The Cost of Ignoring Your Online Reputation
Branding and reputation management used to be simple, at least compared to how it is these days. Before the Internet became an inseparable part of everyday life, brands had far more direct control over their reputations. Reviews were restricted to the occasional magazine or newspaper posting or, more often, just word of mouth alone. That’s certainly not the case anymore.
Nowadays, anyone can leave feedback online on any of the popular forums and review websites. Many of these sites, such as Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Google My Business, are highly influential, so they also tend to appear at the top of the search results. Since most people first find out about a business online, it shouldn’t be hard to see why a bad review appearing in the first page of the search results spells disaster for your brand.
One of the most common questions we hear at Reputation Resolutions is whether online reputation management is worth the money. However, a better approach towards addressing this concern would be to consider the cost of ignoring your online reputation. Given the viral nature of social media and the modern web, it can literally take a matter of minutes for bad press to cause severe and lasting damage to your brand.
The Importance of Monitoring Your Reputation
Consumers have more power than ever before when it comes to influencing your reputation. People are constantly talking about companies and their various products and services on social networks, personal blogs, review websites and online forums. For better or for worse, they’re the ones ultimately impacting your bottom line. On the other hand, if people aren’t talking about you online, then you don’t even have a brand to begin with.
The success of any modern business relies heavily on its online presence, and that involves people talking about you on public forums. However, that doesn’t mean you need to let a negative review cause lasting damage to your company. At the same time, if you’re not consistently monitoring what people are saying about you online, you won’t have the opportunity to mitigate the damage caused by bad press. After all, a frustrated customer hates to be ignored.
While many businesses recognize the importance of maintaining a strong and consistent presence on the major social media and review networks, it’s practically impossible to keep track of what people are saying about your brand using manual methods alone. That’s why every brand needs reputation monitoring software that constantly looks for mentions of your brand and their presence in the search engine results.
Keeping Control over the Search Results
While only the search engines themselves are in direct control over the search results, that doesn’t mean you need to let damaging listings dominate your online visibility. Fortunately, the search engines do offer businesses and individuals the opportunity to remove false, defamatory content or that which violates the law. In other cases, however, there are many ways to suppress negative content.
The ability to influence the search results is critical to the success of any modern company. That’s why companies need to be quick to respond to bad reviews and address the concerns of their customers. At the same time, every brand needs a robust content and social media marketing strategy to oversee the creation and publication of content that provides genuine value to readers. In other words, it’s up to your business to lay the foundations for a great reputation through a combination of quality content and a consistent presence.
So How Much Does Reputation Management Cost?
A better question is: how much value does reputation management create? Forbes recently published an article on the ROI of reputation management that says companies with a negative post on the first page of search results can expect to lose 22% of revenue. This number increases to 44% with two negative results and 59% with three. Bearing these facts in mind, it’s easy to understand why online reputation management companies encourage clients to work proactively to protect their online reputation.
It’s impossible to provide a general cost for online reputation management services. That’s because every situation is very different, and every brand has different requirements. For example, if an article appears on Forbes containing negative content about your brand, it will be much harder to suppress it than it would be with a smaller and lesser-known blog. This is because Forbes has an extremely high domain authority and visibility in Google. In other words, stronger websites require far more time and resources when it comes to minimizing their influence on search results pertaining to your brand.
The worst thing for any company is to get caught off-guard by a sudden spate of bad press. That’s why Reputation Resolutions uses proven methods to suppress or remove negative content and help companies regain control over their brand images. Contact us today if you’re ready to get back control over your reputation.