Why corporate companies cannot do away with Reputation management

Reputation management is not for upcoming and start up companies that strive to set up their brand images among its customers, but is equally important for corporate big wigs to stay ahead in the race. To leave the customers and the general public to do the talking about your products and services might not be a sensible idea as your online repute is always vulnerable to attacks from hostile elements and competitors.

Customer reviews on products and services change from time to time and it could oscillate from good and bad. In either case , a strong reputation management plan would help you to to come out of the attacks unscathed and to regain the lost popularity. Any allegations – true or false will take a long time to go off the web and hence it is important to tackle the negative sway as soon as it is formed.

A sound corporate reputation will not only get you new clients but also go a long way in keeping the ones you have in your fold. Whether you are a small or big business, it is equally important to promote, protect and defend the reputation of a business. Brands with blotched reputation will have a lower loyalty than their well reputed counterparts enjoy. Online slanders and bad comments that the users come across about corporate house could negatively affect the business revenue as customers tend to keep away from sites that have poor reviews .Online reputation management is a handy solution to fix these problems.

Luring prospective business partners into your company also needs a good track record. Let your brand do the talking of the quality of your products and services as the business partners often rate the companies by the content they see online. Reputation management is not a luxury but a necessity not only to enjoy the best exposure and the right brand promotion but to stay ahead in the difficult market conditions.

Internet Reputation Management could be of great help to counter the negative attacks for a company

Increasingly in demand due to today's world of push button publishing, Internet Reputation management is known to be your only facet that is visible to the clientèle and support business links. Negative attacks are rampant and any unsatisfied customer or competitor can initiate an online attack at any time for any reasons. The nature of comments, online search, and negative blog posts can quickly tarnish a company's reputation when significant customers are conducting a search in your company's name.

If these results are on the first pages, negative attacks could be excessively damaging to your reputation and profitability. However, there are methods to counter them and it is very important you need to do it before your company goes down the drain.

Monitoring your online presence and setting a Google alert in your company's name or your name or any other key terms in your line of business in order to get the data as quickly as you want it. Also make sure that you tell the content teams to remove those vivacious attacks with the help of Internet reputation management. Once you find these negative comments are removed, the next step is to make sure that you push back the negative blogs down the search engine results.

Before you retort- think carefully about how you would react to a heated message that leaves a footprint online for years to come. Make sure that you continuously build up your presence on Search Engines and publish more valuable content online through user-generated content sites or build good profiles on various social media sites.

A few reasons why an organization cannot afford to ignore reputation management

A recent study report says that there has been a steep increase in the demand for public relations professionals because employers give more importance to communication and reputation management in their day to day business operations. No matter whether you are a non profit group or a big business organization, reputation management do matters to spread your core values and to promote the brand image. Having a reputation management plan will protect your company's name and good will in the event of negative comments and bad press.
Some of the key reasons why any successful company needs reputation management would include:

To ensure good publicity. Companies that want to grow should have positive publicity to attract more customers and thereby increase sales. From online forums to mass communication media like newspapers and TV ads there is a gamut of reputation management tools that would help you to be in the news. Publicity will make your organization better known in the business circles and would attract more traffic and sales.

For Brand building: Public relations go a long way in brand building and it is a proven method for launching new products and for opening new markets. By promoting your brand aggressively you will be put ahead in the race. A strong brand image will make sure that your company comes at the top search engine results, which in turn will have a bearing in the sales and traffic of your sites.

To lessen the impact of negative publicity : No organization is safe from being hit with online slander, which could be an assault launched by your competitor or fury unleashed by an unhappy customer. Remember how the Domino’s sales nose dived soon after the unauthorized YouTube video popped up with images of a few employees doing weird things to a customer’s pizza!

Having a reputation management plan in place would mean that you will be in a better position to tackle the onslaught of the negative posts and slander. It will serve as a handy shock absorber in the hours of crisis and will put you back in the game faster.

How reputation management forms the first line defense of your company

Building up your company's reputation might have taken many years but a few negative consumer generated media buzz can damage it very badly. With the online shopping options getting more popular, customers browse through online posts and forums to find out the good and the not so good companies and products. Posts that are placed on blogs, forums, and social media sites reach large audiences in no time. Viral in action these negative blogs or comments can do a substantial damage to the brand repute and the painfully built up reputation. In many cases these could be scandalous posts made by an unhappy customer or your ex business partner to settle scores with you.

Statistics show that around 80 percent of adults are more likely to buy a product based on online comments or recommendation and an overwhelming majority of customers trust the reviews and feedbacks of other users. 87% of people believe that the reputation of the company plays a decisive role while availing services or buying products. Should the customers find negative content while searching, it could have a disastrous effect no matter whether the complaint is genuine or not . Considering the ease of posting such defamatory content and the viral nature of its propagation it has become critical for companies of all sizes to implement reputation management tactics protect their brands.

Most of the customers seldom go beyond the first two pages of the search engines while searching for information/ products or services and if bad report come popping up in these pages chances are that the customers will never bother to come back t you again. It is estimated that On RipOff Report there are more than 300,000 complaints filed and these get a preference on search engines and enjoy priority listing, which makes it all the more important for companies to resort to fool proof reputation management techniques to ensure that their brand is not vandalized.

Reputation management- the dual edged weapon that protects your repute and salvage you from crisis

Reputation management not only helps you to keep up your brand image and online presence but also forms part of your crisis management strategy. The negative posts and forum postings about your business online are warning signals that you need to get things in order to retain your position. By ignoring these facts and playing a proverbial ostrich, you will only by inviting more trouble.

As with any element of business management, the mode and time of response play a crucial role in ensuring the reputation of your business and to turn it into a positive tide. Setting alerts is the smartest way to measure the pulse of things being told about you in the online space. Never ignore creeping crises and negative rumours about your business, even if that means slander or orchestrated smearing campaigns unleashed by your business rivals. Positive comments could be used in your marketing and are great tools to gauge your popularity and to keep an aye on the competition.

Negative comments are not something that you should run away from and there are lots of ways to respond and tackle these. Do not waste time in the hope that it will go away with time as whatever posted in the internet remains there forever and these will come back to haunt and tease you unless you root these out diligently.

If the comments are on blogs that allow comments, make sure that these are not bogus and try to respond to the genuine comments. Never belittle anybody who has made comments. By engaging with the unhappy customers in this way, you will have the opportunity to clear any misunderstandings that they might have and and even to gain new customers. Market studies show that many customers who complain turn out to be the most valuable customers if you win them back in time.

So, keeping an eye on what others are doing online and comparing it what you are doing would be a great way to get started in reputation management,. It is a meticulous exercise that requires patience and time and there are many professional reputation management agencies that will relieve you of the hassles of reputation management.

How quick can Online reputation management be?

Online reputation is the buzz word in the virtual world these days. Businesses, celebrities and even ordinary mortals have been under the scathing attacks in the cyber space these days. A few defamatory remarks are all that it take to ruin their carefully built up online reputation. Professionals or businesses that have been under attack by defamatory remarks will be eager to regain their lost reputation at the shortest possible time. Online reputation damage could mean loss of revenue, a slump in sales and above all an erosion of the customer base, which could have long term adverse effects in the prospects of the organization.

To even off these negative effects, companies and individuals opt for reputation management strategies that would remove the negative publicity and portray a favorable internet reputation to the public.However, online reputation management could be a time consuming process. It will depend on the amount of negative content posted against the concerned company or individual. By systematically posting SEO articles, and blogs the negative content will be pushed back to the inner pages of the search engines that would remain out of the glances of the discerning customers thereby ensuring brand protection.

Realization of positive results may take time to materialize; so the safest option would be to monitor your online repute and brand image regularly by using tools like Google alerts that would help you to keep a tag on what is being said about you in the virtual world. As you get the wind of the adverse comments in the air, you need to get on top gear to face these comments head on. Timely trouble shooting is the golden rule in reputation management. Never ignore these bad posts and forum postings as it could snowball into a major scandal in no time. Virtual world is viral and it wont take much time to reach these bad posts into your customers as well. The mere fact that over 86% of internet user depend on online inputs and feedbacks while shopping for products and services, would drive home the significance of online reputation in present day business scenario.

Effective tips for a good reputation management

People are talking about you, your product, your company and its time you started taking care of what others say about you. It might either be good or maybe some slanderous postings that could visibly destroy your company image. So what you need to do at this juncture is truly important. Check out some of our reputation management points and make sure that you implement it for a good corporate image.

• If you need to keep your critics from not being too powerful, you need to not respond to the complaints in an exaggerated way.
• Being able to speak directly to your audience through blog post or being an active member in the Internet will increase your reputation management skills.
• SEO/SEM are the two most important tools for a great online reputation management.
• It is tough to damage a firm that has a good reputation management and has a favorable position online.
• A poor review can be responded with courtesy in an apologetic tone.
• Reputation management will be of great help for your company or industry if the right tools and languages are used in a proper way.
• Start by tracking your online reputation with the various online services like Google Alerts, Social News Sites, Social bookmarking sites, Social Networks, Blogs, Media sharing sites.
• Put your own profile photo rather than pictures that doesn't allow others to figure you out.
• Make a list of the top sites that are bringing in good results for your company.
• If you are posting any contents or posts in a public site, be sure that you do it in a professional way.