Table of Contents
Introduction
4.7 billion. That is the total number of global internet users that were recorded in December 2021. This number is expected to grow to 5.3 billion by the year 2023. Never undermine the power of the internet. It has the ability to make or break your online reputation, thereby affecting your business at large.
The fact that people online are talking about your customer service, discussing your products, or interacting with you through social media; all accounts for creating conversations around your business. That is when it becomes imperative to care about your online reputation and make the effort to manage it. Doing so will help you understand competition, gauge your position in the online community, and ultimately prevent you from making the wrong business decisions.
But what is online reputation management and how does it affect your business? Let’s Find out.
Online reputation management: what it means and why it matters
Online reputation management refers to the strategies and methods that together influence the way people perceive your business. With a good reputation online, you can build trust with your existing customers, attract new customers, and gain insights into implementing tactics that work best for your business. But keep in mind that merely providing good customer service isn’t sufficient. You also need to address the many facets of online reputation management, which include collecting reviews from your existing customers, using SEO, and monitoring your overall digital presence.
In the current world where the internet governs everything, your online reputation matters the most. The way people perceive your business will have a direct impact on your revenues and future growth. Among all the aspects that you need to consider to manage your online reputation, monitoring your reputation online is something that holds paramount importance. But how does one monitor their online presence? What tools can they use to do the same? Before you explore the tools, please be aware of the myths that revolve around Online Reputation Management to be able to make informed decisions.
Top reputation monitoring tools that you must look out for:
In order to monitor what people say about your brand or your services, here are some online reputation monitoring tools that you can use:
#1: SEMrush
This tool is an ideal pick when it comes to monitoring your online reputation, especially if you want to track online mentions of your brand. Though SEMrush offers a package with excellent capabilities that you can buy, it also has a free version. This version allows you to measure your estimated reach, access sentiment scores, obtain resource authority, observe top industry players, and gain insights into mentions without backlinks through this tool.
#2: Social Mention
As defined by its name, this free tool monitors a host of social media sites for you, to help you enhance your online reputation. From measuring your online presence to monitoring it, Social Mention scours through more than 80 sites to give you a clear picture of your brand. These are the factors that it takes into consideration:
- The likeliness of your brand being discussed on social media (Strength)
- The authors who write about your brand (Reach)
- The likeliness of your brand mentions being repeated on social media (Passion)
- The ratio of positive to negative mentions. (Sentiments)
#3: Google Alerts
This is a free tool that is offered by Google and that you can use to monitor your online reputation. All you need to do is create an account and enter your company name in the search bar. The tool will give you a detailed account of your mentions through email.
#4: SentiOne
This tool allows you to track your brand mentions, keywords, and social profile. Through SentiOne, you can learn what customers are saying about you by analyzing real-time and historical data. Also, you can filter keywords as per your preferences.
#5: Meltwater
Meltwater is a media monitoring tool that blends social media with real-time analytics. With this tool, you can also see mentions in the news media. Meltwater offers a global media database that gives you a detailed understanding of your competition. This allows you to see what your competitors are doing and where they are being featured. You can have reports transformed into presentations, and use that to compare your brand with competitors.
In addition to keeping these tools in handy, you also need to consider the platforms that affect your online reputation.
Top 5 platforms that affect your online reputation
Social Media
Did you know that the number of total social media worldwide users is expected to surge to a whopping 4.41 billion by the year 2025? With such a large group of people online, you have a fair chance of landing business and building your online presence. The global rate of social media usage is 49 percent, with Facebook being the most popular social media platform. Considering that billions of people use social media on a daily basis, you simply cannot neglect it. Create profiles on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and use those to interact with potential customers, take feedback from existing customers, and find gaps in your business that need to be addressed.
News Sites
News sites are another popular medium to assess your online reputation. You need to keep a check on popular news sites. For example, if you’re a dental practitioner, then you might want to monitor popular sites such as the Dental Tribune USA or Dentistry Today. If you are a cleaning service business, then you might want to check news sites like Cleaning Business Today to see whether there is anything posted about your business. Whether it is landing a chance to achieve a positive outlook for your business, or countering negative reviews; you need to be proactive in whatever you do.
Review Sites
Businesses that have plenty of reviews and good star ratings are more likely to be approached by customers. Reviews not only build trust but also significantly impact your online reputation. While positive reviews can bring in more revenue and enhance your customer base, negative reviews can hamper your reputation and stain your credibility. All it takes is one bad review to break the trust you have worked for all this while. So make sure you monitor popular review sites such as Google, Facebook, and Yelp to see what people say about your business. If you don’t have enough reviews, then you can ask your customers for reviews as well.
Forums
Forums cater to a specific niche of audiences and are quite an interesting and trusted medium that you must monitor. Forums such as Reddit are quite popular and have a good user base. Despite the smaller reach, such forums can prove to be a good opportunity for you to interact with your potential customers, and understand their interests and needs.
Blogs
Blogs account to be among the most authoritative sources of knowledge, possessing the potential to drive relevant traffic to your website. If there is a popular blog that falls within your niche, then you can request a feature from the same. Doing so will expose your business to their target audience and will give you insights into how their readers perceive your product or service. You can also create a blog of your own that will help you become a thought leader in your preferred domain, while also driving considerable traffic to your platform.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, review sites, blogs, forums, news sites, and social media are the top platforms that affect your online reputation. And Google Alerts, SEMrush, Meltwater, SentiOne, and Social Mention are the tools that will help you monitor your online reputation. The best part about these tools is that they are free of cost and all they need is your attention. Remember; without these tools, you won’t be able to reach out to a larger target audience or grow your business.
If you are new to this, then you can also invest in a reputation monitoring software like Emitrr that will help you monitor your online reputation under one roof. If you’re looking forward to managing and tracking feedback from your customers, or sending automated review requests to them, then Emitrr’s capabilities are the ones you need to try out. Not only will you be saved from the hassle of sending manual reviews separately to hundreds of customers, but will also have the chance to view reviews received from different review sites as well as social media. So, streamline your resources, understand the areas where you need to improve and direct all your efforts toward building a successful competitive business.
Are you ready to give your online presence the much-needed push? Sign up for a demo and generate around 3 times more reviews. Connect with us to witness an average uptick of 60 percent on your online ratings.
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