5 Tips to Manage and Improve Company’s Brand Reputation

The fight for supremacy for businesses is getting tougher by the day. Today the global marketplace is open to any business from any corner of the world. Taking this opportunity into account SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) are trying to compete with the ‘big’ brands and targeting the international market to be their future playground. Hence, the need for progressive marketing strategies is also on the rise. Reaching out to potential global customers by employing innovative branding and advertising strategies have come up significantly in the last decade. In particular, online media has emerged as the go-to platform for almost every business to draw in more customers, sales and revenue from across the globe. Brand reputation, therefore, has started playing a significant role, as it has never before!

In order to create a strong impression on the global customers, today companies need to create, manage, and improve their brand reputation. But with heavy demand comes tough competition and brand reputation is no exception to this. In fact, maintaining an overall good brand reputation has become an uphill task for companies worldwide, as (their) rivals are always ready with their own strategies that are targeted at bringing down the brand image of their nearest competitors. It’s more like a game of chess where once you’re in you only have to move forward!

Below we have summarized a few pointers to give you an idea on how you can manage and improve a company’s brand reputation:

1. Go For A Public Relation Drive:

Creating a brand and helping it to get better is a basic responsibility of a Public Relation Officer (PRO), and that is why hiring a qualified and experienced PRO can solve your problems to some extent. The person will be the point of contact or rather the ‘face’ of your organization who would be responsible for handling all media. One of the foremost jobs of the PRO would be to handle all negative feedbacks (if and when it crops up) and would transform them into positive ones through employing his/her crisis management skills. In case of managing public relations of big businesses or corporates, a single POC (Point Of Contact) may not be sufficient! Hence, creating a team of expert PR executives under the watchful guidance of a PRO would help the cause.

2. Harness the Benefits of SEO to Boost Your Brand’s Authority Online

SEO or Search Engine Optimization enables companies to establish their authority on search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing which ultimately helps them to create a positive brand image of their products and service offerings and adds to their online authority. Once the authority of business is established on SERPs (search engine result Pages) it becomes a permanent asset for the business concerned and this authenticity alone add volumes in building a positive brand reputation. Hiring an SEO specialist will be a good investment. Conversely, hiring the services of a professional SEO Service Provider can be equally effective.

3. Hire Online Reputation Management (ORM) Service

Whatever goes online, stays online. So whatever is being said about your company or brand is crucial to your online business success. Thus, managing the online reputation of your business should be one of your foremost objectives. A professional ORM service provider can help you with that. They employ both real-time as well as auto-maintenance of your company’s social media profiles keeping a strict vigil on what is being said or written for/ against your company/ brand. They employ software applications which filters out the negative and sometimes spam comments and also send a customized reply to online enquirers. Thus your company/ brand earns an overall ‘responsive’ status in the minds of your online fans, followers. With a persistent online reputation management activity, your company/ brand earns a good brand reputation.

4. Make Social Media your Trusted Partner

“Today a single tweet can make or break a brand.” The power of social media platforms has brought phenomenal success to Internet-based businesses. The key to social media success is adding value to your fans, followers, subscribers and turn them into your brand loyalists over time. Ponce, they become your company/business’s ‘virtual brand ambassadors’, their word of mouth will amplify your business reach putting your company/ brand name in the spotlight among millions of online business entities.

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn are the key platforms for businesses nowadays. But don’t stop at this, there are thousands of other social networking sites which you can make use of. Only thing is to judge the potency of the platform with respect to your business niche and TG (target group). For example, Pinterest might be good for a B2C brand but may not necessarily be effective for a B2B brand. So do thorough research (social media audit) of your business competitors, find out which social media platforms they’re into and how effective their journey has been so far, before jumping right into it. A professional Social Media Marketing Service would come handy here. They’re the guys with in-depth know-how and market experience. So you have the option to either hire a social media expert to handle your company’s / brand’s reputation in social media or just hire the services of a reputed digital marketing agency in India who would manage your brand’s social media reputation leaving you with ample time to focus on other business functionaries.

5. Be Positive and Stay Positive in All Communication

Capitalize on ‘common sense’ while dealing with business queries and complaints. Especially in case of ‘complaints’ you might get tempted to reply back with a blatant answer. DON’T. The key to successfully manage such tacky situation is keeping a level head, analyzing the situation, finding the root cause which prompted such complaint, acting towards neutralizing it and finally keeping your client/ enquirer ‘happy’. There’s nothing more precious for brands than getting a #shoutout on social media or a simple ‘thank you’ from a client, fan, follower, subscriber or an enquirer. Brand reputation is not built in a day. It takes time, effort, money and of course patience to achieve the desired goal.

If you have found the above tips and suggestions helpful, then let us know in comments below. Stay inspired and stay connected to IMS blog.