3 Rules of Foolproof Reputation Management for Your Growing Business

When it comes to starting out a new business, reputation is nearly everything.

You can have a great product or service, a great business plan, and even great minds working together to get it off the ground, but if your reputation sinks in a significant way early on, the business may very well sink with it.

For that reason, the ability to effectively run reputation management for your business is paramount to short-term and long-term success.

If you are looking for 3 of the most critical rules around when it comes to reputation management, then you have come to the right place! Let’s get started and learn more.

Respond to reviews quickly

Whether you are receiving reviews on your products, services, customer interactions, or anything else on Yelp, Google, your website, or social media pages, make sure that someone on your team devotes time and care to respond to positive and negative reviews promptly.

Responding to positive reviews, of course, feels great and will prove to that customer and anyone else checking out your page that your business is active, passionate, and wants to ensure that everyone is as happy as possible.

Responding to negative reviews is even more critical. It shows the poser – and anyone else who happens to come across that negative review – that your business cares deeply about improving and learning from mistakes. This is crucial to remember when it comes to reputation management,

Take lengthy conversations offline

Another important aspect of reputation management is that if you speak with a specific customer via your website or associated pages, it is essential to remember that you should be taking those conversations offline. Not only does that yield a more positive and personal interaction for the customer in question, but it also keeps you from airing out any dirty laundry for everyone on the internet to see!

It is imperative to have these conversations strategically so that – even if one interaction does not necessarily end well – it will not have further adverse effects on the company and brand at large.

Be strategic when working with influencers

You may want to work with influencers of some kind or another to promote your brand and get the name around in markets that you operate in. One thing that is really important to keep in mind when it comes to this is that you have to be strategic in more ways than one.

First of all, you should exclusively target influencers that are somehow related to your market or niche. No matter how famous an influencer is, their brand promotion is only really going to impress potential customers if the influencer already has clout within the community.

Moreover, be sure to thoroughly vet anyone you want to promote your product. Once you are connected to them, their reputation could rub off on you. For that reason, make sure you are comfortable with their stances on social and political issues and more to be sure that they won’t ultimately make your brand look like something that it is not.

Adam Hansen
 

Adam is a part time journalist, entrepreneur, investor and father.