Brand reputation is how your audience perceives your company. To maintain a good brand reputation it’s important to monitor and manage the ways your brand is seen by the public. Although this can be done in-house, a lot of companies hire an agency to manage this task. Depending on how you feel your audience currently perceives your brand, you can begin to set goals to change or maintain your reputation. The aim is always to achieve a positive reputation, as this correlates to trust and high levels of customer loyalty. It also increases the likelihood that a consumer will use or purchase your products and continue to engage with your brand.
There are several strategies you can use to manage your brand’s reputation. The following are three of the most important ones:
- Search engine optimization:Good search engine optimization, or SEO, improves your site’s visibility, meaning it shows more prominently on search results on popular search engines. Many customers base their buying decisions off other customers’ reviews, so it’s important that the most positive pages are what they see. Managing your SEO by ranking your website’s pages and creating new pages with a higher authority will push unwanted and negative reviews further down the search pages. Using SEO, you can rank more than 40 web pages, which is more than three pages of search results. Be aware that most people won’t even look past the first five listings, and only 5% will click to the second page of results.
- Social media marketing:Utilizing social media is a convenient way to directly connect with your audience. When marketing your product or service on social media, it pays to create and strategize content that users will interact with and feel connected to. Two useful “tools” for social media marketing are micro-influencers and user-generated content. Micro-influencers typically have an online presence with anywhere from 10,000 to 50,000 followers; these are niche audiences. Influencers who align with your target audience’s values, interests and lifestyle can serve as ambassadors for your brand and highlight why their audience should support your company. User-generated content is considered more reliable and trustworthy than a brand-produced marketing message, as it’s created by real people. It can create a very positive impression on potential customers, who see people like themselves using and talking about your brand. An additional benefit of using social media is you can quickly respond to criticism, negative reviews or any other general questions and comments about your brand.
- Get to know your customer: An effective way to improve your brand reputation is to be aware of exactly what your audience is saying and what platforms they’re saying it on. Take the time to read online reviews, social media comments and messages to your company to understand the feedback and concerns of your customers and what they want from you. This will help you reevaluate your message where necessary and deliver an improved customer experience. Be sure to reach out to customers and respond to comments in a personalized way. You can also utilize surveys, email newsletters and direct one-to-one emails to create a lasting connection with your audience. These things should provide opportunities to address any negative feedback and also gather positive customer testimonials that can be used on your website or social media platforms. The better your customer support is and the faster you address comments and concerns, the more satisfied your customers will be overall.
Some of the many benefits of brand reputation management include increased brand awareness and positive sentiments compared to your competition, higher online ratings, attracting better employees and ultimately increased profits. It’s vital to be aware of the speed in which a brand’s reputation can become ingrained in a consumer’s mind, and that even one person’s opinion can make a large difference in your overall brand perception.
If you’re looking to get started with brand reputation management, we can help! THE rAVe Agency has proven success with branding, marketing strategy and market analysis for the AV industry.