5 Ways To Develop Your Online Reputation In A Social Media Generation
Uma Bhat
Wed, 07/04/2018 - 10:20


“You can't buy a good reputation; you must earn it”.


Says Harvey Mackay, an American businessman. It can’t be more appropriate when it comes to online and social media.

If you are a small business owner or a large brand, irrespective of the size of the business, you are already aware of the importance of reputation in a business setup.You exactly know how much a customer’s feedback or opinion matters to your business.

Reputation is always important, but when it comes to online reputation it is a factor that can make or break your business.

Building reputation is no different than building the brand. It requires dedicated efforts over a long period of time where you need to constantly prove to your customers that they can lay their trust on your brand.

So, how do you develop your online reputation in an era of social media?

Let’s take a look at 5 ways of building successful online reputation:

1. Start building your social media presence

This is the preparation stage where you need to start building your online presence if you are planning to launch your brand or launch a new product.

When you start becoming visible on many social media platforms, it will help you to connect with more social media audience and offer you the initial foothold.

Just a few months before your launch, start promoting your brand across major social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. This will give you the upper edge over many other new  entrants by the time you launch your brand.
 

2. Start a Blog with Educational and Informative Content

Creating a blog gives you a perfect stage to share the values of your company. With the content that you produce, you can create the image of an expert. Make sure to enrich your articles with educational content, creative infographics, informative charts and impressive pictures.

Your audience on social media are looking out for authentic content relating to their pain areas. When you publish content of their interest, you gain by gaining the reputation on an expert.

Offer step by step instructions, how to do videos, product demos that describe and solve major issues that exist in your industry. Such educational and informative content adds enormous value to your readers thereby giving you a huge online reputation. 

Educational content helps to position your brand as an authority. They start to look at you as a source of free, reliable and useful knowledge. When you focus on teaching and not selling, you gain online reputation.
Related Content: 9 Tips on How to Write a Blog Every Single Day

3. Engage and Connect with your social media audience

There can be no reputation, positive or negative, when you stay offline or stay low on social media. When handled correctly, social media is the best way to create an impressive online reputation.

Social engagement requires you to be active on social media, and does not stop at just creating engaging content. Reach out to your audience by showing interest in the content that they post. Comment and share relevant content of your audience.

Reaching out to them when they are active on social media is the key to catch your audience to make an impression. Find the most active time of your audience to make the impact.

Post impressive images, videos, use popular hashtags, mention big names of your industry to gather the attention of your audience.
 

Engaging and conversing with your audience will make you popular thereby leading to building a great online reputation.

4. Communicate with powerful words and conviction

Irrespective whether your brand is a product, a process,  a service or a design, being the brand authority is a much-coveted position. This requires you to be extremely sure of your brand and the message that your brand depicts.

Show social authority and confidence in your messages and posts on social media. Show great knowledge while responding to comments, questions, queries relating to your industry. This will establish you as an industry expert. It will build trust in your brand and will enhance business relationships. When you emerge as a knowledgeable and trustworthy source of information, your online reputation will soar.

Be bold and be what you are. Learn to stand for it. People give respect for what you are, for your beliefs and for what you stand for. So, avoid simply mentioning or repeating what others think. Dare enough to add your own inputs and create your own authority.  This will automatically build a great online reputation for your brand.
 

5. Gather and Share Client Feedback online

Online reputation increase many folds when someone else talks positive about your product and services, rather than self promotion.

Ask your audience for feedback about your product and show willingness that you are ready to take feedback and improve. Your audience will feel valued and included in the improvement process.

And if you get positive feedback, that is a boost to your online reputation.

As per a New York Times report, a like, retweet, thumbs up and positive comments online inspires more to offer the same. Getting this initial positive feedback is crucial for your company’s reputation online.

A nudge with positive feedback, can set off a bandwagon of approval leading to heighted online reputation.
 

Conclusion

It’s so true when they say “It  takes years to build a reputation but just few minutes to ruin it”. It’s more than apt when we are talking about social media.

Your online reputation is a social proof of how customers feel about your brand, products or services. Many business maintain an extremely high online reputation through which the business can be taken to greater heights.

In an era of social media revolution, if you know how to maintain excellent online reputation you can expand your growth and opportunities.