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Reputation Management: 5 Failproof Tactics for Your Business

Reputation Management: 5 Failproof Tactics for Your Business

Brand reputation is vital in today’s hypercompetitive online business world. The consequences of having a poor online reputation can be devastating, but with proper management you can improve how people see your company. The result is improved sales, brand visibility, and credibility.

With that in mind, here are the top five reputation management tactics and how to implement them.

1. Conduct a Reputation Audit

A reputation audit is like a financial audit, but instead of analyzing money, you’ll look closely at how consumers relate to your brand. This data will provide information concerning:

  • Effectiveness of your customer service
  • How well you relate to customers and prospects
  • The relevancy of your content
  • How well your current reputation strategy is working

There are several approaches you can use to collect information. Some are qualitative, meaning they rely on subjective reviews and opinions. Others offer data you can use to set concrete goals.

Here are some examples of methods you can start with:

Read your customer reviews.

Reading online customer reviews about your company, product, or service can provide valuable information for your reputation management campaign. It gives you an overall picture of public perception of your brand and how well your product or service fills consumers’ needs, highlighting specific instances where customers feel confident doing business with you.

Reading your online customer reviews provides feedback where you can gather and analyze customer conversations in one place.

To utilize this strategy, look for patterns collectively throughout all discussions and identify where potential problems and frustrations may arise in the future.

Of course, it’s vital to address any negative feedback immediately.

Utilize customer surveys.

Customer satisfaction surveys provide valuable feedback and offer a way to predict future customer loyalty. In addition, they provide data that is difficult to get through other channels.

When creating the customer survey template, include open-ended and closed-ended questions. When finished, send them to your customers using the appropriate channels. For example:

  • Emails
  • Text messages
  • Web pages
  • Product packaging
  • Product receipts

Emails and text messages offer a way to solicit survey participation directly and should only be sent out a maximum of twice per year. In contrast, surveys posted on product packaging, company websites, and product receipts are passive, so you can use them more frequently.

Monitor social media conversations (Social Listening).

Social listening is the process of analyzing conversations around your brand on social media channels. You can also think of it as customer sentiment analysis built around these ideas and concerns:

  • Customers’ needs, challenges, and goals
  • Preferred channels for connecting with your brand
  • Overall sentiment concerning your competitors
  • How people view your company
  • Satisfaction with your products or services

Monitoring your social media conversations gives you the opportunity to understand your target customer and how they interact with your product or service.  This data can alert you to a potential crisis. It also allows you to make good marketing decisions, helps you strategize your reputation management program, and offers opportunities to seek potential brand influencers.

Start with setting goals and key performance indicators (KPIs), such as public sentiment, popularity, and brand engagement. Things to look out for include:

  • Your company or brand name
  • Brand hashtags
  • Product or service names
  • Industry category
  • Trademarks or slogans

Next, enlist the help of social listening apps and tools like Brandwatch and HubSpot to help you quantify the data and give you a starting point for your reputation analysis.

2. Take Immediate Action

Effective communication builds brand trust, and there’s no better way to do that than by responding to customer reviews. It tells the audience you are interested in what they say.

Review responses also build brand loyalty by letting others know there’s a human side to your company.

Negative Review Response

Responding to angry customers in writing is a familiar idea. But unfortunately, too few companies engage in this practice.

A common problem when faced with a negative review is knowing what to say in response. It’s mostly a matter of acknowledging the reviewer, taking responsibility for the problem, and figuring out how to make things right.

Still, while most people can communicate verbally, apologizing to an irate person in writing can be daunting.

For this reason, it’s best to seek the help of those who communicate effectively. Enlisting the services of an experienced writing agency will go a long way to gaining back the trust of an angry customer.

Social Media Management

Online shoppers are increasingly turning to social media to research products and services. For this reason, it’s vital to show that your company is working hard to continually improve customer service. While this may sound simple enough, there are many moving parts to social media management, including:

  • Frequently posting relevant content
  • Increasing customer reviews
  • Sharing positive reviews
  • Resolving negative reviews quickly

Your copywriting and marketing teams must continually create positive posts that resonate with your followers on social media channels like Facebook and Twitter. However, it’s not enough to tout your company’s accolades. Instead, it’s best to let satisfied customers do that for you.

Press Releases

Sometimes, unforeseen events can evolve into huge PR disasters. In these instances, getting the news media to tell your company’s side of the story fosters trust within your community.

A well-crafted crisis communication press release offers a clear, concise response to any events that could damage your company’s reputation. It’s best to have someone with a journalism background write the release for you, and it should contain the “5 W’s” of news reporting, including:

  • Who was involved in the incident.
  • What the crisis is and what’s being done about it.
  • When the incident occurred.
  • Where it all happened.
  • Why the company has taken action in response.

Positive Review Response

Be sure to thank reviewers who praise your company.

While a simple thank you will often suffice, it’s best to go into more detail about your customer service commitment.

You can also engage with participants to encourage more reviews, ask customers for continued support, and invite them to contact your company if they need further assistance.

3. Be Proactive

Once you have your company’s reputation under control, the next step is to create a plan to manage it going forward. The best approach is to create written standards and procedures. Focus on:

  • Monitoring across media platforms and channels
  • Assigning responsibilities, tasks, and sign-off 
  • Conducting audits and KPI tracking
  • Developing internal and external documentation

Workforce Instructions

Workforce instructions implement your reputation management strategy and provide detailed guidance on performing vital tasks.  Use simple steps, visual cues, charts, and tables to achieve the best results.

A technical writer maps your workflows, designs your process documentation, and produces the content you need to provide detailed, written instructions. The result is better customer communication, efficient employee work standards, and improved brand reputation across multiple channels.

Employee Training

Simply having policies, standards, and workforce instructions in writing isn’t enough. It’s best to conduct thorough training on all aspects of your reputation management campaign to ensure full compliance.

Start by announcing the new program well before initiation, so your employees can anticipate the changes, and there’s less chance for pushback later. Use flyers, banners, and intranet communications to build excitement and anticipation.

Once you’ve rolled out your reputation management program, you can begin training your employees on the new tools, procedures, and strategies. Try varying your methods to include:

  • Interactive learning
  • Gamification
  • Staggered instruction
  • Group training sessions

Even though you’ve conducted training throughout all departments and verticals in your organization, there’s still work to be done.

Key performance indicator (KPI) tracking provides a clear picture of which reputation management strategies work and which need adjusting.

Use qualitative and quantitative metrics to construct your tracking templates. Then, when you have them in place, store your files in a safe, secure document management system for later retrieval.

GET YOUR CONTENT WRITTEN TODAY

4. Continue Monitoring

During the early stages of reputation monitoring, you’re looking primarily for problems and concerns, but now that your reputation is under control, you want to keep it that way. So, the best approach is to use a multi-tiered strategy:

Tier 1: Reputation Attack Monitoring

Attacks on your company’s reputation come quickly and without warning. Therefore, setting up social listening app alerts and monitoring them is crucial. While this system is merely a starting point, it will help alert you to the most egregious attacks, so you can address them immediately.

Tier 2: Review Monitoring

Human monitoring of customer reviews works best since the person reading them can respond immediately. This strategy saves time and allows readers to become familiar with the company via human interaction.

Tier 3: Social Media Monitoring

Monitoring social media channels takes time, but with the help of listening apps, you can know where to start. Then, you can respond to conversations while engaging with customers and prospects. Of course, you’ll need a team of social media professionals continually monitoring and responding to inquiries.

Tier 4: SEO Monitoring

Search engine optimization (SEO) plays a role in your reputation management strategy.

The first step is to control how well you rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). The goal is to rank high enough to drown out any negative search results.

Next, set up a Google My Business listing. This site allows you to update your business information quickly. Examples include:

  • Business hours
  • Product offerings
  • Site links
  • Address
  • Directions to your location

With your Google My Business listing, you also get a Google Posts feature, which allows you to provide public updates that get read immediately without having to rank on Google’s search results.

5. Write Positive Content

To be proactive with your reputation management campaign, you must continually update your internal and external content. That means reviewing your marketing copy and performing regular procedural documentation audits.

Internal Content

Having proper procedures in place will ensure that employees know how to handle customer service inquiries and be able to diffuse customer complaints. In addition, your brand will be better off overall when employees perform their tasks efficiently and with customer service in mind.

External Content

As for engaging directly with consumers, it’s vital to come across as empathetic to their needs. The last thing customers want is a condescending attitude from any marketing piece, blog article, or social media post. But striking the right tone for each type of content can be a challenge.

Hiring a technical copywriting team can be the answer.  Professional writers dedicated to delivering positive content will rank higher long-term than all the noisy, negative content that sometimes pops up on search results. A technical copywriting team can also be the best solution for providing ongoing reputation management.

Quick Recap

Reputation management starts with carefully assessing where your company stands with your customers. Then, if you discover negative reviews or feedback, respond immediately with a message of reassurance.  

Confident that you’ve averted any potential crisis, it’s time to plan and create documentation around your reputation management strategies. Only then will your employees know how to monitor social media and review sites effectively. Of course, you’ll first have to train them in the new procedures.

Finally, your customer-facing content must rank above the noisy, negative search results your brand may occasionally receive. It must also resonate with your target customer.

All this may seem like hard work. It is. But an experienced technical copywriting team can make it look easy. 

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Jennifer, also known as "Rizzo," is a Denver-based writer and genealogist with a passion for history, travel, and languages. She studied Spanish at the University of Guadalajara in Guadalajara, Mexico and also lived and studied in Ancona, Italy. She also holds a certification for International Tour Management through the International Guide Academy, as well as a Genealogy certification from IAP Career College. Since joining The Writers For Hire, Jennifer has tackled a vast array of projects—from RPFs and SOPs to memoirs and company history books— and has done many in-depth genealogical research and family tree projects. She has also worked as Project Manager for various client projects, including family history books, websites, RFPs, blogs, autobiographies, and SOPs. Jennifer is our resident historian and genealogist, and can often be found examining 200-year-old books in various archive sites around the globe. She enjoys working closely with clients, and loves any opportunity that allows her to indulge her creative side.

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After putting in enough time as a busboy, a cheesesteak artist, a medical courier, and a nightclub bouncer, Peter took the logical next step—securing a position at a bicycle shop. While serving as a mechanic and a salesman, his incriminating degree in creative writing from the University of Arizona got him assigned to every additional duty that had anything to do with words. Between all the wrenching and selling, Peter wrote website copy, emails, blogs, digital and print ads, press releases, articles, advertorials, and scripts for radio and television commercials. What started as a summer job evolved into an 18-year career in the cycling industry, gaining him experience in corporate communications, public relations, social media management, event planning, marketing, and retail advertising. Since joining The Writers for Hire, Peter has branched into ghostwriting, op-eds, RFPs, SOPs, and producing work for aerospace and engineering firms, public utilities, oil and gas companies, real estate developers, and the entertainment industry. At his home base in New Jersey, Peter spends his free time souping up cheap vintage guitars, admiring his dog, and talking about moving to the Adirondacks.

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Arielle Emmett joined The Writers for Hire after a 30-year career in science, technology, and international journalism education. Early in her career, during the Watergate era, Arielle was selected as a journalism intern for The New York Times columnist William Safire, and she was a correspondent for Newsweek. She has worked as an editor for Science Digest, as a reporter and features staff writer for the Detroit Free Press, and as a columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The American Journalism Review. She also has held senior editor and editor-in-chief positions at leading technical magazines and was a 10-year contributing editor at The Scientist. Arielle’s work has been published in Parents, Ms., OMNI, and Toronto Globe & Mail, among other publications. In 2011 she completed her doctoral dissertation in visual media and iconic photography at the University of Maryland. Since then, Arielle has taught science communications and online journalism at Temple and Drexel Universities, International College Beijing, and University of Hong Kong.

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Devin is a writer from Richmond, Virginia. He’s been an avid fan of fiction literature ever since he was young, and spent most of his adolescence pouring over one book series after another. Some of his favorites from back in the day include Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Ender’s Game, Ender’s Shadow, and The Edge Chronicles. He began pursuing creative writing when he was twelve, hoping to someday emulate his favorite authors. He has since spent more than ten years continuing to hone and expand the skills of his craft, graduating from Old Dominion University with a degree in Professional Writing in 2022. He has written on topics ranging from technology trends, to criminal justice, homeland security, self-defense, hiking and camping, workplace operational analysis, the challenges of eldercare, and data privacy. Creative by nature, Devin also dabbles as a graphic designer with particular interest in infographics and flowcharts.

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Morgan has worked in marketing and communications for more than eight years, with a primary focus on copywriting and content creation. Throughout her years of experience, she has written and edited almost every kind of copy imaginable – magazine articles, blog posts, website copy, brochures, press releases, nonfiction books, newsletter articles, brand guidelines, and more – for both B2B and B2C audiences in a wide array of industries, including energy, technology, finance, healthcare, education, travel, retail, and more. In addition to her creative skills, Morgan has technical expertise in HTML coding and utilizing content management systems (e.g. WordPress) and email platforms, such as MailChimp, ExactTarget, and Constant Contact. With a lifelong interest in language, it is not surprising that Morgan has a bachelor’s degree in German and Linguistics from Rice University, where she studied more than eight languages. In 2011, she received her master’s degree in Advertising from The University of Texas, where she was accepted into the elite Texas Creative Program for her copywriting skills. In her free time, Morgan enjoys writing personalized picture books for friends and family.

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Shelley’s love of words began in first grade, composing poems for her dear teacher and mentor, Mrs. Blanchard. Her writing career began with several years as a county newspaper reporter, where she developed a love for interviewing all sorts of people. Besides feature writing, her news beats included city government, education, and nonprofits of every stripe. As a determined “adult student,” Shelley graduated summa cum laude from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2010 where she also wrote profiles of outstanding adult students for a “Web Weekly” newsletter and edited a grant proposal for a campus office. After college, she wrote English instructional materials, website copy, product copy, and blogs before joining two construction and development ezines as a staff writer, happy to be conducting interviews for each assignment. Several years of intervening employment in corporate merchandising and HR deepened Shelley’s understanding of the workings of larger companies and the written content they require. She now loves being part of the writing teams at The Writers for Hire. When not at a keyboard, she can be seen jogging in her Southern neighborhood or found holed up with a biography, a vegetarian cookbook, or a vintage TV show.

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She earned her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing with a concentration in screenwriting from National University in La Jolla, California, and her Bachelor of Arts in Writing from the University of Tampa in Tampa, Florida. 

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Carol Kim is a versatile freelance copywriter who specializes in content marketing, blog posts, website content, and email marketing for business clients. She especially enjoys diving into research and discovering what makes every company unique. Carol holds a bachelor’s degree from Pomona College and a Master’s in Public Affairs from the LBJ School at the University of Texas at Austin.

Carol is also a children’s book author, having written several fiction and nonfiction books for the educational market. She especially loves helping kids learn about the environment and social sciences. Her first nonfiction picture book from a trade publisher is due to be released in fall 2021. 

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Martha Scott’s technical writing career began on a contract at Houston’s Johnson Space Center. She edited papers for scientific journal publication, documents for departments across the site, and a book about a proposed crew escape vehicle. She produced a yearly booklet describing Shuttle contract cost-saving measures, the mission managers’ Flight Data Pack, and a 45-page booklet called Charting a Course to the Year 2000 and Beyond describing plans to develop additional space vehicles and prepare for manned Mars explorations. At Invesco, Martha edited and contributed to two company newsletters (online and hardcopy). She wrote software user manuals, Help files, Training and Benefits department documents, and, finally, shareholder reports. She returned to aerospace for the Shuttle Program’s last 5 years where she attended and produced detailed descriptions of presentations and subsequent discussions at the Orbiter Configuration Control Board’s weekly meetings. She also documented crew debriefings for 17 flights. Martha’s most recent experience was on Jacobs Engineering’s contract with a Texas City refinery for which she wrote and edited Engineering, Safety, Inspection, and Information Systems documents.

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Suzanne knew she wanted to be a writer at the age of ten when she wrote her first story, and has spent the past 2 decades writing blog posts, magazine articles, nonfiction and fiction books, sales letters, white papers, press releases, website copy, and anything else that can be put in written form. She has written for Intuit, Avalara, NerdWallet, GoPayment, and as a ghostwriter for a few well-known CEO’s. Her work has appeared all around the internet, including on sites like World News and Reports, Entrepreneur.com, and Forbes. She loves nothing more than being presented with a bunch of data and asked to break it down into digestible content for readers. Most days you’ll find her sitting on her porch with her laptop, writing to the sound of the ocean, and marveling that life can be this stinking good.

Jennifer DeLay - Copywriter

Jennifer has a background in journalism and Russian area studies. She holds a BA from the University of Texas at Austin and an MSFS from Georgetown University. While in graduate school in the mid-1990s, she developed an interest in the oil and gas industry of the former Soviet Union and launched a free newsletter covering the subject. She then spent more than 20 years researching, analyzing and writing about related topics, working for multiple weekly publications and a private consulting firm. Her areas of professional interest also include energy and power in China, Iran and the Eastern Mediterranean, and for fun she researches linguistics, neuroscience and disability-related issues. She has experience in copy-editing and has frequently worked with both native and non-native English speakers, helping them to produce clear, easily understandable articles on complex political, economic, legal and technical topics. Additionally, she has managed many time-sensitive typesetting projects for community institutions. Jennifer enjoys writing personal essays and lives in Atlanta with her family.

Dana Robinson - Copywriter

Dana Robinson has been writing and editing professionally for 10 years, publishing her first article in 2007. She serves as Editor-in-Chief of a local online magazine and is a contributor to various Houston print publications. She honed her experience writing newsletters and managing social media for small businesses and non-profits before moving on to e-books, magazines, and non-fiction books for print. She also enjoys teaching creative writing workshops for children. Dana received her formal education at the University of Houston–Downtown, where she majored in professional writing, minored in creative writing, and was the recipient of the Upper Division Writing award for best essay. She completed internships with Writers In The Schools and The Bayou Review.

Brenda Hazzard - Copywriter

Brenda Hazzard has over 30 years’ experience working as a writer and editor in the private and public sectors. She spent over 20 years working for the US Government in Washington and abroad, and spent several years working with the CIA during which she managed a team of writers producing internal briefs on international news, events, and politics. She writes on a variety of topics but loves opportunities to work on projects that cater to her keen interest in international affairs. She considers herself to be an empathetic editor, one who improves a draft but lets the spirit of the writer shine through. She has also worked on dissertations, white papers, newspaper articles, and family histories.

Adelia Ritchie - Copywriter

Adelia is a scientist, educator, technical writer and editor, poet, and blogger about her Pura Vida lifestyle in Costa Rica. She has more than 40 years experience writing professionally, including her years at Science Applications International Corp., Bechtel Corporation, Defense Acquisition University, and the Department of Defense. She earned her Doctor of Philosophy in Physical Organic Chemistry at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and her Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and Physics from the University of West Florida in Pensacola, Florida.

Carey Miller - Copywriter

Carey brings more than 20 years of writing and editing experience to The Writers for Hire. A lifelong writer and reader, she holds a B.A. in English from UCLA. Her background includes writing and editorial positions with both book and magazine publishers. She has worked as a copy editor and proofreader for major advertising agencies including Ogilvy & Mather and Rubin Postaer. Her experience includes magazine feature writing and editing as well as manuscript development and editing. A former advertising sales executive, she has crafted a wide range of business, sales, and marketing communication for leading magazine publishers including Conde Nast and Hearst. She has worked with major consumer brands including Nike, Visa, Levi’s, General Motors, Microsoft, Charles Schwab, and Neutrogena.

Coralee Bechteler - Copywriter

In the past, Coralee has been an organic farmer, a chicken herder, a zipline administrative assistant, and an ESL teacher for kids. Today, she's living her childhood dream of being a writer. She currently resides in New York with her cat (and muse) Hermes and a miles-long TBR list that gets longer every day. If she's not reading or crafting, you can usually find her pulled over on a country road writing something down or picking wildflowers. Coralee holds a bachelor's degree in English, an associate's degree in Horticulture, and multiple internationally recognized software testing certifications.

Cecile Brule - Copywriter

Cecile enjoys the challenge of discovering each client’s unique strengths and presenting them to a wider audience. Since joining The Writers For Hire, she has worked on blogs, newsletters, RFPs, end-user documentation, email, social media, sales pages, biographies, op-eds, and fiction.

Previously, she taught in Shenzhen, China and obtained an HSK3 (Intermediate Mandarin) certificate. Cecile enjoys gaming, drawing, producing short films, and growing fifteen different varieties of apples with Serenity Orchards.

Rosalind Stanley - Copywriter

Rosalind Stanley grew up on the Coast of Maine and then accidentally spent fifteen years in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains, before moving to the Midwest. She graduated from Lynchburg College in 2008 with a B.A. in Creative Writing (and a minor in Theater Performance); ever since, Rosalind has endeavored to make writing a part of her daily life, whether creative or technical, whether as a volunteer or an employee. She has tutored students, taught workshops, edited fiction and non-fiction books, and worked as a beta reader and a legal writer. She also publishes a newsletter on Substack, where she releases her own fiction serially. When not writing, Rosalind is busy homeschooling her four children and raiding the local library for new fiction.

Sean Patrick Hill - Copywriter

Sean has been a professional writer for more than 25 years, and has an M.A. in Writing from Portland State University and an M.F.A. in Poetry from Warren Wilson College. He's the author of five books, and his writing has won him grants and fellowships from the Kentucky Arts Council, the Vermont Studio Center, the Elizabeth George Foundation, and the Regional Arts and Culture Council. He lives in Louisville, Kentucky, where he also works at his photography.

Wintress Odom - Owner / Editor-in-chief

Wintress founded The Writers For Hire in 2003 after freelancing for several years as a copywriter and editor. She has overseen, edited, proofread, or written copy for over 100 clients and is happy to have maintained long-term relationships with many of her first customers. Wintress is an exceptional proofreader and editor and has a gift for organizing large projects, including large technical manuals and manuscripts. Her educational background includes graduating cum laude from Rice University in 2000, studying at Cologne Gymnasium in Germany, and graduating valedictorian from The Science Academy of South Texas in 1994.
Wintress