6 Strategies for Brand Reputation Management
Thursday 12th December 2024
by Beth Perrin
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Your brand’s online reputation is a huge part of its overall image, and plays a key role in how it’s perceived by the general public. In fact, 90% of consumers report that they would not frequent a business with a bad reputation, demonstrating just how important it is to make sure people view your brand positively. What’s more, in a study conducted by Trustpilot, consumers ranked a positive internet reputation as the number one most important factor when determining which businesses to buy from - even above the quality of their products and services.
Naturally, customers don’t want to use brands that are constantly involved in PR crises or are known for offering poor service, so it’s vital to maintain high standards across social media and other online platforms - and react carefully when negative situations arise. Discover some of the most effective ways to manage your reputation below!
1. Review Management
One of the biggest components of reputation management is review management, which refers to the process of monitoring and responding to the reviews your business receives from its customers. Not only should this be done on specific feedback websites such as Tripadvisor, Trustpilot and Google, but also on social media platforms that allow reviews, such as Facebook.
You should take time to respond to both positive and negative reviews, thanking satisfied customers for their kind words and gently incentivising repeat purchases, and apologising to unhappy customers in order to repair damaged relationships.
An impressive 97% of shoppers who read reviews online say they also read the replies from businesses, which proves how valuable it really can be to respond. This is particularly significant for bad reviews, with 45% of consumers agreeing that they’re more likely to support a business if they see that it has responded to negative feedback.
Although it may seem tempting, you should never delete or hide negative reviews unless they contain extreme profanity or offensive slurs, or are irrelevant spam. Responding and diffusing the situation in a calm, pragmatic manner is much more professional, and will show the customer (and other readers) that you’re prepared to acknowledge your mistakes and genuinely want to put things right.
2. Share Appropriate Content
Being mindful of the types of content you’re publishing and sharing on social media is another great way to maintain a positive reputation. Your content is the first thing people see when they arrive on your page, so it’s important to ensure that you’re creating posts that align with your brand values and represent your business in the best way possible.
Posting inappropriate, offensive or unrelated content - or content that’s full of spelling errors, grammatical mistakes and low-quality imagery - will give off a poor impression and lower people’s opinion of your company. 67% of consumers will actually go as far as unfollowing a brand if it posts irrelevant content, so it’s best to steer clear of this.
Being inconsistent with your tone of voice can also damage your reputation and weaken your overall brand identity, so you should make sure you’re following the correct guidelines at all times. If multiple people are publishing content on your page (or if you have many individual pages for each of your business locations), check that everyone is using the same style and tone in their posts to guarantee consistency.
3. Sentiment Analysis
Another way to keep track of how your brand is perceived is to carry out regular sentiment analysis. This involves gathering all of your brand mentions - direct, indirect, public and private - and sorting them into positive, negative and neutral categories.
Sentiment analysis is typically conducted by AI-based NLPs (natural language processors), but here at 3sixfive, we’re all about the human approach and have found that these types of systems often lead to inaccurate results. That’s why we developed Human Insight, the only sentiment analysis service available that’s run by real people, not bots.
Our team manually assesses the sentiment of our clients’ incoming comments and messages in order to build detailed reports that clearly show how their audiences are feeling about every aspect of their business - from the quality of their products to their standard of customer service. They can then use this data to make powerful changes to their business that lead to a higher positive sentiment and an improved reputation.
4. Crisis Control
News spreads fast on social media and it doesn’t take long for complaints and negative comments to gain traction or even go viral, which is why having a crisis control procedure in place is so important. What constitutes a crisis will of course depend on the nature of your brand, but some examples include:
• A food poisoning outbreak in your restaurant
• A negative response to a controversial piece of content you’ve posted
• Sustainability concerns regarding your product packaging
• Comments from an unhappy former employee
• A risky banter attempt involving a competitor that has turned sour
• A vegan or vegetarian guest accidentally being served meat in your restaurant
95% of business leaders say their crisis management capabilities need improvement, so if you feel like yours are lacking, you’re not alone. However, assembling a plan will put you one step ahead of your competitors and will mean you’re prepared if a potential PR disaster strikes. It can also help put your team’s mind at ease, and will lessen the sense of panic that often occurs when something goes wrong. A comprehensive crisis control plan should include:
• Detecting the beginning of a crisis
• Communicating the problem with the rest of your team
• Responding quickly and appropriately (this may involve taking accountability if you’ve genuinely made a mistake)
• Prioritising accordingly (i.e. putting other conversations on hold until the crisis has settled)
• Pausing scheduled content
• Identifying how you can learn and grow from the negative situation.
5. Social Listening
Social listening is another essential task which involves monitoring selected words and phrases across social media to see what people are saying about your brand and industry. This can be done manually (by simply searching for your chosen keywords on each social platform on a regular basis), or by using a dedicated social listening tool which will notify you whenever a new mention pops up, so you can action it straight away.
Remember, not everyone who mentions your brand online will tag it directly, so social listening is a great way to pick up any comments that you would have otherwise missed, helping you stay on top of any potential reputation risks. You can track competitor-related keywords too, in order to discover how your business compares to others within your sector.
6. Third-Party Social Media Audit
If you’re still not sure how your brand is perceived online or if there are any areas in need of improvement, it’s a good idea to get an unbiased opinion from an outsider. This can be achieved by enlisting the help of an external agency like 3sixfive to conduct an audit of your social media pages, and is especially beneficial for multi-location businesses with many pages being run by different people.
An audit will give you access to expert skills and insights that you and your team might not possess - after all, you may be doing something that is negatively affecting your brand’s reputation without even realising! This could include unknowingly breaching GDPR laws by asking customers to publicly share their personal information, or accidentally posting copyrighted images.
We can take a thorough look at your content, public comment responses and private messages to see if you’ve carried out any actions that may have harmed your online image, and will give you the information and advice you need to improve your social media presence going forward.
Summary
As you can see, there are many different strategies you can implement to manage and protect your reputation - and the more of these processes you carry out, the higher your chances are of maintaining a positive brand image across social media and the internet as a whole. Not only will this build customer loyalty and grow confidence in your products and services, it will also give you a competitive edge over other businesses in your industry, allowing you to boost sales, recruit top-tier talent and ultimately increase your revenue.
Concerned that your brand’s current reputation is deterring prospective customers and fans? Contact us today to find out how our team can help you get back on the right track in 2025.
