free tools available you can use for monitoring/listening, but it’s up to you if you are going to respond or not. Monitoring your brand online will help you keep ahead of what people are talking about you and their experience with doing business with you. This information can either be good or bad, but it’s important that you stay aware of what is being said about you, and act on it. Ignoring it will not make it go away.
Tools for online reputation management
One way to start listening (monitoring) is to conduct a search on Google to find mentions of your brand name and to scour the social web for any commentary. This can work, but it’s a manual process and very time-consuming. Using online free tools such as Google Alerts can help you with this process. You can setup keywords on Google Alerts so that you are notified via email every time those specific keywords are triggered. This is a free service by Google and there isn’t a limitation on the keywords you select.
Other tools such as BrandsEye offers a much more robust solution, but it’s not free. The benefit of using this tool is that you can get a lot more data including sentiment analysis reports (positive, negative, neutral) as well as comprehensive reporting.
Your reputation can be made or broken in 140 characters
Why do have to monitor your reputation online? It’s simple – your reputation can be made or broken in 140 characters or less. That’s the reality. Rather catch a wildfire before it spreads. Online reputation management is not just about monitoring for negative comments and reviews about you online, it can also be used to find opportunities for your business that could lead to sales and leads.
