Have you ever wondered what is being said about you or your brand on the web space? Have you ever imagined what results would pop up if your or your business name is Googled?
Nowadays, the importance of an online presence for businesses cannot be overlooked. It is even more important that this presence is positive. A few blog posts, comments, or negative reviews are enough to ruin the reputation you have spent years building.
Online reputation, also known as e-reputation or cyber reputation, can impact on all aspects of our lives, from job offers to lucrative business contracts, potential partnerships, or our personal lives. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor and protect your brand image, both on the web and on social media.
A lot of players keep springing up in the field of online reputation management; Mention, Google Alerts, reputation.com, Big Blue Robot, Metal Rabbit Media, to mention a few. These tools may be useful for big brands or well-known personalities, but they are by no means a first choice for brands with a more limited reputation or for individuals.
For a long time, brands have not paid enough attention to their image and e-reputation. Many have been slow to realise that a negative image on the web can affect their business in real life. Therefore, it is crucial to monitor your online image if you don’t want to miss out on new opportunities because of negative criticism against you or your brand.
Creating a Positive Reputation
Do you want a positive brand image? It is important to define what you want to be known for and make this information accessible to those who might search for you. Your social media platforms should define you and what you stand for. You might create a blog where you post articles that you share on your various social networks so that they are seen by more people. Don’t forget that creating and publishing quality content has the benefit of informing people and reassuring them.
Answering questions on sites such as Quora also helps show expertise and create positive content. Don’t hesitate to share positive content published by your customers (comments, reviews, photos, etc.) to associate your brand with a positive image and thus strengthen your reputation and brand awareness.
Search Yourself
Knowing what others find when they search for your brand is also important. So why not try it yourself and do some media monitoring? Do a search on your brand and see what Google Images shows you. You should also set up a Google alert on your name to monitor any new content.
Also, consider listing all the social networks, platforms, forums, media, and blogs that mention your brand. You should then rank the different channels identified according to their importance to make it easier to monitor your digital reputation. While it may be impossible to remove negative content associated with your name, creating positive content would help push it down in the search results.
Protecting Your E-Reputation
The various ways through which you can protect your e-reputation include:
Buy your domain name
Opinions are divided on how much money and effort should be put into this. Some recommend purchasing a lot of domain names- yourname.com, yourname.blogspot.com, yournameonline.com. It may, however, be better to purchase a single domain name and invest a lot of effort in creating sustainable content on the site.
Using software to monitor your reputation
Faced with the flood of information on the web, it is not easy to find all the mentions of your brand without using digital reputation monitoring tools. Numerous tools exist that allow you to monitor your brand image by producing real-time analyses. They are essential for effectively monitoring a communication strategy and measuring its impact.
Maintain your privacy
Bearing in mind that very little information remains private these days, it is important to be very selective about the personal data you post online. Do not disclose information that you do not wish to be publicly displayed.
From now on, a brand must protect its digital image: the most effective way to take care of your company’s image on the Internet is to set up continuous monitoring of your cyber-reputation. This monitoring must be global: many tools exist to help you carry out optimal monitoring on several channels. A bad online reputation can have disastrous consequences for a brand. It is therefore interesting to combine this media monitoring with work to improve your reputation, particularly via social networks and customer comments. Keep in mind that changes can take time and should be considered within a more global strategy.
