Why Hire A Reputation Management Agency

It only takes one poor rating to send things spiraling out of control. Perhaps your performance suffered because you were having a busy morning. Maybe you were short-handed and your staff was unable to handle things up to your usual standards. Even if you typically offer great customer service, your clients may leave a review that reflects their negative experience.

This is why it’s so important to nurture a positive relationship with your target audience. And it’s also important to know how to respond in times things don’t go as planned. Luckily, with the help of a reputation management marketing agency, this can be easy. Let’s discuss a few reasons why you should engage a reputation management company. But first, what is a reputation management agency?

What Does A Reputation Management Agency Do

Any time you perform a service or offer a product that your customer is not happy with, there is always a chance that they could express their dissatisfaction in a poor review or give you a bad rating. However, it’s not always easy to find these types of reviews–whether negative or positive. In some cases, you may find that your company doesn’t have any reviews at all. And this is where a great agency comes in. They do all of the research for you.  They find each review and then respond quickly and professionally. Below are a few ways in which these types of companies can help.

Perfecting Your Image

A reputation management agency can ensure that your company always projects the best image. Reviews can have a significant impact on the way your target audience views you. And this means that your public persona, no matter how long and hard you have worked on it, is always at risk to a few opinions. A professional agency will constantly check social media platforms as well as other reviews to find out how you’re being perceived. In this way, they can find out if there are changes that need to be made on your behalf or issues that you need to address.

Building Rapport With Your Audience

Not only are professional agencies responsible for ensuring that your public image is spotless, but they are also instrumental in helping you build a rapport with your audience. Believe it or not, there are a lot of instances that your customers may overlook simply because you have taken time to build a relationship with them. They feel that you truly identify with them, so they are less likely to report on the bad.

And this is where a great agency comes in. They can increase your digital marketing efforts by build trust and bonding with your audience. Engagement is the key to ensuring that your customers remain happy. Your reputation management agency will respond to questions and concerns even before they are an issue.   

Building Credibility

One of the most damaging things about a bad review is that they affect your target audience’s ability to trust you. Before making a purchase, consumers often search online to make sure that they will be getting the best deal. But most importantly, they want to know if the company they are buying from has credibility. When customers stumble across bad reviews, they automatically assume the worst. That is unless you have addressed these issues head-on.

Sure, not every situation requires a direct response, but a reputation management company will be able to identify these instances and offer a professional response. They will handle these reviews in a professional and friendly way so that other customers can see that your company cares about what its customers think. And this can actually help to build your credibility.

Saving Time

One of the most crucial ways in which a reputation management agency can help is in the area of time. As a Singapore business owner, you understand that time is money. And this means that your attention is often spread across several different areas of your business to ensure that it is running as efficiently as possible. Reputation management can take a lot of time and research, and since this is an area in which the professionals specialise, you can leave it all to them.

What if I have don’t have any reviews?

There are instances in which Singapore businesses have more customer reviews than they can handle. However, there are those times in which the company may have no reviews at all. Even though no company wants a bad review, having no review at all can be just as bad in some cases. So your agency can help you come up with a strategic plan to generate more positive reviews from your clients. They can also answer questions in those times that your reviews are less than positive.

Keeping Up With Your Competition

Reputation management firms are also interested in how your company measures up to other Singapore businesses in your niche. This is why they do their best to keep up with all of your competitors. They research what they are saying about your brand. In some cases, they may find that your competitors are the ones who are leaving bad reviews.

Increasing Sales

Perhaps the biggest benefit of hiring a reputation management agency is that all of the above-mentioned things will help you to increase your conversion rates and sales. The better your image, the more likely people are to want to work with you. The more rapport you build with your audience, the more interest they take in your newest products and services.

The more credibility you have, the more likely people are to trust the claims you make about the products and services you sell. The more time the firm saves you, the more time you will have to work on drawing in new customers. The more reviews you get, the more awareness you will bring to your services. Also, the more closely you follow your competition, the better you will be able to counteract all possible sabotage which ensures that your business is able to maintain your customers.

What Can Go Wrong?

You have to manage your reputation online else someone else will. It is easy to establish a thought online and let it proliferate over time. However, it is a different ball game for businesses. If you do not keep track of your online reputation it can get distorted in your favour. When managing online reputation, take note of the following factors:

• Universal search
• Personalized search
• Enhanced search results
• Rich snippets

The World Wide Web presents a multitude of opportunities for slanderous or negative results. You have to be in control of what gets out about your business. If you do not manage your online reputation, another party can easily claim something negative about you. They can put up content, video, or comments to promote competitors. Taking care of your online reputation is not as self-serving. It is also a means to protect your business.

What Are The Possible Repercussions 

Your online reputation affects the perception of consumers. How they view your business decides whether or not they will patronise your brand and offerings. Your online reputation affects different groups of people like:

• Consumers
• Business partners
• Stockholders
• Marketers
• Journalists
• Prospective employers
• Co-workers
• Personal contacts

Failing to manage your reputation not only discourages users from patronising your business; you also drive them towards competition. It can be harder to sustain business operations with competitors growing stronger. While you can result to legal ramifications, this can be financially challenging. As the old saying goes, prevention is better than cure.

Size Matters

What’s the difference between large brand Singapore companies with bad reputations and smaller Singapore companies with bad reputations? The answer is simple. When it comes to larger brands, customers don’t have many alternatives. Big brand companies don’t have to worry too much about customers saying negative things about them and how it affects their marketing strategy, because they know that their options are limited.

However, in the case of smaller companies, there is a lot more competition. A few negative words could mean the end of an otherwise successful business. And this is why it’s so important that you manage your online reputation. There are many Singapore companies who don’t realise this until it’s too late.

Not only can online reputation management save your business from destruction, but it can also help you become more visible by improving your rankings.

What Can Go Wrong Online?

Your online reputation has the ability to take on a life of its own. Just like you, it has a definite identity and personality. In fact, in most cases, your reputation will actually proceed your business. And this is why many Singapore companies go to great lengths to ensure that their business is always being shown in the best light. However, that doesn’t mean that it’s easy to create a positive reputation.

In fact, it takes the average business years to build a brand that they are proud to be associated with. But even with the best reputation, all it takes is a small blunder or one “less than productive” day to set your business back and cause issues in how the public views you. This leaves many business owners to wonder, not only how they can create a positive reputation, but also how they can go about maintaining it.

In this article, we will discuss what you can do to maintain a positive reputation as well as how it can make or break your company and digital marketing. But first, we’ll talk about where an online reputation comes from.

Where does an online reputation come from?

It’s obvious that a great reputation is very important. However, what does an online reputation originate? A couple of decades ago, Singapore businesses relied primarily on word of mouth in order to establish a great reputation. They made sure to deliver quality service in hopes that their satisfied customers would tell their family, friends, and associates how pleased they were with their experience. This was a very effective form of advertising, however as technology has advanced, word of mouth has taken on a whole new life.

Now that customers have access to social media platforms and are able to share their thoughts and opinions at any given moment and to a huge audience and on a global scale, word of mouth is now more far-reaching. With just one simple click, a customer can broadcast the details of their latest experience with you.

This can be done on several different platforms. They may express their opinions on your company blog, social media platforms, industry forums, or review websites. Wherever people have the ability to make their feelings known, these are places in which your reputation can take shape.

How to maintain a positive reputation

As you can see, no matter how much work you put into presenting the best side of your business, there is always a chance that someone could leave feedback that could be to your detriment. But luckily, there are things that you can do in order to lessen your chances of getting these types of reviews as well as lessen the impact if you do. Below are a few helpful tips.

Always keep your promises

There are a lot of Singapore businesses that guarantee that their product or service is the best. They guarantee that their customers will be 100% satisfied. And they often guarantee that if the customer is not completely satisfied that they will do everything in their power to fix the situation and make them whole. But how many of these companies actually make good on these promises?

If you want to ensure that your customers associate your business with phenomenal customers service, then you must make it your top priority to fulfill all of the promises and guarantees that you offer. In fact, it’s often better to underpromise and keep your word than overpromise and miss the mark. By operating your business in this way, you can customer trust and loyalty.

Go above and beyond

You should never over-promise, but you should always strive to overdeliver. Make a promise to your customer and then surprise them by giving them much more than they actually expected. This may mean that you offer additional services or products free of charge. Perhaps upon their next visit, you tailor their experiences according to the preferences from their previous visit. This is a great way to stand out from the crowd and distinguish yourself from other businesses in your niche.

Be responsive

When it comes to delivering excellent customer service, there are very few things more important than being responsive. No matter what industry you’re in, your customer wants to know that you actually care about their needs and concerns. And the best way to ensure that they know this is to respond to them. Always return their calls and address any complaints or feedback they may have.

Resolve issues quickly

Whenever you receive a complaint from a customer, you need to take full responsibility. Make it a habit of not blaming your customer for the problems they are having. Instead, try to resolve the matter as quickly as you possibly can. The longer it remains unresolved, the more time the customer has to complain to others about their bad experience. Not only can you prevent the customer from doing harm to your reputation, but they will also be pleased by how swiftly you settled the matter and will be more likely to do business with you in the future. In fact, it could turn them into your number one customers.

How your reputation can make or break you

Now that we understand where your online reputation comes from and how you can maintain one that is positive, it’s time to consider how your reputation can make or break your business. This is especially the case for users who do most of their searching on Google. What people say about your business matters.

Your Reputation Can Combat Negative Reviews or Reinforce Them

When you think about your online reputation, you should consider how one point of view can affect the other. When you have more good reviews than bad, then people will tend to believe the best about your business. When you have more bad reviews than good, then people will tend to believe the worst about your business. And when each amount is even, the consumer usually makes their own judgment call based on the worst reviews.

This is why it’s so important to encourage good word of mouth. The positive reviews can help cancel out those that are negative. By taking care of your clients, they are more likely to do what they can to help you protect your brand and this really shines through in the feedback.

Your Reputation Can Lead to Further Improvement

While most Singapore business owners typically view their reputation in terms of how it affects their profits and bottom line, there are some who understand the underlying value in their daily business operations. There are times in which you may find that your reputation is not as strong as it once was. And these are the times that make you step back and take a look at your business practices.

Perhaps your competition is offering something that you’re missing. Maybe it’s time to rebrand your website. It may be time to reorganise your departments. Whatever the case, your online reputation may be just the thing that makes you realise that it’s time for a change and breathes new life into your business.

Your Reputation Can Serve as Promotion

One of the best things about an online reputation is that this content, meaning the reviews, comments, and feedback, are user-generated. Not only is this great in terms of SEO and impressing the search engines, but it can also be an advertisement for your business. People want to know that they can trust you. When they see that other customers have tried your products, it acts as social proof.

Your Reputation Can Attract Talent

If you are interested in hiring the top talent in your industry, then your reputation can go a long ways towards ensuring that you find the best. Just as consumers are doing research into the companies that they make purchases from, potential employees are doing research into the companies they would like to work for. The more positive things they see if your brand, the more likely they are to apply to your job listings.

Your Reputation Positions You as a Leader

Perhaps the most important way in which your online reputation can make or break you is when it comes to your influence. The more positive things people say about your business, the more it denotes trust. And the more trust you have from your customers, the more authority your brand will earn. Authority is especially important when it comes to search engines like Google who base a considerable amount of their ranking decisions on how much of an industry leader or influencer your brand is.

So now we know what is important in online reputation management, let’s discuss 10 SOPs your Singapore business should have.

Develop A Twitter Account

What surprising is that there are a lot of businesses who struggle with their reputation, but these same Singapore companies don’t have a Twitter account. Either that or the one that they have is extremely underdeveloped. And in many cases, these accounts don’t even link to their websites.

What business owners need to understand is that Twitter should be a standard part of your business. It’s great for name searches. The key is to set the account up properly. Your Twitter account should rank on page 1 when someone searches for your name in Google. The best case scenario is that Google embeds a few of your most recent tweets below your listing.

Develop a Facebook Page

Just as is the case with Twitter, if your account is set up properly, your Facebook Page can rank highly in Google. Make sure that your Page features your photo, name, location, website and a description of your business and the services and products that you provide. Engage your audience so that your number of followers grow. Also, make sure to post regular updates.

Launch and nurture a YouTube channel

If your company is without a Youtube channel, then you should launch one as soon as possible. If you already have a channel but it’s not optimised, then you need to optimise it as soon as possible.  Create a posting schedule in which you release at lead one video per month.

Make sure that each video is optimised. The video should have a great title and description. Remember that Youtube is the second largest search engine worldwide. You want your video to be discovered. In fact, Google often shows favour to Youtube videos in their search results. The more videos you create, the more content you have to rank.

Assign social media brand ambassadors

Ideally, you are confident enough in your employees to act as ambassadors for your brand. You trust in their ability to be on the front line when it comes to communication. Empower your employees to be able to speak for you. Create guidelines and offer training about things that they should and shouldn’t say.

You can also coach your employees on how to network and optimise their own social media presence. Have them update their LinkedIn profile so that they can be associated with your business. Invite them to connect with your brand’s profile on Facebook and Twitter. All of this will help with their rankings and yours.

Manage the online presence of key employees

In many cases, Singapore brands are closely tied to high-profile individuals. Unfortunately, if this individual’s reputation suffers, then so does that of the company. So it’s a good idea to oversee this individual’s online reputation. Encourage these individuals to create a presence online–specifically on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and personal websites, and LinkedIn. Your employee may have a longing for privacy, but this doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t have some form of an online presence. This is especially true for people who have unique names. Without an online profile, this person becomes an easy target for people who are disgruntled.

Make it easy for people to find out who’s behind your brand

One of the quickest ways to make your company look untrustworthy is to show no sign as to who is running the site. If you don’t feel secure enough to put a few names of people on your site, then why should your target audience trust you? When someone first visits your site, they should be able to look at the “About Us” or “Team” page and see the names of actual people listed there.

If you want to make the experience even more personalised, you should include a few photos of human faces. This is a great way to establish credibility because people will know that if they have any trouble they’ll be able to get in touch with real people. Showing human faces also allows you to prepare your audience for a spokesperson or brand ambassador.

Launch a press kit

A press kit can be a great way to crowdsource your reputation. Use high-quality videos and photo. This will encourage others to post articles about your business.  You can make it even easier by including fact sheets, timelines, photos, and logos. Add a Creative Commons license to these elements so that people will not feel obligated to contact you and get your permission to use your media.

Optimise Google My Business

There are Singapore companies that ignore their Google Maps presence altogether. However, there are several advantages to keep up with it.  First, it increases the amount of information there is about you in Google’s search results. And this ensures that your company takes up more real estate. Another key advantage is that it leads to more search opportunities. You see, when your business is listed with Google My Business, it means that it will be associated with similar categories. This means that whenever someone searches for your type of business they will likely see yours as an option.

Work on increasing positive reviews

Surprisingly, there are several Singapore business owners who are uncomfortable about asking their customers for reviews. The problem is, the fewer reviews you have, the more weight even one bad review can have. By accumulating a large number of reviews, your potential customer can assume that one or two bad reviews were just isolated incidents.

So ask for reviews. The best way to go about it is to ask your most satisfied customers. Just keep in mind that every review aggregate has different rules. For instance, Yelp has a rule that business owners should not ask for reviews.

Review and improve your policies

If you truly want to avoid a negative outcome, then you need to improve your performance. It all starts with your company. Are your services and sales processes free of hiccups? Does your company seem to accumulate complaints regularly? If so, you need to find ways in which you can improve your customer service. Do away with any procedure or policy that is causing friction between you and the customers. You should also take time to educate your customers on ways that they can best avoid a crisis. In this way, your customers will know that you are looking out for their best interests, even before you receive a complaint. Survey your customers to find out how you can render better service.

Bonus tip: You should also consider using traditional public relations strategies. They can help your customers to build their identities. Write a book about your niche. Get in touch with the press so that they can do stories about interesting things your brand may be associated with. Become a sponsor for a local event.

Online Reputation Management: Should You Engage A 3rd Party?

If you are a Singapore business owner, then you know how important it is to have a great reputation. This is what helps to build trust in potential clients and loyalty in your current ones. But did you know that there is an entire sector dedicated to managing your reputation? It’s called online reputation management.

Online reputation management refers to the process of influencing, monitoring and identifying your digital reputation. Not only does this ensure that your business is seen in the best light but it can also provide you with new opportunities for your brand. This is because most of today’s consumers take time to research products before they buy them. They want to know about the products, services, and the business that sells them. So it is crucial that you pay attention to the way that people view you.

Luckily, there are companies that exist solely to help you manage your reputation. Their goal is to ensure that consumers only find the best information about your business. Also. they can help you to respond to any negative claims. Let’s discuss a few of the benefits that you can get from hiring a Singapore branding agency to manage your reputation.

1. They Can Increase Your Sales

As mentioned earlier, before a Singapore consumer purchase a new product or service they will do the necessary research about it. As technology advances, consumers have a wealth of information at their disposal. They can look through online reviews and get the opinion of others, they can search for your customer testimonials on your website and they can also read consumer reports. What this means is that your reputation can either lead to an increase in sales or a decrease in sales.

Sure, you could choose to start investigating your reputation once your sales start to drop, but by this time the damage could be irreparable. This is why it is good to get ahead of the issues. You need to gain valuable insight before any issues take place.

A quality online reputation management agency understands this. They know exactly what your potential customers are searching for. And they know what message these individuals need to hear when they are making their final buying decisions.

2. They Can Help You to Build Credibility and Trust

What so great about digital marketing is that you have a lot of people that can spread the word about your business. This is especially the case when it comes to bloggers and other websites that are related to your industry. The more people see your name and associate it with positive reviews, the more credibility your company has. People will automatically trust you based on brand recognition. However, it is important to remember that the Internet can be a two-edged sword.
Just as people will offer rave reviews about your products and services, they can share their negative experiences as well. And when this type of dialogue spreads, it can be hard to rebuild your credibility and you can sometimes lose the trust of your current customers. That is why it is a good idea to work with a company that knows how to maintain an element of credibility and trust.

Quality online reputation management understands how costly the loss of people’s confidence can be for your business. They work furiously to protect you from negative publicity. In this way, you can save time, money, and frustration that comes along with repairing a bad reputation.

3. They Can Show Your Best Side

Not only can a reputation management firm help you to protect your image, they can also help you to ensure that you only show your best side. Sure there may be negative reviews about your company online, however, a quality online reputation management agency will work to push all of the positive reviews to the top. This means that when your customers and potential business partners search for your brand the first thing that they will notice are the most flattering comments. A great agency understands the importance of taking control of your online dialogue rather than letting the dialogue about your business take control of you.

4. They Can Help to Provide Online Insights

Do you know what your customers are saying about you? What are their complaints, what do they think you can improve on, what elements do they appreciate the most about your business, is there something that you should do more of? These are the questions that every Singapore business owner should ask themselves when thinking about their online reputation.

Perhaps one of the most beneficial parts about hiring a professional agency to manage your reputation is that they can find out what people are saying about you. Reputation management is about more than controlling people’s perceptions of your brand. It is also about finding out what matters most to your target audience and a quality agency can help you get to the bottom of all of their opinions.

5. They Can find out where the Bad News is Coming from

The Internet is a huge space. And content is constantly being added to it and from all over the world. For many Singapore businesses, this can make tracking down the source of bad news next to impossible. Your negative reviews can come from various sources. They may be written by consumers, former employees, or even your competition. Until you find the source of this information, you will never be able to address it properly.

Unfortunately, doing this research on your own will only take away valuable time that you can be used for other important business activit.es This is why a lot of businesses choose to hire a third party. Their sole function is to track down this information. Instead of working blindly to fix it, the first work to identify the source. They may find that legal actions need to be taken on your behalf. Or, it may simply be a matter of requesting that the negative information be taken down.

6. They Can Help to Implement Strategies

Once your ORM agency investigates where the bad news is coming from they may find that the complaints have something in common. In this case, there may be things that you need to change about your business in order to do away with these issues. The best agencies will be able to make recommendations based on their findings and will help you to follow through on them.

7. They Can Help With Maintenance

Believe it or not, reputation management is not a one-time deal. Just because you have managed to track down the source of bad opinions and present only the positive first, does not mean you should stop working on your reputation. It requires consistent monitoring and analysing to ensure that your efforts have paid off. The best agencies are interested in both repairing your reputation and making sure that it stays that way.

Social media marketing in Singapore has proven to be very effective in helping local and foreign companies in the country get more customers. According to recent statistics, Singapore had 4.2 million active social network users and this number is expected to increase to 4.7 million by 2023.

As a digital marketer in Singapore, you need to come up with robust social media marketing strategies to help your brand generate more leads. Reputation is one of the primary factors that clients consider before deciding to do business with a particular company.

Apart from using social media marketing in Singapore to generate leads, you can use the same channels for reputation management. One of the most inspiring and wise quotes by Benjamin Franklin states that “It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation and only one bad deed to lose it all.” The reputation is one of the highlights of your brands. It gives your business an upper hand in the market.

Thanks to the many social media platforms that have gained traction in Singapore, clients are able to communicate easily with customer care personnel. They expect instantaneous interactions from the brands they decide to do business with always. It goes without saying that failing to respond to clients’ queries on platforms such as Facebook will affect the brand’s growth and reputation.

Social media in Singapore is not just a viable reputation management tool but also a necessary one in any business. A good example of a company that suffered for failing to utilise social media platforms to manage its reputation in the time of a disaster is Intercontinental Terminals Company (ITC) based in Houston. Eight chemical tanks that contained harmful components to the environment and human beings caught fire and for three days, smoke covered the entire Houston city.

ITC held regular press conferences and press releases to update the community about what they were doing to address the issue. However, they ignored social media and this led to massive negative publicity. The community who took to Twitter and Facebook to ask questions thought the company was ignoring them and this fuelled the negative publicity.

ITC is not the only company that has suffered the same predicament. 58% of CEOs in Singapore and abroad are of the idea that online reputation management should be addressed but only a fraction (15%) use social media to manage their respective brand’s reputation.

Here are wise nuggets on how to use social media marketing in Singapore for reputation management.

Respond to Negative Reviews

One of the mistakes that businesses make is reacting to negative reviews posted on social media platforms in Singapore instead of responding to them in a professional and cordial manner. No matter how great your product or service is, you will come across clients who will not be contended.

This is one of the natural moving parts of any business. If left unattended, the negative sentiments can compromise your credibility in the market and potentially lower your chances of getting new leads through your Singapore social media marketing strategies.

Below are some statistics about the impact of negative reviews.

• 60% of clients confess that negative reviews discourage them from doing business with some brands
• 85% of clients trust online reviews and consider them as personal recommendations
• In Singapore Google search results, online customer reviews have a 7% impact on website rankings

The most successful businesses in Singapore consider negative reviews as new business opportunities, not hindrances. This is based on the fact that 30% of consumers believe that the way a brand responds to negative reviews is a strong signal that can be used to gauge the credibility of a local business.

So, how should you respond to negative reviews in Singapore?

• Think deeply before responding: Take some time to think about the negative review and your response before posting. This does not mean that you should take the whole day, but enough time to understand the main issue and come up with an ideal solution to it. The goal is to respond wisely to all negative reviews.
• Be Authentic: Singapore online customers are savvy, and can easily tell if your response is genuine. Most businesses have a canned response to issues that arise frequently. Respond to clients’ concerns and make them feel that you genuinely care about their feelings and initial expectations when they purchased your product or sort for your service.
• Move the Conversation Offline: The first thing that you need to note is that a client who left negative feedback is either downright upset or unhappy with your business. Do not make the mistake of discussing the nitty-gritty details with everyone. Otherwise, the case will be brown out of proportion.

        For example, if you decide to offer a special coupon or discount to the disgruntled customer, other clients who come across the post will be tempted to post a similar review to get a discount also.

• Negative Ignore Negative Reviews: The worst thing you can do in social media marketing in Singapore is ignoring a negative review posted by a genuine customer. As mentioned earlier, a negative review is actually an unexploited business opportunity. Ignoring it will show other customers that you do not really care about their sentiments.

Dealing with Trolls

If your Singapore business has been active on social media for a while, you have probably come across a troll. There are trolls who just want to make fun of your brand and there are those who will do anything possible to wreak havoc and ruin your reputation in the name of having fun online.

Sometimes, it can be difficult to tell the difference between a genuine customer who is upset about the product or service and a troll. Here are some common traits that trolls use to get attention on social media platforms in Singapore.

• Use of strong language such as “WORST”, “HATE”, “NEVER”
• Name-calling and personal attacks
• Poor grammar such as capitalizing all letters and excessive punctuation

Here are some of the facts on how to deal with a troll.

• Be Cordial and Polite: Trolls are only interested in one thing – starting an argument and ruining your reputation. Reacting to their comments will just fuel the conversation and help them achieve the goal. Try as much as possible to remain cordial and polite as you converse with them. Being cool, calm, and collected will turn them off.
• Include Facts in your Responses: In most cases, trolls have no legitimate experience with your product, service, or brand. They are simply stating things to change the mindset of existing and potential customers. Dissolve their sentiments by including facts in your responses. Prove them wrong to give the same audience to believe you.
• Desist from being pulled into an argument: If you notice, the troll is trying to introduce personal attacks, re-coil, and desist from being pulled into an argument. Strive to nullify their sentiments with facts.
• Do not Delete Comments: You might be tempted to delete their harsh comments. Resist that urge, as deleting will show the troll that you are upset and actually concerned about their posts. This will actually re-energise and motivate him or her to keep going.
• Know When to Stop: If you reach a point where you feel the conversation is not going to solve a thing, END IT. Just make sure that you exit on a high note as the rest of the community is following the conversation to see how you will resolve the situation. Politely excuse yourself.

Inaccurate Messages

Nobody is perfect – mistakes occur when you least expect them to no matter how much time you prepped for the event. One of the mistakes that most people make is posting inaccurate messages on social media. Truth be told, it is embarrassing but that is not the end of the world.

What should you do after realizing you posted an inaccurate message on your social media pages?

1. Admit the Mistake: Yes, it is not easy to admit you made a mistake especially on a social media platform that has millions of Singaporeans. Build trust, show the community that you are also human, and can mistake by admitting it. Then, come up with a plan to make it right.
2. Desist from Deleting the Original Message: Even if you realized the mistake a few minutes after posting on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or any other platform, there is a high likelihood that people have already seen it especially those who actively follow your page. Deleting it will disorient your audience and trigger them to question why you deleted it. Let it stay on the page, otherwise, you will give clients a reason to distrust you.
3. Provide the Correct Information in a New Post: Provide accurate information in a new post. Grasp their attention with a captivating heading with words such as “NEW INFORMATION” or “UPDATE. There is no shortage of words that you can use to ensure that the new post spurs engagement with the audience and nullifies the previous erroneous one.

10 Expert Techniques for Brand Social Media Reputation Management

With millions of people using various social media platforms to socialize and find information about products and services they intend to buy, you cannot afford to ignore your brand reputation. 88% of customers trust reviews more than branded text from companies.

Most customers won’t hesitate to highlight the good and ugly aspects of a product or service on social media. How you respond to both types of feedback will determine the trajectory of your online business. Today, we will comprehensively look at social media reputation management and why it’s important. 

What is Social Media Reputation Management?

A decade ago, businesses would get away with the bare minimum reputation management practices such as publishing strategic content, monitoring engagement levels across channels, and engaging with the consumers.

Well, those strategies can help you get started, but also the business grows, you will need to incorporate new generation reputation management tactics to stay ahead of the competition. You will need to cover more digital ground to communicate effectively with existing and new customers. This entails active business review websites, business directory apps, local directories and other digital spaces.

Simply put, social media reputation management is a host of processes geared towards protecting the credibility of a brand. The main focus of the strategies is to provide the best user experience to the customers and amicably meet their needs.

Here are social media reputation management hacks that you should start implementing today to secure the sustainability of your business.

Publish Content That Is Relevant and Engaging

In the current wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, most people prefer shopping online instead of driving to the stores. The quality and type of content you publish on social media will determine the revenue you get from the platforms.

Therefore, focus on posting content that is not only relevant to the target audience but also engaging. Post updates such as news related to your industry, special offers, upcoming promotions, videos, photos, links, and even GIFs. 

All these forms of content will spur engagement with the audience and keep them interested in your brand. Be careful not to lose your brand identity in the maze. Make sure that all the posts resonate with your brand image and work towards realizing the set goals.

Unlike social media marketing, reputation management shouldn’t be overly self-promotional. That is, your goal should be to provide content that is interesting and informative. But it should paint a positive image of your brand, that is, convince them that you are an authority by posting high-quality content that piques their interest in your brand.

Resolve Issues that Compromise your Reputation Promptly

Every business wants to accrue positive reviews from its social media community, but that is not always the case. You will get negative comments and reviews over time from customers who are unsatisfied with your business.

As a professional determined to retain a positive reputation on social media, you should strive to resolve the issues amicably as soon as they arise. Have a plan on how to communicate and address the problem with the customer without involving other parties.

The clocks start to tick when a customer posts a negative review of your product or service. Your reputation and ratings drop with every hour that you ignore the post or fail to respond. The ideal way to deal with negative reviews is, to be honest, apologetic, open-minded, and willing to provide an amicable solution to the root cause of the problem raised.

If the negative reviews remain unanswered for long, other customers will tend to think that your brand doesn’t care about them. 

Focus on first pinpointing the problem, then consult your team to come up with an ideal solution. For example, if you shipped the wrong product or the product was faulty, offer to send a replacement at no extra cost. You could also request the client send the product back for a refund if you have a money-back guarantee policy.

Also, most brands tend to delete negative reviews as soon as they are posted. That is a temporary solution that could have major negative effects on your business. Show the target customers that you believe your product or service is the best in the industry by not hiding or deleting the comments. 

Instead, you should respond to the comments in a professional manner. Your choice of words should show anyone who comes across the posts that you truly care and are committed to ensuring that customers get value for every dollar they spend on your product/service.

Check out our article on how to handle negative reviews for more insider tips. 

Leverage Social Media Listening Tools

It’s almost impossible to keep tabs on every conversation about your company that happens on social media. The process gets even more tedious and time-consuming if you run social media campaigns on multiple platforms.

Luckily, there are social media listening tools that you can incorporate into your processes to help you monitor the conversations. Hootsuite is considered the best social listening tool in the market today due to its superior features and reporting tools. Use it to track mentions, monitor reviews posted on social media, schedule posts and create custom streams to match every campaign goal. 

The tool has many features that you can use to get ahead of the competition. Take time to learn how they work to get maximum utility from it, especially the reports. Don’t hesitate to contact the support team if you are unsure about a particular metric before deciding.

Check out our review of the top social listening tools for businesses today. 

Monitor Both Facebook and Google

76% of all customer reviews are posted on either Facebook or Google. Customers use the two platforms to vent when a brand offers a product or service that doesn’t match the price tag. They also use them to commend brands that consistently meet their needs. 

Therefore, we recommend that as you create a social media reputation management strategy, you don’t just limit yourself to Facebook. Check out what the customers post on Google, especially on the Google My Business Profile.

Google is also aware that reviews are the main factors that influence buyer decisions. As a result, it often uses them to rank GMB profile listings in the SERPs. The top three results are of business with many reviews and a solid rating from legit customers. Be sure to also respond to negative reviews posted on this platform to generate more sales.

Concisely, develop a way to continuously monitor, engage, and collect information from both platforms to get a clearer understanding of your audience’s needs and expectations. Remember, consumer preferences are dynamic, so be ready to periodically tweak your processes to match their needs.

Show Off Positive Reviews on Social Media Networks

There is no harm in showing off your best reviews across the social media networks that you use to promote your business. The thoughts will come in handy, especially if you are trying to bounce back from a rough reputation patch. 

Go ahead and share the reviews on your profile, or use modern tools such as Amplify to post them on your official company blog. The potent power of user-generated content to convince customers who are on the fence to convert cannot be undermined. It is more effective than promotional branded content and sales messages sent via email marketing.

In addition, the positive reviews will neutralise the negative reviews posted. It could be the social proof the customers were looking for to place an order, especially if they came across negative feedback and were unsure whether your product could meet their needs.

Use Social Media Data for Insights

Successful brands rely on Google Analytics and other similar tools to monitor their visibility online. Social media platforms have an analytics page packed with valuable information on how the audience interacts with the content published.

Get your business to the next level by analysing the data presented to get insights on customer experience and expectations. Concisely, the precious social media data will work magic on your reputation management strategy and the digital marketing campaigns you run on the platforms.

Thanks to new technologies such as natural language processing, your marketing team can understand the real sentiments from the feedback. It can even pinpoint crucial words or phrases that are a result of a specific action done.

Be different by tapping into social media data to understand what the customers need and want by carefully analysing their comments on your social media posts.

Use Social Media to Offer Customer Service

Customer support has a major impact on the success of a social media marketing campaign. Clients need to be sure that the product has what it takes to solve the problem they are currently facing before they buy.

Therefore, in your quest to have a commendable reputation on Facebook and other platforms, develop ways of using your profile to offer customer service. For example, you can hold a live Q&A session every couple of weeks to respond to their questions and concerns. Rest assured that they will enjoy getting responses to their questions in real-time and directly.

Remember, it only takes one negative interaction to ruin a good reputation that has taken you years or months to build. 

Set Up Google Alerts

Google Alerts will notify you whenever someone mentions your business name in comments. The alerts will ensure that you respond to the remarks fast and gauge the performance of your brand awareness efforts. 

If the comments are posted on a social media site that you don’t use, you will still get an alert about it, thereby ensuring that no comments are left unattended at any time. As mentioned earlier, be as professional and authentic as possible when responding to the comments to avoid aggravating the matter at hand. 

Use Charity Events to Change Public Perception

If fighting off the negative reputation of your brand on social media is proving difficult for your team, consider organizing a charity event in areas you service. Ensure that you promote the event using banners and other forms of ads on social media to encourage public participation.

The more people take part in the event, the better the results. Microsoft is best known for giving back to the community by rolling out charity organizations across the globe. The event does not have to be big and expensive, especially if you are a small or medium business with a limited budget. 

A small act of humanity can significantly affect your brand’s reputation as you strive to bounce back to profitability. Be sure to record the event and upload the video on your blog to impress potential customers who reside in other regions. 

Learn from Your Mistakes

Social media reputation management is not a one-time task but an ongoing process that should never stop. In your journey of polishing your credibility and reputation, learn from your mistakes and don’t let the shortcoming demoralize or discourage you from continuing to render the services to the customers.

Maybe most of the customers are happy with what your brand offers and so don’t allow the small segment of customers to bring you down. Focus on also proving that you are the best by responding to their concerns, as repeatedly mentioned in this article.

Bonus Tip

In the current digital world, news travels super-fast, and you cannot hide an issue that pertains to the customer or staff forever. Instead of burying your head in the sand, we recommend facing the PR problems with honesty, transparency and head-on. 

You are better off been upfront about the public relations issues than trying to cover them up. With most platforms allowing users to hold a live videos session with their followers, schedule several of them to set the record straight before things get out of control. 

Conclusion

As you can see, the importance of hiring a quality online reputation management firm to represent your interest online is a crucial part of online branding. Not only will these professionals lookout for the bad press before it impacts your business negatively, they have the skills and experience to ensure an effective campaign strategy keeps your company’s brand with a positive image.

A key part to ensuring that your digital marketing campaign is a success is to manage your reputation. And there are several SOP’s that companies should have. Most of them involve being proactive, not reactive.

Doing social media marketing in Singapore will not only help your business generates more leads but also revitalize your customer relationships. Use the above strategies to manage your reputation in Singapore. Get in touch with us for professional digital marketing in Singapore which includes social media marketing and reputation management.

You can manage your reputation online through professional SEO and marketing agencies. They can help keep tabs on how the online market reacts to your brand. You can also control the type of materials pertaining to your brand and business. Established SEO and reputation management companies like MediaOne Business Group can help you manage your brand online.

When it comes to reputation management, very few Singapore businesses give it the attention that it deserves. And this is unfortunate considering, there are professionals who can help you to monitor your online presence. There is no reason to let a bad review or rating determine the fate of your business. Work with online marketing agency experts who can ensure that your company is always viewed in the best light possible.