Working with many businesses I am always surprised at how few of them pay much attention to their online reputations. Whether a business operates online or otherwise is completely irrelevant, every business has a reputation of some kind online and the importance of whether that is a positive or negative reputation is absolutely huge. To understand just how much difference these types of companies can make to a business you only need to browse some of the reputation management consultant reviews, where you’ll see glowing feedback about the work that these companies have completed for their clients. If you own a business and you aren’t conscious of your online reputation, here is why that needs to change.
Reviews
Consumers rely so heavily on the reviews of others when it comes to selecting the products that they buy and the companies which they plan to use. Now if your company has sparkling reviews online then you are in good shape but it is important to remember that people are far more inclined to take to the internet when they want to vent, rather than when they want to speak highly about a company. If you have negative reviews online then you need to be taking action and trying to appease these customers, if you aren’t aware of your online reputation however then you’ll lose the chance to do this, losing sales as a result.
Guilt by Association
Something else which can greatly damage a company’s online reputation is guilt by association which can take place when partner of a particular company is found to have been involved in illicit behavior. Let’s say that your company is working with a particular accountants who have been found to be fraudulent, the internet will be awash with your link to that company and that can result in people assuming that your company is dirty too. Of course this won’t be the case which is why you may need an online reputation management company. The broader point here is that you need to be aware of when this type of thing can happen by being vigilant of what your online reputation looks like, the sooner you nip issues like this in the bud the less damage it will do.
Social Media
Social media can have a great impact on the fortunes of your company and when used it in the right way it can be a wonderful way of promoting your business and connecting with your customers. Unfortunately there are two sides to social media and the other can be greatly damaging to your company. Let’s assume that you have a restaurant and it has a bad day, the chef calls in sick, you can’t get cover and the food perhaps isn’t up to its normal quality, someone snaps a shot and uploads it to their Instagram and before you know it everyone is speaking negatively about your company. You can only imagine the damage that this will do to your company so you need to ensure that you’re always vigilant in order to minimize any damage.
If you aren’t vigilant online then you will pay the price, especially in today’s world where the internet is so powerful.
