Established brands are able to spend thousands of dollars on their branding efforts, including new websites, blogging, online adverts, search engine marketing, contests, and more, all of which increase traffic, clicks, and sales. However, even those brands can’t buy reputation.
Your reputation is built through producing and publishing high-quality content, meaningful conversations, and contributions to your respective social networks. As a result, building a reputation takes time, so small businesses can still compete with more established brands. For a small start-up with limited resources, reputation is very important. Build a great reputation by establishing these practices.
Make Sure Your Social Circles Are A Positive Reflection Of Your Brand
Remember that you are the company that you keep. Therefore, the behavior, and opinion of your connections, both online and offline, will have a direct reflection on your reputation and brand credibility.
If you partner with any other organization, influencer, or anyone else who is going to represent your brand, and if you share a tweet or link to a blog post, you are endorsing their content, and your reputation will be tied to theirs.
Be careful to establish relationships with people who have values and standards that align with those of your brand. This doesn’t just apply to partners and influencers, but also to the staff that you hire to represent your company online.
Always hire the right people and make sure you always train them all under a set standard. Make sure you keep your whole team on the same page about the messages that come out of your company.
Provide A Good Customer Experience
Customer experience is all about attention to detail. Your attention to detail will be what your reputation is built on. This includes any point of contact and interaction that you have with your customer involving the delivery of products and services.
Offline, this could include anything from the trucking services you use for delivery to the way your package your orders.
Online, this will include Twitter replies, website navigation, invoicing, and email autoresponders. All of these must be executed in a way that creates the best possible customer experience.
A good customer experience tells your clients and prospects that your brand won’t abandon them after you’ve made a sale. It’s also a great way to turn customers into brand advocates and encourage them to promote you through word-of-mouth.
Monitor Your Brand Regularly
Online, what would have been a closed conversation between friends in the past is now often broadcast to the world, thanks to social media. A lot of consumers announce their complaints to their online networks.
Some complaints can be based on incorrect information, which can cause people to make wrong statements about brands online. However, you need to be aware of the sources and be prepared to address them as quickly as you can.
To keep up to date about conversations about your brand reputation and leverage opportunities to address any published information, you need to monitor your brand and stay informed.
