Today, online reputation management is a vital marketing tactic.  In this post, we’ll review your options for reputation management with tips on how to choose the service that’s right for your business.

There has always been a strange twist to marketing and advertising.  With all the branding, ads, calls to action, offers, commercials and content that professionals can create, there is another form of marketing that’s more powerful.

And it’s not something professionals create.

It’s the unsolicited referral.

This is a referral you earn with service that blows your customer’s expectations out of the water.  They refer you to a friend – behind your back.   People come to you – wanting to buy.

Jeffrey Gitomer notes that you only get these referrals when your customer trusts you completely.  They feel no risk in recommending you to a friend.

In other words, the very best marketing tactic is the unmitigated superiority of your services.  Unsolicited referrals are the apex of lead generation.

This remains true – but with alterations in digital life.  Today, referrals take on the form of the online review.  They’re not just word of mouth.  They’re published content that lingers.

This content has all the power of a word of mouth referral, but it spreads to a larger audience via digital communication.  This makes it less personal, more anonymous.  It’s less of a risk to leave an online review.

The impact of reviews in online marketing also means that businesses can’t be passive and hope for unsolicited comments.  They need a proactive strategy to get more positive review content.

They also need to manage negative reviews that can sink a business.  Nobody can stand idly by, particularly if comments are unfair or false.

You’re in control of providing the stellar service that’s the backbone of a positive review profile.  But who should manage your reputation so the content that’s created works in your favor?  Here are some options and suggestions.

 

What Does a Reputation Manager Do?

So just what does a reputation manager do?  Here’s what Marketing 360® details:

• Your Reputation Manager will gain access to any current review sites you have (so they can manage them for you) and also create any new profiles they think you should get setup on to help build your online reputation.
• Your Reputation Manager will put a plan in place to capture an initial batch of positive reviews on all verified/trusted review sites.
• Your Reputation Manager will comment/respond (if approved by you) to reviews as you receive them.
• Your Reputation Manager will help push down and/or remove false/negative reviews (if at all possible).
• Your Reputation Manager will help create onsite assets such as a nice review page on your website.
• Your Reputation Manager will put in place as many automated processes as possible to help you capture positive reviews on an ongoing basis.
• Your Reputation Manager will speak with you often to assess the results and way-forward game plans to ensure we’re doing everything we can to build a strong online reputation over time and outperform your competitors.

Boil it down, and a reputation manager does two essential things.

1. Monitors what’s said about you online and responds/takes action when appropriate.
2. Develops a system for eliciting positive reviews to create content that’s beneficial for your marketing.

In addition, reputation management will monitor how your brand name does on search (with terms like “reviews”, “ratings”, “scams” or “rip off”) to ensure brand searches connected to reviews are working in your favor.

 

Who Should Do My Reputation Management?

Reputation management is still a nascent marketing tactic that many businesses are just getting a handle on. The main goal is to build ups positive reviews on specific platforms and push down any prominent negative reviews.

The work we’ve outlined can be done in two ways.  Either you do it internally, or you hire an agency.

Internal Reputation Management

Your first option is to keep your reputation management in-house.  To do this you’ll need a dedicated staff person who will:

1. Monitor all websites and platforms where you’re getting online reviews, including Google Places, Top Rated Local, Yelp, and Facebook, as well as industry specific sites (Healthgrades, Home Advisor).  If you’re in eCommerce you need to watch them on your product pages and Amazon.  The goal is to be aware of what your review profile is overall and be aware of reviews prospective clients may see.
2. Respond to both positive and negative reviews as needed.
3. Elicit positive reviews by personal request, email, social media contact, and any other tactics that motivate happy clients.
4. Establish a strategy to leverage positive reviews and testimonials so they have maximum impact on new leads, including creating testimonial website content, YouTube videos, and email templates.

Internal reputation management is doable but it needs to be a clear job role.  Many businesses start out by tacking it to another administrative job.  This often results in neglect until it becomes obvious that negative reviews are seriously impacting business development.

Also, just handing this off to someone with no training or experience is problematic.  Reputation management can get tricky, and it requires a strategy you consistently implement.

The reality is that most in-house efforts at reputation management are piecemeal.  You can do all right if your review profile is strongly positive, but if you’re battling negative reviews you’ll struggle.

Agency Reputation Management

If your review profile is either sinking under negative ratings or is basically non-existent, seriously consider hiring a reputation management agency to right the ship.

First, if you’re a newer business or one that has not gotten many online reviews, you need a plan in place to start generating them.  Through email, social media outreach, and other tactics like requests on invoices, an agency will help you find the right way to request reviews.

If you’re getting hit with negative reviews, an agency has tactics for pushing them down on review sites and getting your positive comments to rank higher on brand searches.  This can be vital if a series of negative reviews have started to damage your sales.

After your profile is buoyed by positive reviews, you might be able to move to maintenance mode with internal management.  That works if the high quality of your service is generating a lot of positive reviews.

 

Conclusions

Online reviews are about two things:  numbers and authenticity.

You need a lot of high-rated reviews on platforms like Google, Home Advisor or Amazon because it’s a big part of ranking criteria.  Google’s new Home Service Ads, for example, will put heavy weight on reviews when it ranks service providers in search results.

The other thing you want is authenticity.  Real reviews written by real customers that articulate something specific about your service or product.

Systems continue to get better at filtering fake reviews, and consumers are better at recognizing unfair rants.  You may get hit by either or both of these, but if your overall profile is good they won’t hurt that much.

Which comes back to the big factor.  The quality of what you do and what you ship.  More than ever, you need to think about how your work will be reflected in reviews that get published.

Jeff Gitomer says you might have two different lines in your email signature to encourage reviews.

We love to get positive reviews!

or

We love to earn positive reviews!

That one word is what you control when it comes to online reviews.  Earn positive reviews, and the management of your reputation will be far easier.