We’ve all heard of great corporate blunders that went viral on social media.
In 2021, Burger King sent out a tweet that said “Women belong in the kitchen” on International Women’s Day. The tweet, which was part of a larger tweet thread, is now deleted. The tweet was meant to make a call to promote gender equality in the culinary industry and encourage more women to pursue careers as head chefs.
Burger King was trying to engage Tweeters with the conversation as a whole, but their conversation didn’t go viral, just their offensive tweet did.
Epic fails two hand palms to the face for BK.
They needed a reputation management plan in place to prevent this type of mistake.
So what is Reputation Management?
Reputation management is the process that allows organizations to track, respond to, and shape customer perceptions and public conversations. By monitoring these conversations, reputation management can help identify and mitigate potential reputation threats while also taking advantage of opportunities to improve an organization’s image.
Simply stated: Your business’s online reputation is now defined by your customers.
Their reviews, your business’ accurate business information, and your social media activity all play a part in how reputable you are, and whether a consumer does business with you. You need to manage these factors in a scalable way.
What can you do with Reputation Management?
Manage your reputation all in one place. You can manage your online reputation by compiling reviews from various sites. This will give you an overview of what people are saying about your business. You can use competitive benchmarking to compare your business to others in your industry.
Monitor your online presence. You can keep track of what customers are saying about your business online by monitoring when your business is mentioned in news articles, blogs, and social media platforms. You can use automated sentiment analysis to identify the most positive and negative customer mentions.
Increase your rankings on search engines. There may be inaccurate or missing online business listings in essential directories such as Google, Facebook, and Bing. You can help improve the accuracy of these listings by providing updated information or bringing any discrepancies to the attention of the directory. By making sure it accurately represents your business online, you’ll be more likely to show up in search results when potential customers are looking for businesses like yours. Accurate listings give your customers a better feeling about your business.
Stay informed. A robust reputation management program will give you access to regular reports that detail how your business is performing in online conversations. You will also receive alerts whenever new information is discovered, allowing you to stay on top of the latest developments.
So what does it all mean?
The way you are perceived by the public is crucial to the success of your business. In today’s digital world, social media’s ability for “instant word of mouth” can impact your business, both positively and negatively. Make sure your business is protected by maintaining a good reputation.
Next week, we’ll talk about common reputation management mistakes that are being made by businesses and how to fix them.
Until next time, remember that you deserve marketing that actually works.
