If you are hoping to run a successful online company, you have to make sure that its reputation is constantly monitored. Although every company has issues with public relations and keeping up the good name of its brand, online companies face special challenges that offline companies don’t have to worry about.
People Can Say Whatever They Want Online
Consumers may decide to use a review site to find out what other people are saying about a particular company or product on the market. While you may think that the reviews being given are honest and genuine, many of them are written by people who have never used the product. In some cases, you may be reading a review from someone who has been paid to say good things about a product or company. In extreme cases, you may read negative reviews that were posted by writers who were paid to provide these comments.
There Is No Accountability
To make things worse, people don’t have to say anything using their real name. This anonymity makes it even harder to determine if someone is being serious or offering nothing more than spam whenever a message is posted to a review site or on a social media account. These days, your competitors don’t even have to physically write the tweets or Facebook posts that appear on social media accounts. Robots connected to fake accounts can now be created and used to send automated messages across the Internet. When someone stumbles upon an account or reads an automated review, they won’t know that it is created by a robot because the name, location and profile of the user can look rather convincing.
How Do You Know Who To Trust Online?
If you are a company that does most of its marketing online, you have to have a solid plan that can help convince customers that you are legitimate and worth trusting. For example, you can convince customers that you are a human by:
-Verifying All Social Media Accounts
-Sending Personalized Messages To Followers
-Offering Quick Replies To All Customer Questions And Concerns
By following these rules, your customers will know that they are dealing with real people who are interested in making your shopping experience better.
How To Combat Negative SEO Practices
Reputation management is difficult enough if you have customers who are legitimately angry about a perceived slight or when they get poor customer service. Things are even harder when people are writing bad reviews in an attempt to convince Google that your company should be downgraded in the search results.
Companies that are looking to maintain a good reputation should set up alerts and communicate with Google and other search engines when libel or slanderous messages are posted.
In addition, your social media and marketing teams should post comments on any blog or social media account that is trying to make your company look bad. When people see a representative taking the time to comment on a blog post, it forces anyone reading that post to think twice about what is being said.
Hire A Reputation Management Company
A reputation management company like the one found at reputation.com can be a big help in the fight against spammers and others who are trying to bring your company down. Instead of shutting down your site or going out of business due to negative feedback, you can build your brand and gain the trust of consumers around the world.
Reputation management is much harder for companies based on the Internet. However, there are tools, services and strategies available to keep your reputation as good as it possibly can be with your customers and others who visit your site.
