The value of social listening has seen a significant increase in the past two years not only because we all went digital during the Covid era, but also because the only way to build a solid online presence was by listening to what our customers had to say about our business.
As Steve Jobs said: customers, in most cases, do not know what they want. It’s our task to start listening and figuring out their needs so we can provide accordingly.
Developing a strong online reputation has never been easier due to the variety of tools at our disposal nowadays. However, we must tread with caution. Even though the market has expanded, people have also started commenting online more than ever.
It is a double edge sword. We have all the necessary tools to build our online reputation, while, at the same time, we also have strong competition and active clients whose comments can have a huge impact on our company’s image.
Learn how to listen and monitor your online presence
Monitoring your online presence is a continuous process of gathering people’s mentions of your company image, product, service, social media, or any other brand-related activity. In the hyper-connected world of today, this practice is crucial for your business if you want to stay competitive.
New and potential customers now almost always check the internet for the company’s reviews before making their buying decision. They measure your quality and reliability based on the information they find online.
If this information has a negative context, it can drive potential customers away. This dampens the prospects of your business. By taking the necessary actions at the right time, you can protect your business.
Thanks to social listening tools, you can now get instant and reliable feedback from your customers. You can find out how they rate you in comparison to your competitors.
If you are a small business, you can gather information by doing manual online research and reach a valuable conclusion.
For bigger companies, however, it is necessary to use a tool that will gather all available online information related to the brand and start learning how to listen and decode it.
To take the right actions, we must not only listen but also understand, analyze, and make proper use of the information we have. Listening to what is being said about you is only one part of the process to maintain your online reputation. The other equally important part is to decode and analyze the given information to further improve your company’s online reputation.
What happens if your online reputation is threatened for some reason?
Established brands spend a considerable amount of money on their digital strategies to create, improve and maintain their online reputation, which is built through the continuous production of high-quality content.
A poor online reputation can come from different sources such as mentions with negative sentiment, bad customer reviews, controversial news, social media posts, or intentional reputational attacks. Even if your company is doing very well, it is still possible that it will get involved in a negative online discourse. But even if the damage is already done, there are strategies that can help you recover your credibility as a brand.
The impact of bad publicity, fake reviews, and social media mentions can be countered by uploading a lot of new and fresh content. It is not always necessary for others to talk well about you. You can contribute by curating a positive public image and offering exceptional customer service. You should act with integrity and always deliver what you promise.
If you create stable communication and trustworthy relationships with your clients, you enhance your reputation. A few negative comments won’t do much harm.
In order to reconstruct your online reputation, you ought to produce quality web and social media content. You can hire influencers to endorse your brand. You need to create customer stories and case studies to highlight the positive aspects of the business. You can mention how your services helped your previous customers. 
Responding to any negative comments on your social media as quickly as possible is a very effective strategy. You can try contacting people who are producing or reproducing harmful content related to your business and resolve their issues. This will change their perception of your brand. They may even delete the negative comments related to your business.
Furthermore, fake reviews can be easily spotted and reported for removal on popular online sites. Even if the fake reviews are not taken down, you should keep offering good customer service to your clients. Your effort will pay off in the long run. The positive reviews will outweigh the negative ones.
It is important that you don’t stress over every bad comment as they lend a certain level of credibility to your brand. Negative comments, together with positive comments, make your company appear real. If the comments are 100% positive, they may appear too good to be true. With consistent effort, you can push down negative Google results and fill them with positive mentions. Generating quality content for your business is not a short-term task. It requires patience and a lot of hard work.
The best way to improve and control the opinion of your customers is to offer the right services. Regardless of how hard you try to neutralize your online reputation, if your customers are not satisfied, you will have negative reviews popping up. This adversely affects your company’s name. Your online reputation starts with you. Therefore, before taking any of the recommended steps to improve your presence, do all the necessary internal work to make your customers happy and continue to monitor your brand’s presence online so you also react to their needs or complaints.