Brand reputation is the foundation upon which customer confidence, trust and loyalty are based. It takes companies time, resources and energy to build but no more than minutes to crumble. Building it therefore, is not a one-time thing but an ongoing process. Once businesses understand this fact, they will think and act differently.
With the advent of social media and its increasing dominance, building reputation everyday has become necessary for business success. The meme culture of social media and spoof Twitter accounts of today can tarnish your brand reputation in no time, if you do not tread carefully. To gain deeper perspective on brand value, strategy and branding, you can enroll into a certified digital marketing course.
Here are some pointers that will make you a believer in the power of social media in deciding brand reputation:
Possibility of 24×7 engagement: Customers can now engage with brands 24×7 through various social media platforms. One wrong message or one little mistake can get magnified and talked about widely among the users. Brand reputation, in a way, has become more fragile.
What others think: With the advent of social media, people are more exposed to what others think about a brand and are using that as a first criterion, even before their own judgement, to decide whether to associate with the brand. And if your online presence and brand image are negative, people will not engage with you even offline.
Lead generation: Social media platforms are great spaces to generate website traffic and leads. When your brand reputation is good, you will be able to improve on lead generation. If not, you are alienating target audiences.
Tips on brand reputation management on social media:
- Be clear and specific about your messaging and what to intend to convey to your target audiences
- Brand reputation should be ‘on’ at all times and it should be intentional and integrated across all your campaigns, tweets, posts and blog posts.
- Brand reputation should be a collaborative effort of all departments and members of your organization, not just the customer-facing ones.
- Think of brand reputation not just in terms of crises and negative reviews but also in terms of good stories too. When there are negative reviews, listen and rectify.
- Share customer stories on your social media pages rather than just your products and promotions. This is will create reciprocity from the customers in promoting your brand positively.
- Be quick and responsive on social media especially for customer grievances. When grievances are resolved quickly and satisfactorily, customers will promote your brand. Else, they may be bad mouthing your brand in different forums.
- Monitor your brand mentions through analytics and manually to draw out ‘dark social’ places where people are discussing your brand that you are not part of. This will help ensure your customers and target audiences are not being taken advantage of by competitors.
Online digital marketing classes are a great way to learn social media marketing, analytics and brand reputation management.
