Tips For Managing Your Online Reputation
By Anna Johnson on August 5th, 2009With the rise of social media and review sites, businesses are increasingly at the mercy of customers and others when it comes to what is said about them online.
So how do you manage your online reputation? Here are a few tips:
- Set up alerts to let you know whenever your business, brand, product or name is mentioned online or in specific channels such as Twitter. Google Alerts is useful for tracking online mentions, while you can also set up Twitter clients such as PeopleBrowsr to track mentions of you on Twitter.
- Be sure to list your business in all relevant online directories.
- Respond to reviews and popular discussions about you in order to show that you’re listening and care about customer service and community relations.
- Analyze online reviews – these can provide invaluable information about how you, your business, your brand and your product are being perceived by your customers. They can also provide invaluable information about your target market in general.
- Be careful of what you say and do online – it’s going to be there for a long time.
Source: Kermit Pattison, “Managing an Online Reputation,” The New York Times, July 29, 2009
