Entrepreneurs, How To Manage Your E-Reputation?

E-Reputation : Eighty five percent of a company’s value lies in its reputation. Entrepreneurs, make no mistake, this observation is also valid for you. It is even more so since the reputation of your company is strongly linked to your personal reputation. Here are 4 tips to set up an e-reputation strategy.

4 Tips To Manage Your E-Reputation

Build a strong and positive brand image

A person not only buys a product but also buys a brand. The first step in managing your reputation is therefore to define your identity. You need to choose a message to convey and stick to it in such a way that it is well perceived and interpreted by the public. Here are two simple questions that will help you develop a winning strategy:

1) What image of your company do you want to give?

2) What messages do you want to convey to your customers?

Once you have clear ideas, here are some areas you could (re)work on:

• Highlight your company’s innovative concept
• Show your audience what you can do for them
• Retain your current customers while promoting real traffic acquisition and therefore new prospects. To go further, here is 7 tips to build customer loyalty
• Put your customers’ experience at the heart of the communication strategy
• Deliver simple messages that are consistent with your strategy

Set up a watch

There are different types of watches to meet your needs: competitive intelligence, marketing watches, sales watches, technology watches… These watches keep up to date with all the news of your competitors. But do not neglect the eve of your own reputation.

Conducting a monitoring of your e-reputation will allow you to know what your customers, the media, and other actors think of you. It will also allow you to be informed of market trends. The watch allows you to know the movements of your competitors, evaluate their positions and compare them to yours. But it is also crucial to anticipate the threats that weigh on your brand, your company, your e-reputation.

Here are some ways to set up a complete e-reputation watch:

• Appoint a person in charge of managing your e-reputation
• Monitor official information
• Mapping social media to watch out for
• Monitor the news of your competitors and learn about their offer
• Watch Twitter conversations with Tweetdeck: a free tool available as soon as you create a Twitter account
• Follow the main Key Opinion Leaders in your field on their social networks
• Follow topics on Twitter
• Set up a Google alert to stay informed as soon as a news article mentions your company or field of activity

Control your online presence

You have decided to invest in online communication to make your company shine? You’re absolutely right! But beware, over time, your business will most certainly evolve. A regular update of your social networks is necessary to ensure the consistency of your online presence. To do this:

• Appoint a person in charge of managing your social networks
• Remove unwanted items or highlight the latest key information
• Reduce negative content by highlighting positive content
• Stay consistent between your different profiles on social networks
• Take the lead, and ask your best customers to make testimonials on review sites. It is, by the way, one of our 6 advice for booster your sales in line

Have the right reflexes in the face of negative content

Negative comments happen to all companies. Unfortunately, even with the utmost care on your part, you will not be able to perfectly satisfy all your customers.

The important thing if you receive negative feedback is to know how to formulate the right answer, at the right time, with the right target.

First of all, make an inventory:

• Is this an isolated opinion?
• Is the comment very visible?
• Was it put online by an influential person?
• Is there a lot of engagement on this post?
• Was it put online by a media outlet?
• Think about the substance of the criticism: is it justified? Do you have any answers?

Whether it’s just a comment, or a major exposure in the media, bad buzz can happen to any entrepreneur. Here are the unmissable steps to anticipate such a situation:

• Prepare for a crisis scenario
• Define who is in charge of managing the communication and who will be the spokesperson
• Appoint decision-makers on actions and messages
• Be prepared to respond on the media where you are incriminated, and respond quickly on more traditional channels such as a press release
• Identify an agency that will be able to support you

Entrepreneur, the reputation of your company is your first wealth. Take care of it and you will necessarily be rewarded.