Brands spend a lot of resources setting up an online presence because that is where all the chatter is happening. While having an online presence is the need of the hour, brands have a daunting time managing all the online chatter. This becomes even more stressful because most of it cannot be controlled.
You never know what triggers your audience and how. A campaign you thought would lift your brand may not go well with your target audience. Before you know it, your brand image is tainted and blown out of proportion.
Brand reputation is about cultivating and monitoring how your users perceive your brand. It depends greatly on understanding how your users may perceive a certain ad or a message and respond accordingly. Yet, as mentioned, much of it is beyond your control.
Why does online reputation matter for brands?
According to the Local Consumer Survey 2023, 87% of consumers opt for a Google search to evaluate a local brand. The same report reveals that around 98% of consumers read reviews of the local brands they browse.
This means that a negative remark about your brand can lead to a catastrophic impact on your brand image.
Imagine browsing your social feed and coming across posts from your contacts whom a certain brand has let down. A host of negative remarks follows, with trending hashtags scrutinizing the brand. While viewing all these, you can’t help but wonder if you’ve felt the same about the brand. Eventually, your perception of that brand changes for the worse.
This is exactly what happened with Dove in 2017 when it made a racist ad showing a black woman getting fairer after using their soap. The matter escalated pretty quickly, with netizens demanding #boycottdove.
Eventually, the brand had to step up and apologize for its insensitivity.
However, this brand continues getting into hot waters time and again! That’s probably why a normal search of #boycottdove will continue giving you fresh posts off the rack.
This is exactly why brands are conscious about their online reputation. In this age of social media, building a brand reputation can take years, but only a few minutes to bring it down.
Brands are bound to be conscious of how they interact with their audience, what kind of marketing campaigns they promote, the kind of content they publish, and how they position themselves in the market.
However, many confuse brand reputation management with brand safety. While these read almost similar, they are not.
Brand reputation management vs. Brand safety
Brand reputation and brand safety go hand-in-hand. While brand reputation means monitoring what your users think about you, brand safety refers to avoiding controversial placement or context of brand ads.
For instance, brands can implement rules and regulations to stop ads from popping up in content promoting hate and violence. This is an example of brand safety that, when maintained, positively impacts the overall brand reputation.
In fact, brand safety is in the hands of marketers to a large extent, where they can control the context of where ads are running and objectively safeguard brand reputation.
Tips to Protect Online Brand Reputation
While online reputation may seem out of control, some proven techniques and implementing brand reputation management tools can help prevent getting into hot waters.
Here are the top 7 tips and tricks to maintain a positive online brand reputation.
1. Verify everything that goes online
Double-check everything that goes live. It should reflect your brand’s image, message, and values. Create a checklist to tick off everything before any content campaign or new features on the website go live.
A consolidated checklist you can use will be:
- Check for spelling errors
- Make sure your logo is updated
- Double-check the messaging in your campaign or ads
This also includes choosing a face for your brand. Whether you opt for user-generated content or pick a popular face as an influencer, it should positively impact your brand reputation. For instance, when Pepsi collaborated with Kendall Jenner in 2017, it surprisingly backfired rather than taking off. So much so that even years after the disaster, people still talk about it.
The ad managed to upset fans with its insensitivity towards the Black Lives Matter campaign by showing a white-complexion person restoring peace by simply handing a beverage to a cop to solve police brutality.
Bad messaging is enough to keep your brand under scrutiny for years to come. While the Kendall-Pepsi fiasco happened in 2017 and the ad was brought down in a day’s time, people still remember it.
2. Handle negative reviews effectively
It takes a minute for things to get out of hand, thanks to instant messaging and social postings. Negative reviews can happen to your brand. Yes, it will impact your online brand reputation.
Things can take a turn for the worse if you are not responding to the negative reviews and extinguishing the flames calmly. Many brands sit idle and wait for the buzz to die down. While it is true that people will forget once the moment passes, it may not always stand true.
However, when a brand steps up and owns its mistakes and apologies, it shows that it cares. Creating an empathetic image for your brand that understands voiced concerns is essential.
Customer reviews live on the internet. If you do nothing about it, you will lose potential users in the coming days. As a brand, shifting the narrative around your business values and responding to negative reviews that reflect these values is important.
Bottom line: Consumers believe reviews. Before interacting with your brand, consumers will mostly check the online reviews from your users as well as how you responded to them.
Here’s an example of how Canva responded to issues on their app.
3. Devise a strategy to combat poor press
Reacting to your consumers’ reviews and posts is only one part of the story. You must be balanced and thoughtful while responding or reacting to maintain your online brand reputation.
The first step is to create an internal strategy to combat false information and negative reviews.
The sure-shot strategy is to engage your consumers. However, there are instances when you need to escalate things beyond your digital platform. This includes removing defamatory or misleading content.
An essential tip to remember: Always seek professional help rather than taking legal matters in hand.
A textbook example of managing bad PR is Johnson & Johnson when 7 people in Chicago died after consuming cyanide-laced capsules of J&J’s over-the-counter medication Tylenol. While the mystery remains unsolved, the brand launched a massive response and safety warnings, although the brand was not directly at fault.
4. Be more human on social media
Today, brand-to-consumer communication is two-way, making brands behave more warmly and empathetically. Consumers prefer brands that resonate with their thoughts and feelings.
Humanization is the key to building and maintaining your online brand reputation. Any brand that falters to connect with users’ emotions and thoughts faces the wrath of negative reviews and a failing reputation.
Be omnipresent and communicate with your audience. A little can go a long way.
One of the best examples of connecting with users is Mailchimp. Mailchimp’s social channel has fun graphics, helpful guides, and engaging videos. It promotes diversity and offers users variety that keeps them hooked to the brand. Mailchimp’s Instagram account is like a colorful book that you’ll love to browse, especially the short films and podcasts that educate entrepreneurs and businesses.
Having a human face is not always about having a mascot or an influencer on the poster. It is about connecting with your target users, who will recognize your brand name and love the brand identity that you build through social channels.
5. Set up firm privacy
This is a crucial step in safeguarding your brand from malicious and spam attacks and maintaining the brand’s reputation.
Brand compliance must be maintained across all customer-facing activities. This is more important when addressing a global audience across different regions.
You can start with standardizing briefs and content templates for various marketing channels. Back it up with a proper content approval process to reduce inconsistencies.
Be mindful of compliance and governance
While streamlining privacy policies, you must also adhere to compliance management and governance policies to mitigate risks and meet all government and industry regulations.
This helps ensure that the stakeholders and employees of a company are not violating standard rules and regulations of doing business. It defines the company’s objectives, ethics, company culture, and the application of governance frameworks.
6. Analyze and understand user sentiment
We have talked about brand-to-user communication and engagements in length. While creating strategies to be more relevant and connect with your users, you must include social sentiment analysis in it.
Analyzing your user sentiment can help you make fixes in your brand interactions, website UI, content templates, email templates, and more. In fact, you can find new paths to drive businesses when you listen to what your users say.
Invest in brand monitoring and tracking
Protecting your brand reputation also includes brand monitoring and tracking. Social media monitoring can help identify all conversations around you, even without your users tagging you. Brand mention tracking and monitoring can help you understand all the chatter around you and its impact on your business.
For instance, Starbucks is known for its human-first and on-brand approach. The characteristic color schemes, the logo, the offline stores, and the social presence — all add up to how well-versed Starbucks is about what its users want.
7. Know your competition
If you thought protecting your online reputation was about your brand, you are just half right!
Knowing what your competitors are doing and how gives you a sense of your standpoint. Monitor and analyze how your target user base reacts to your brand and competitors to drive business insights for your next strategy.
Yes, your users may form a bad impression after a bad user experience or reading a negative review. But perceptions change, and tapping into the realm of your competitors might give you that edge that can spiral up your brand reputation.
Stay alert and focus on modifying your approach that can convert a loyal customer into a brand evangelist.
Chris Masanto, CEO and Co-founder of pet healthcare brand PetLab Co., says, “Understanding our competitors is key to safeguarding our online brand reputation. Staying attuned to their actions and strategies can help us identify potential threats or negative narratives before they gain traction. This knowledge allows us to proactively address issues, refine our strategy, and effectively communicate our strengths. This means we not only stay ahead in the market but also ensure that our brand’s online reputation remains strong, credible, and resilient in the face of challenges.”
Conclusion
It is easy for users to sway away from you after a negative experience or feedback. Implementing a proper strategy to protect your online reputation can bring your brand to the forefront.
Build back your brand after a crisis and stay alert so you are nowhere near muddy waters. Online brand reputation thrives on authenticity, credibility, and responsibility. Review these tips and create a brand reputation protection plan customized for your brand.
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