Reputation Management Is a Core Competency for Every Business

Considering that every business’ success heavily relies on its reputation and values, good reputation management is a vital investment that pays off in the long term. A solid commercial reputation acts as a shield for any incoming negative sentiment and experiences. While it can’t make bad news go away, it can alleviate the fallout of an event.

Social Media Influence

Social media is one of the logical places to build and manage your reputation. Most popular social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram are free.

Some companies may be rushing to have as many active social media profiles as possible. While it is advised to register your company on a wide variety of channels, it is not always effective to spread your efforts thin across too many platforms. Instead, choose the platforms most suited to your business type and target audience, and concentrate on building a focused strategy and consistent presence.

Content Marketing

A cost-effective method of building reputation is via content marketing with informative and relevant content for all current stakeholders. Content can be distributed via social media channels, newsletters, and press releases.

All promotional efforts should be based coordinated based on a marketing and PR strategy that aligns with the company’s business goals. The strategy can be implemented and executed by an internal team or a reputation and PR agency.

Content should be adapted for every social media channel and then transmitted with the same messaging across all channels. The content generated from the PR should be distributed to prospective clients, the media, internal stakeholders, partners and suppliers.

Customer Service

Finally, good customer service is the best form of PR and reputation enhancement a company can invest in. Make sure that your PR and customer service are coordinated, e.g. that employees are up-to-date on the same marketing and PR material.

Consistent messaging internally as well as externally is essential because employees often have more interactions with customers than management. Staff needs to know what the company is communicating so they can tend to any issues an existing or potential customer may have. The inability to answer questions with confidence may lead a client to conclude that employees do not know what is happening in their own company and how they should proceed in a crisis situation.