Having a good web reputation ( ereputation ) is important for both for individuals and for companies : digital reputation inevitably affects your business and stature. Let’s see how to build it, how to maintain it and how to avoid mistakes in its management.
Just a few years ago, the Internet was very different. Companies were not attractive customers but only sold to a passive audience; people could not express their opinion and the overall communication landscape was based on some media that communicated to an audience almost unable to interact.
The situation changed radically. Today websites are no longer static brochures. User generated content is a must. And regular interactions on social networks are vital to any business success.
Regardless of the size of your business, both potential and acquired customers are talking about you. They are Instagramming about your latest product, leaving a comment on your blog, posting a Facebook update on their experience and more.
If you think you can ignore it, or if you think you can work without taking into account people’s voices, reviews and opinions, think again
Online Reputation management
What do people say about you? Good online reputation management is not only about reacting well to what people say about you, your brand, your products and services, but also about deciding whether to react or, if so, when. Sometimes a reaction is not necessary and sometimes a reaction too late can cost a lot of money.
A proactive approach to the issue is to regularly monitor public reputation and not just when you become aware of a specific event to be addressed. How is this done? The tools invented to solve this problem are called “social media monitoring”.
Simply put, social media monitoring allows companies to collect public online content (from blog posts to tweets, online reviews to Facebook updates), edit it and see if something negative or positive is said that affects their reputation.
Social media monitoring can be both do-it-yourself (Google Alert is a free web monitoring tool accessible to anyone) and professional, depending on the size of the company involved.
A Harvard university article found that Yelp reviews can have a serious impact on restaurant revenue. Researchers discovered that for every one star increase in Yelp rating, restaurants saw up to a nine percent increase in revenue. While that’s great news for restaurants with a high rating, it’s frustrating for eateries with bad Yelp Review.
In the US, According a RQ study, nearly three-fourths (72%) of decision takers say they investigate corporate behavior before buying ; while more than half (53%) of the general public indicated they proactively seek information about the companies they do business with. Fifty-seven percent of decision takers say they’ve decided not to do business with a company because of something they learned ; while more than one-third (37%) of the general public indicated the same.
In France, according to a study carried out by IFOP on March 2015, 85% of consumers make purchases on the Internet and 80% of those do a background check before buying. A bad reputation on the web can now be synonymous with colossal losses. According to the same study, 66% of consumers who do the background check indeed postpone the purchase in case of unfavourable comments when. In 30% of the cases, they even go as far as to give up the purchase. At last, 96% of Internet users are influenced by a brand’s e-reputation when making a purchase.
Getting a good web reputation
Eternos Corporation offers an online reputation management and monitoring service that provides regular monitoring of posts, comments and online chatter related to the company, managers, products and related topics. In particular, we do
- enforcement of the right to be forgotten
- Creation of a digital identity;
- Continuous monitoring and listening to the sources that talk about your brand
- Identifying any areas of reputational crisis
- Implementation of a reputational and communication strategy in response to a crisis;
- Analysis of sentiment (perception) through periodic reports.
- dereferencing and deletion requests to webmasters
- automatic reporting of any element that damages your reputation
All this is completed by sending reports to the customer and, if necessary, by direct intervention to resolve the critical online scenario. For more information contact us!
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