How to recover your online reputation?
Online reputation is very hard to come by these days and if people start to suspect your intentions and statements, your business can quickly crumble under the ensuing pressure. What are some of the ways in which you can easily maintain online reputation and recover it if anything unexpected should happen?
Given the fact that so many businesses come under duress from online accusations, one often wonders how such things happen in the first place. Every website and content provider out there knows that maintaining good public relations is the key element to success.
Maintain brand awareness
Before jumping into recovering an online reputation, we should mention ways in which you can avoid unnecessary drama and downtime completely. Your brand awareness is everything that separates you from businesses that have gone under and been forgotten. This means that you should pay utmost attention to the way people perceive your brand across the globe, whether you are a small content creator or a large e-commerce enterprise.
Brand awareness can be built through affiliate marketing, influencers, public events and clever marketing campaigns that aim to attract new audiences to your already established brand. The more people you have under your wing, the more attention you will have to pay to the way they perceive you. The larger your customer base is the greater risk of online reputation loss can be.
Prepare crisis scenarios
Crisis scenarios are the best way to avoid online reputation losses and ease any damage that might have occurred. Scenarios can revolve around different events that may occur in regards to your brand. These can include things like dissatisfied customer management or public demonstration of your failed products.
These scenarios should be as extreme as possible because you really can’t prepare for all the things that can happen. Being somewhat ready for such events can alleviate most of your stress and loss once an actual crisis does take place.
Respond to allegations
Allegations are one of the worst things that can happen to you as an online business for various reasons. The main problem with allegations is that there is no substantial proof that can prove your guilt. Once you take a defensive stand on the matter, the public might register this as a sign of panic and affirm their belief in your guilt. Dealing with public allegations is not only tricky but it can quickly cost you your online reputation as a result.
While you can alleviate some of the worries by resorting to an online writing service and preparing several different public statements, it’s always a good idea to deal with these things internally. Investigate the allegations made against your brand and present the public with indisputable proof of your innocence. It’s not easy if you have to disclose a company secret to the public just because someone accused you of something but steps like these are sometimes necessary to deal with reputation loss and prevent it.
Provide something of value
A good way to alleviate online reputation loss is to provide value to your customers without any catches attached. While it may cost your company some short-term revenue, this type of public relation management is a good way to show some respect for the people who believe in you. After all, your customer base is the lifeline of your brand and business, meaning that you should do whatever you can to maintain their level of trust and loyalty.
Choose a product or a service to give away for free without any extra cost involved if your brand comes under scrutiny for something you haven’t done. This way you will not only stop any online reputation loss that might have occurred but also show that you are above accusations and a professional in your niche.
Ask for customer feedback
The best way to deal with online reputation loss is to face it head-on. Talking to your customers and asking for their opinion is one of the most important ways to recover from any media scrutiny that might have caused a reputation loss on your part. Creating questionnaires or conducting online interviews with regular customers and asking some basic questions can give you very actionable data to work with:
• What are we doing right as a brand?
• What are we doing wrong as a brand?
• What would you change about us if you had the chance?
• What is your opinion of our PR and online brand management?
• Would you recommend our brand and product to your friends and family?
These five questions can prove as much fundamental data as you will ever need when it comes to online reputation management. Keep in mind that the customer is always right in the end since they are the ones who are paying to keep you in business.
Continuous caution
Just because one crisis was averted doesn’t mean you are out of the woods – online reputation comes and goes depending on your actions. Pay close attention to your niche’s news outlets and social media reactions to your products and services.
Averting a potential disaster is quite possible if you notice the fire start early on and extinguish any possibility of it spreading. Be vigilant and always prepare for the worst – you never know when your reputation might come under pressure from the media and customers alike.
