Go on Instagram or any social media page and read posts by high-profile celebrities, business owners and entrepreneurs, influencers, and others whose followers hang on their every word. Any content published that rubs people the wrong way will ignite a flurry of comments and negative feedback.

For example, let’s look at Kylie Jenner’s most recent social media post where she’s about to board a private jet, and ponders in writing whether she and her boyfriend should take “mine or yours” (meaning which of the two jets they should choose). The caption, whether or not she meant it as tongue and cheek, went viral and generated a slew of negative feedback, with followers calling out the makeup mogul for a number of issues.

For one, she faced backlash over the environmental harm caused by the short trips she’s been known to take on her jet. One Reddit user said:

“It’s so frustrating to see them post stuff like this while living really wasteful lives even though they have all the means to try and be as sustainable as possible.”

Another commenter said it was “annoying when celebrities implore their fans to take action that they themselves seem unwilling to follow through on.”

A Positive Social Media Reputation Takes Ongoing TLC

While most CEOs and business people are not showcasing their jets, the above example is indicative of how statements (even flippant ones) on social media pages can have negative ramifications.

Jenner, as so many others in the public and private sector, should heed the lessons learned when customer sentiment turns against you, and you find yourself scrambling to undo the many negative comments from social media followers (and in customer feedback) as a result of actions taken or not taken, or statements made.

You can choose to either ignore the negativity (which is never a good idea) when customer issues arise, or employ thoughtful and strategic online reputation management so controversies like this are averted.

What’s the First Step in Social Media Reputation Management for a Company Brand?

You must have a social media plan. First, decide which social media channels you want to participate in. Look at your target audience and determine which social media sites make sense for you to post on, share customer stories, invite online reviews, and generate quality content on an ongoing basis.

If your target audience skews on the younger side, Instagram and TikTok may be your social media platforms of choice. If your customers are older, Facebook and Instagram may be two of the social media accounts where you want a presence and you want the customer experience to be featured on.

Think of social media as a form of business discovery apps. These platforms can help you connect with new audiences, expand your digital footprint, and build engagement with followers.

Once you know which social media channels you want to utilize to build and maintain a positive online reputation, decide who in your company (or firm, if you are using a third party) is responsible for posting and commenting along with which topics will be on point for your company brand reputation.

While you want to be current and spontaneous, perhaps there are certain topics you want to avoid to mitigate any potential pitfalls. These topics may be politics or social issues, for example.

Encourage Reviews and User Generated Content for a Positive Brand Image

In addition to your own content, again, invite your customers to share positive reviews about their experiences with your products and services. User-generated content is a great way to showcase your brand and customer experience on social media. Plus, search engines love fresh content, which helps with search engine optimization (SEO) and page ranking. When individuals do a Google search, for example, your social media content will also appear.

In addition, social media reviews are seen by a broad audience and will go further in getting you new customers than simply relying on word of mouth. Consumers trust online reviews as long as they are authentic.

Employ Social Listening Tools Across Your Social Media Networks

It’s important to interact with your customers and potential customers. So you need to know what they are saying about your business. Be sure you have a strategy in place to listen to what they have to say.

Many businesses, unfortunately, don’t check their reviews, missing a real opportunity to further your company’s good reputation. Remember, purchasing decisions are often made based on what other customers are saying about your products and their quality.

There are myriad tools available to monitor your social media feeds. One of the most popular is Sprout Social, which offers an “all-in-one” solution. You may also consider using the services of a social media reputation management team.

So you need to check reviews and customer feedback and respond to both positive and negative reviews and comments.

Deal with Negative Reviews, Respond Professionally

You need to deal with a negative review head-on once it’s online. This is critical to managing your online reputation. If negative reviews or controversial or disparaging social media comments go unchecked, they have a way of taking over and damaging your brand image and online reputation.

As part of your company’s reputation management, deal with a customer complaint or bad customer experiences by trying to turn things around. Find out what the issues are and work to rectify them. Your existing customers will appreciate this and you will get new customers along the way if they believe in your authenticity and transparency.

Remember, you won’t always get positive reviews or comments related to your social media posts and stories. Dissatisfied customers will exist. Highlight and promote comments and glowing reviews by satisfied customers and deal with the negative reviews and feedback as part of your social media management strategy.

Monitor Online Review Websites

Your customers are not only commenting on social media platforms. They are also providing feedback on online review websites. Critical to your social media reputation management is monitoring these sites, including Angi and others, depending on the type of business you have.

Go Beyond Social Media for a Positive Online Reputation

In addition to leveraging social media to enhance your brand’s reputation and image, you can employ other strategies as well to gain new business and increase sales and your customer base.

For example, look at what digital marketing strategies you can employ, such as email marketing that enables you to target specific audiences and drive them to your website and social media platforms. You’ll be engaging with existing customers and, at the same time targeting new customers.

Establish Your Company Name As a Thought Leader

Beef up your company blog by becoming an industry authority in your niche market. You can then post on your social media channels to showcase your expertise and drive more traffic to your website. This will help boost your digital reputation.

Keep It Fresh: Generate Content Often

Publish content regularly to help retain customers and generate new business. This isn’t a one and one tactic. It’s a long-term strategy that will help with building your business and your online reputation with positive search results.

Ensure that when employees post information — whether on social media sites, your website, or on any other digital platform — that they don’t include or reveal sensitive data about customers.

Utilizing an ORM Social Media Reputation Management Firm

You may find you don’t have the resources to keep up with your social media reputation, including monitoring what is being said about your company and brand. An Online Reputation Management (ORM) company provides services that will help manage your company’s reputation on a social media platform, your website, review sites, blogs, etc.

An ORM can audit your social media content to ensure your brand is presented in the best light — that positive content is what comes up in search results.

An ORM can also help you with the impact from the fallout of a negative incident that’s damaging to your business.

Contact ReputationSciences Today

Whether you are a business owner or an individual, you know that building and maintaining a good social media reputation is a complex and challenging process. That process has to be comprehensive. With social media reputation management across platforms, you gain a visible digital footprint that can help you stand out from the competition.

A reliable partner is just what you need to get started. Contact us or call ReputationSciences at (844) 458-6735 to learn about managing your business reputation with a free consultation.

The post How Can You Improve Social Media Reputation Management? appeared first on Reputation Sciences.

Today an individual’s and business’s online reputation is integral to their personal and brand success. It takes years to build trust and credibility and to establish yourself as a thought leader, innovator, pioneer, and visionary and your company brand as providing quality products and services and a firm on which people can rely. It also requires ongoing online reputation management that only an experienced firm can provide.

An online reputation management (ORM) intimately understands how search engines work; how information is compiled and ranked in search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing; the utmost importance of creating and posting positive content; the impact of negative reviews on review sites and social media platforms have on an individual’s and company’s online reputation; and, most importantly, how to leverage your online presence for optimum reputational results.

ORM Strategies: An Online Reputation Management (ORM) Begins with an Online Reputation Audit

The first order of business is to find out what your online reputation is. Do you have an online presence — if you don’t have ongoing content about your business online, others will.

What comes up when someone searches your name or your company’s name? Are there positive reviews? Is your business online portrayed the way you want it to be?

Is there negative feedback showing on Google, Angi, and other review sites? Are you seeing negative customer reviews?

What types of comments are on your social media channels? And, if there are negative comments, are you or your staff providing timely reactions to try to turn negativity into a positive review? Or are any negative comments out there going unaddressed, allowing customers and prospects to form their own opinions?

Have there been any events, incidents, or unexpected crises that could potentially turn public opinion against you or the company if articles come up about the event/crisis in the search engines? It just takes one miscalculation or misstep to damage a company’s reputation.

Once your company’s online reputation is revealed via an audit, strategies and techniques will be developed and created to either boost and enhance your reputation or change it for the better if there are any issues.

What’s Next? Start creating positive online content.

Create Content for Your Brand Online on Website, Social Media

You and your business do a lot of great things, so it’s important to share what you do online. This means developing and putting in place an online reputation management strategy to create and post positive content.

How does an online reputation management company do this?

Start with your website: Tell your brand story

Does the Home Page of your site tell your story? How well is your About Us page written? Does it reflect your core business, your values, brand credibility and brand image? If not, it’s time to get to work on this and beef up the content.

Does your website contain online reviews that reflect customer satisfaction? Customer testimonials are great, as long as they are authentic. They help bring your products and services to life. People want to do business with a company that others laud. It’s a great way to get new potential customers.

Does your site appear on page one for branded terms — which is where you want to be? This takes keyword research which can be accomplished with on-page optimization and via blog content.

Speaking of blogs, what’s happening with the blog section of your website? Search engines love content, which again helps you rank on page one. The blog has to include relevant content. Plus, it’s important not to have any duplicate content.

Blogs are a great way to enhance your brand’s reputation. An online reputation management firm can help you create blog topics, interview staff to gain insight, and ghost-write articles that elevate the company brand reputation — as well as your own.

A deep dive into your social media accounts

You have Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram accounts. They need to be monitored and maintained with posts and shares to help with search engine optimization (SEO) and organic growth.

You want to encourage your customers to go on your social media channels and share their experiences. If, for example, you have a restaurant, you want people to post photos and positive online reviews and tag your establishment. If you own a clothing store, you want customers to wear your clothes, post photos and tag your retail shop. If you’re a physician, perhaps a dermatologist, what better way than to put in a good word about your services than on social media!!

But social media accounts need to be managed so that if there are any negative reviews, they can be addressed immediately. An ORM strategy will include social media management and monitoring and help you with customer engagement.

An ORM Agency Gets Positive Content Published

An online reputation management firm will also employ a strategy to garner free publicity. As mentioned, search engines love content. One way to get content online is to write and submit articles to publications on topics of interest to their readership and in your wheelhouse. An online reputation management firm will determine which topics fit your expertise and will help boost your brand reputation.

From there, the online reputation management firm will create a schedule of articles based on the topics they’ve researched. There are guidelines to follow for each publication with which an ORM is familiar. Articles ranging from 600 to 1,000 words, depending on the publication requirements, will be written and reviewed by you. These are not self-promoting articles but serve to convey your expertise in a certain area.

As the online reputation management firm builds up your library of articles that are published regularly, your brand online will gain traction. When someone types in your name or a specific topic, like “how to build a great team,” your article in CEO World or Entrepreneur magazine, for example, will appear in searches.

This is a great way to build credibility.

More ORM Strategies: Write and Send Out Press Releases

When you have a new product, get a press release out to the publications in your industry, whether B2B or B2C. If you hired new talent, get press releases written and distributed. This valuable content helps with your online reputation management and with Google search engine results and rankings. The more you publish positive content, the more successful your brand’s online reputation will be.

An ORM will write and distribute the press releases.

Encourage Customers to Post Reviews

Get more reviews on your website and on your Google Local Business Profile and Angi (if applicable). The more reviews you get, the better for your search engine strategies and, ultimately, your company’s reputation. Personal recommendations go a very long way in getting new customers.

Turn Those Negative Reviews Around

Unfortunately, not all customers provide positive feedback. Online reputation management services also include assisting companies with negative reviews.

First, in writing a lot of great content, the negative comments will begin to disappear from page one of the search engines. At the same time, it’s important to address the negative reviews and comments to resolve whatever issues the customer has. An ORM strategy can help you turn negative feedback from someone into a person who becomes an advocate for your company.

Your company’s reputation is not only based on everything great about it, your staff, and products and services, but also on how you deal with a potentially delicate or bad situation.

Online reviews are important. The majority of people, before making a purchase, will read online reviews about a brand to help them with their decision-making process.

How you deal with bad reviews speaks to your credibility and transparency. An online reputation management strategy that helps you manage negative comments, press, reviews, etc., is critical to your brand’s reputation.

Recap: Online Reputation Management ORM Strategies

Your online reputation is key to your company’s success. You want to ensure a positive public perception and create brand credibility. This takes reputation management. Here’s a recap of the strategies an online reputation management firm can provide you with for improved search results and an enhanced and positive reputation.

• A reputation online audit that includes analyzing brand mentions to develop key strategies
• A review of your website and blog content to enhance your brand story and optimize existing content for search results, and to post fresh content on the Internet regularly (remember, search engine optimization is key in getting your company ranked at the top of search engines)
• Social media management and monitoring for negative mentions
• Creation of articles on relevant topics to be published in industry and business magazines
• Press release (PR) development and distribution to assist with the success of your online business, promote new products and services, new staff, community service, etc.
• Managing and dealing with a negative customer review or negative content; an ORM helps neutralize negative content by developing positive content that appears in search results.

The ORM process begins with a free consultation to determine a company’s online reputation needs and how to best proceed. Brand perception is critical for all companies and must be managed on a regular basis to ensure continued success in the market.

Contact ReputationSciences Today

Whether you are a business owner or an individual, you know that building and maintaining a good reputation is a complex and challenging process. That process has to be comprehensive. It has to include not just your website, but a variety of outlets (such as review sites) that tend to rank highly across industry searches. But that doesn’t make it impossible.

A reliable partner is just what you need to get started. Contact us or call ReputationSciences at (844) 458-6735 to learn about managing your business reputation with a free consultation.

The post ORM Strategies to Help with Reputation Management appeared first on Reputation Sciences.

If you own a restaurant or your own business that provides goods and/or services to the general public, you naturally attempt to do your best to offer the finest experiences and receive top reviews. You might even have set up a Google Business Profile where Google reviews can be added or contact Google Local Services about purchasing ads to bolster business.

Good reviews are the keystone to running a successful business, but, as the saying goes, “you can’t please all the people all the time.” Negative or false content online can significantly impact the reputation of both businesses and individuals and people depend on local legal regulations to ensure that a business owner’s reputation is not falsely denigrated.

As a business owner, you rely on positive feedback, and just as a positive review can improve your business, a bad Google review could have an adverse effect. Each Google review should stand on its own merit, and questionable or fake reviews on Google and other sites, such as Amazon, should not remain online if their sole purpose is to discredit your business in an unfair way. You should monitor your business account and learn the steps required to delete a Google review that has only been written to cause undo harm and defame your operation.

Reasons Why People Write Bad Reviews

People write bad reviews because of bad experiences for the most part. With this in mind, you must be prepared for someone unsatisfied with some element of your business to voice their dissatisfaction by writing an online review about their negative experience on Google.

You also have to be prepared to respond. By not responding, you not only give life to these bad reviews, but you also might be missing out on an opportunity to have the person retract their negative comments simply because you took the time to address the issue.

This is perhaps your best opportunity to have your customer service team, if you have one, manage customer reviews, which could even lead to more positive reviews. Remember you’re dependent upon your brand’s online reputation, and negative reviews on Google or any number of websites, including social media sites, can greatly impact how your business is perceived, based on customer experience, good or bad, and can dramatically impact revenue and sales.

Examine Each Negative Review Carefully

Read any review at least twice. Does the Google review seem legitimate, meaning that the person actually had a meal at your restaurant or used your company’s services and have a legitimate beef? Does their review contain off-topic rants and have nothing to do with any specific service you provide? Does the review contain profanity?

Most websites frown upon inappropriate reviews, including posting multiple times, reviews containing any restricted content, as well as off-topic posts that don’t concern themselves with anything pertinent about their so-called “bad experience.”

There are plenty of online trolls, as well as competitors, or even a current or former employee, who will go on personal rants, post fake content about you to manipulate ratings, or post negative reviews having nothing to do with any actual customer’s experience.

People will even stoop to using different accounts on Google. This includes posting Google reviews, even fake reviews that are highly unfavorable or even posting a number of times in order to discredit you. It may even be someone who knows nothing about your business, but they did a Google search of your business listing and wrote a bad review. This is all done in an attempt to destroy your brand’s online reputation and perhaps boost competitors’ ratings. If you can prove this to be the case, then you can take steps to try to remove reviews that are untrue, or fake and solely posted to cause harm and possibly affect future purchases.

Google will take these intentionally malicious reviews into account and will rectify the situation, if requested, as long as your request falls within their terms and conditions regarding harmful and defamatory reviews.

On the flip side, if it is indeed a legitimate negative review, then you can take steps to ensure that this isn’t repeated by addressing the issue yourself and in turn, hopefully turning a dissatisfied customer into a happy one.

Steps Taken to Delete Google Reviews

It’s important that you do everything you can to get a bad or negative Google review about your establishment taken down. Each website or search engine has its own protocols for dealing with complaints or requests to remove negative reviews.

In Google’s case, a number of steps need to be taken to remove Google reviews, especially fake Google reviews. If you want to have a review removed, start by opening google maps and signing into your Google account:

1. Open Google Maps.
2. Search for your business.
3. Choose to view your business reviews on Google.
4. Select All Reviews.
5. When you see the review (or reviews) you want to remove from Google, click the three dots in the top right corner.
6. Select “Flag as inappropriate.”

Google should review your request, and if they side with you, for example, in the case of such restricted content in use, they should delete Google reviews flagged by you.

Ultimately, it’s actually good to have a mix of both good and bad reviews on Google and other sites that offer users the opportunity to leave reviews. In fact, having a negative review or two, if the majority of reviews are mostly positive ones, is a good thing. This illustrates the fact that you are a real business and not that your reviews were written by your friends or employees in order to say nice and positive things about your business. A couple of negative reviews show authenticity.

Even top-rated businesses in your area will have a small percentage of negative reviews appearing on Google, simply because it comes with the territory. It shows as a business owner that not everything is always perfect and that some things are just out of your control.

Removing Unfair Amazon Reviews

Keep in mind that not all negative feedback can be removed, so it may be wise to choose reviews that potentially could cause the most damage to your business and take the effort to have those removed.

For example, Amazon will review and remove feedback where the reviewer has used obscene language or included personally identifiable information pertaining to you, as both are a violation of their rules and standards for all reviews.

Transaction feedback that contains an Amazon product review can also be removed rather easily from your feedback profile because, according to Amazon guidelines, such reviews should be added to the product review section. If this is the case, simply visit Seller Central and open a new support case in support of your argument.

To request removal of a biased, fake, or unfair bad review, perform the following steps:

• Select Account Settings > Orders > Customer feedback problems
• Comment on why you believe the feedback should be removed, giving some details but keeping it concise — then send the message

No one likes to receive negative feedback, either in life or when on their ecommerce site. Getting negative feedback on your Amazon seller account can seriously impact your sales, profits, and Buy Box percentage, so you should act quickly to keep your high rating intact.

Social Media Can Have a Huge Impact on Businesses

Social media accounts are buzzing with millions of users and their comments can affect the reputations of individuals and businesses alike. Facebook is perhaps the most popular platform for businesses to show their brand’s worth, as well as attract new customers. So having negative content removed can be tantamount to your business’ good rating.

So, you might ask yourself, how can I delete a review on Facebook? There is no short answer and it’s not always an easy process; plus, you might have to wait in order to get the desired results.

1. Go to the click menu and click reviews, and comment on the offensive review. On Facebook, page owners cannot simply remove individual reviews themselves, it requires intervention by the Facebook Team.
2. Flag the review. To flag a review, navigate to the top-right of the post and select the arrow pointing downward.
3. Wait for Facebook’s team to review the request, and if accepted, they will remove the review.

Seek the Help of a Professional Online Reputation Management Company

There may be plenty of reviews and comments online that you would like to remove, especially any inappropriate or bad reviews, but understand that the process can be rather tiring and time-consuming. You may, through a series of search results, find that the time you might have to spend in order to delete many Google reviews would be better spent on improving your business model or issues that have cropped up.

That’s why it’s recommended that you seek out an online reputation management (ORM) firm to help you remove inappropriate Google reviews or delete bad reviews. An ORM is experienced in dealing with negative Google reviews, as well as other sites, to help to delete reviews that are false or unflattering.

After all, you don’t want to have false or negative information that may seriously impact your ability to get potential customers on board, as well as the real possibility that you could even lose existing clients. They will make the extra effort to remove bad reviews so that any top reviews will stand out even more.

Contact ReputationSciences Today

Whether you are a business owner or an individual, you know that maintaining a great online reputation is a complex and challenging process. That process has to be comprehensive. It has to include not just your website, but a variety of outlets (such as review sites) that tend to rank highly across industry searches. But that doesn’t make it impossible.

A reliable partner, in fact, may be just what you need to get started. Contact us to learn about and begin to implement the nuances of review management for protecting your business reputation.

The post Is Deleting Negative Reviews Illegal? appeared first on Reputation Sciences.

Impact of Bad Online Reviews

As a business owner, you encourage customers to leave online reviews after using your product or benefiting from one of your services. In fact, online reviews help boost a business’s reputation — it’s sort of today’s word of mouth, only digitally.

People search for a local business to meet their needs — whether it’s to try a new local Italian restaurant, find a new accountant or financial planner nearby, hire an interior designer, change physicians, or contract with a real estate agent to sell their house. What better way than to read online reviews to see what other people think of the business one is considering patronizing or using. Most people trust online reviews to help in their decision-making process.

Customers Focus on Negative Info

While reading through the comments, however, it’s only human nature that people will tend to focus on the negative reviews. They can read dozens of positive reviews but it’s the bad online review that will stand out and make a lasting impression.

Some may ask those who wrote a negative review to expand further, wanting more details about why they are unhappy about a product or service. For example, someone may complain about the outdoor seating at a restaurant, saying that the experience was terrible (particularly in today’s environment where outdoor dining has become the norm). This will inevitably turn people off from visiting the restaurant. These types of negative online reviews are bad for business, especially when they go unaddressed.

Or let’s say you want to purchase an immune-boosting supplement to see if it really does what its marketing promotion says it does. Perhaps there are negative reviews on the review site section of Amazon with one or no stars where the product is for sale. An individual may comment that the supplement tastes bad or that they experienced zero results after taking the supplement for x number of weeks. These are honest reviews, most likely, but they are also providing negative feedback, which will inevitably hurt sales.

It’s important to contact customers that post negative comments and see what can be done to rectify the situation, apologize for their bad experience, or to counter in a polite way. You want to see if you can turn around the bad review they posted.

Free Speech Allows Customers to Post Reviews

It’s important to note that companies cannot prohibit customers from voicing honest albeit negative feedback online. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Bureau of Consumer Protection, “gag clauses are illegal” to include in one’s terms and conditions and clauses. Companies that use these tactics will be penalized.

There is a difference, however, between saying you don’t like a product or are unhappy with the service, and making false claims about a product or service and disparaging a company with untruths.

Is the Online Review an Honest Review, False Statement, Or a Defamation Claim?

In some cases, negative reviews can also be false statements — even defamatory. Unfortunately, these can be posts written by a disgruntled employee who has been wrongfully terminated, individuals who are trolls and want to write a bad review, a competitor looking to gain an edge in your niche market, or a customer who is simply angry. The online reviewer can be anyone with a gripe, or even worse, a vindictive nature looking to cause online chaos.

What Can You Do About Bad Reviews?

Most importantly, respond directly to all reviews. If you feel that the review is not honest but rather false or defamatory, you can choose to take legal action. A law firm can help you bring a defamation lawsuit against the person responsible for the review, but it’s important that you feel confident you can prove the defamation claim. Also, a lawsuit can cost a significant amount of money. The money you expend on a lawsuit may be better spent utilizing other strategies to deal with and manage negative information.

Work with an Online Reputation Management Company

In lieu of making a defamation claim and pursuing a lawsuit, many businesses turn to an online reputation management (ORM) firm to help with negative reviews. Remember, consumers can post a negative review and are entitled to their opinions, but that review should be truthful. What you don’t want is to have negative information to impact getting potential customers and losing existing clients.

A professional ORM will develop a strategy to create and post positive content online. This includes writing relevant and meaningful content to be included on your website, blogs, Google My Business (your profile), in professional publications catered to your niche market, and featured positive customer reviews. Your services and products will appear on the Internet in a positive light, consistently, and on an ongoing basis. This will help rank the positive content at the top of the search engines such as Google. It will also help to suppress negative and disparaging information.

Contact ReputationSciences Today

Whether you are a business owner or an individual, you know that maintaining a great online reputation is a complex and challenging process. That process has to be comprehensive. It has to include not just your website, but a variety of outlets (such as review sites) that tend to rank highly across industry searches. But that doesn’t make it impossible.

A reliable partner, in fact, may be just what you need to get started. Contact us to learn about and begin to implement the nuances of review management for protecting your business reputation.

The post Can I Be Sued for Posting a Negative Review? appeared first on Reputation Sciences.

To help promote your business, generate local online traffic, and gain more customers, you — like millions of other businesses — have created a Google My Business (GMB) account. It’s a free feature in Google, enabling you to set up a Google Business Profile in order to manage and control how your local business appears on Google’s search engine and on Google Maps.

Your Google My Business account, which includes your Google Business Profile, is designed to help potential customers find you online. Local businesses serving customers in a specific geographic location or within a specific service area want to show up at the top of search results when consumers are looking for a specific service or product.

For example, let’s say you own a real estate agency that specializes in a niche market, perhaps in the luxury home market, throughout several bordering cities or towns. When people search on Google, you want potential home buyers and sellers to find and call you. Your Business Profile on Google helps customers discover your real estate agency along with pertinent contact information and much more.

What’s Included in Your Google Business Profile?

Your Google Business Profile includes the business’s hours of operation; location, including the street address and service area; phone number; website address; business category; business description; and customer reviews. Google maps will show your business’s exact location and provide directions.

Your profile can also include photos of your business and its products and services. In the real estate example, you may have a photo of your agency along with several of the homes you’ve recently sold. According to Google statistics, businesses with photos on their profiles receive 42% more requests for driving directions on Google Maps and 35% more clickthroughs to their websites than businesses without photos.

To get the most out of your profile, it’s important to optimize the description of your business. Utilizing local Search Engine Optimization (SEO), include important keyword and search phrases to help with page ranking on Google, much like you do with content on your website.

You also need to keep your profile updated and active to achieve and maintain a high ranking in Google’s index. This means updating your photos, ensuring your hours of operation are accurate (should they change during the summer, for example), etc.

Through posts on Google Business Profiles, you can also publish offers, events, products, and services directly to Google Search and Google Maps. Posts allow you to interact with your audience while also keeping your Google presence fresh.

Google will verify your business prior to displaying your profile. Verification typically takes up to a week. In fact, Google-verified businesses are twice as likely to be regarded as trustworthy.

The Importance of Google Reviews for Local Business Owners

As we mentioned, included in your business profile are online customer reviews, which will help attract new clients. In fact, Google reviews are one of the most important ranking signals for Google My Business listings.

In our real estate example, a five-star rating and positive Google review that raves about how knowledgeable your real estate agency is in the area it serves, as well as how you were able to sell or find the perfect home for a client, goes a long way in building trust and confidence in your business and in bolstering your online reputation.

Get to the Top Three Spots in Google Index

Businesses with more reviews are twice as likely to appear in Google’s top three search results. When users search for “near me” phrases (“Real estate agents near me”), Google immediately displays the top three local listings. To get to the top three on Google, there are several factors the search engine looks for when ranking your business listing:

• Are the reviews positive or negative?
• Review rating
• Number of reviews
• Review frequency – How often are reviews posted?

If review frequency appears unnatural (suspicious) and falls outside of your industry’s typical cadence, Google may give reviews less weight or even ignore them entirely.

One of the most important reputation factors is getting ongoing reviews. This not only improves your Google My Business listing rankings, but it also directly improves your reputation score. A higher reputation score translates to a better customer experience and increased revenue.

Here is where it gets tricky, though. Google reviews aren’t always favorable. They can make or harm a business, depending on whether you’re getting a page full of positive reviews or a slew of negative reviews or even fake reviews that send customers heading for the hills. Of course, negative reviews are bound to occur as no business is perfect, so it’s important to manage customer reviews.

Manage & Respond to Customer Reviews

Customer reviews increase your business’s visibility in search results which is why you want to encourage your clients to write authentically about their customer experience. It’s also critical to respond to customer reviews, as this illustrates your business values its clients and the feedback that they write about your service or products. This means addressing negative Google reviews, too.

If you see a bad or negative review on your business profile, your immediate reaction is to panic. But negative reviews are part of doing business. You can’t always get positive reviews. The key is to immediately evaluate the review, confirm that it’s genuine, respond quickly, address and rectify the issue, and advise the customer that they can update the bad Google review to reflect your responsiveness.

Confirm Your Negative Review Is Not Fake

Fake Google reviews, unfortunately, occur and are quite common, which is why it’s critical to confirm that a review was written by a real customer. Not all reviews are written by customers. Some people write fake Google reviews to defame a business out of spite. Some competitors post fake reviews to gain an edge in the industry. Disgruntled former employees will write a fake review in retaliation if they feel they were wrongfully fired.

A negative review that is fake can impact a company’s ability to turn leads into acquisitions, which is the whole objective of creating your GMB and obtaining Google reviews. The more positive reviews you have, the higher your business ranking. Positive Google reviews tell potential customers that your service or product lives up to your marketing and advertising message.

If you have negative reviews and fake reviews infiltrating your Google My Business account, your business’s reputation is at risk. You’ll see decreased foot traffic and a loss of customers as a result of fake negative reviews.

Spotting Fake Reviews

Look at the details of the fake review to determine if they ring true. Check for exclamation points that are repeated. Interestingly enough, a study at MIT indicates that fake reviews often include more exclamation points than genuine reviews. Also, look for poor grammar and for inflammatory language being used — typical signs of fake Google reviews.

Carefully look at the reviewer’s name and avatar. Ask the customer for their number to see whether they really did purchase your product or service. If you don’t get a number or you get one that is bogus, check the review again and see if they have left similar fake reviews on other business sites — this is a common practice among fake reviewers.

Contact Google to Remove Fake Reviews

Once you’ve established that you are a victim of a fake review, take action to remove it. You can log into your GMB account where you will have access to all of your Google reviews. Click on the “Reviews” option in the menu and flag the fake Google review. You’ll choose the “flag as inappropriate” review option.

Google will want to know why you are flagging the fake review as inappropriate. It provides you with a multiple-choice list (spam, off-topic content, hate speech, discrimination, bullying, profanity, brand impersonations, personal information included) where you can select the reasoning behind the fake review removal request. Unfortunately, you won’t have an opportunity to explain your response for citing the fake Google review. If Google wants more information, it will email you.

You can also contact Google Small Business Support directly by email or phone to discuss the fake negative Google reviews if you don’t get a response after flagging the bad reviews. Note: In contacting Google Small Business Support, you’ll end up in the same department as the one that received your flagged review removal request in the first place.

What If Google Doesn’t Remove Fake Google Reviews?

If Google doesn’t remove the bad review, you can choose to take legal action against the fake reviewer. Pursuing litigation, however, is time-consuming and can be costly. It’s also complicated as you will now have to prove defamation in court.

Implement an Online Reputation Management Strategy and SEO to Remove Negative Google Reviews

Before deciding to take any legal action to remove Google reviews damaging to your business, consult with an online reputation management (ORM) firm experienced in removing malicious reviews. An ORM will develop a digital marketing strategy to help create positive content to appear in Google search results and bury negative content.

An ORM will also utilize SEO to help rank positive content and boost a business’s reputation. With more positive reviews and content coming up in search, in time the negative Google review and fake content will no longer be visible which, in essence, gets the Google review removed.

As a business owner, you want happy customers and more positive reviews to appear online. You do this by providing great products and the best customer service. Sometimes, there is an unintentional misstep that causes a bad review, which you can manage by addressing the situation head-on and turning an unhappy customer into one who is satisfied. There are also online reviews that are generated by fake reviewers. It’s important to report fake reviews to Google to try and get them removed. This doesn’t always work. A professional ORM firm can help you feature positive business reviews and remove reviews hurting your business with a well-planned strategy in place.

Contact ReputationSciences Today

Whether you are a business owner or an individual, you know that maintaining good reputation is a complex and challenging process. That process has to be comprehensive. It has to include not just your website, but a variety of outlets (such as review sites) that tend to rank highly across industry searches. But that doesn’t make it impossible.

A reliable partner, in fact, may be just what you need to get started. Contact us to learn about and begin to implement the nuances of review management for protecting your business reputation.

The post How to Remove Fake Google Reviews appeared first on Reputation Sciences.

In today’s world, businesses can no longer rely solely on word of mouth to succeed. A strong digital reputation is crucial if you want to stand out in your industry. But what is a good reputation, and how do you begin to build one? From online reviews to a strong social media presence to a solid community presence, here are 20 ways to stand out from your competitors.

What Is a Reputation, Anyways?

Let’s start with the basics: What is a reputation? In general, reputation is defined as a widespread belief of something or someone. When it comes to the realm of business, this is more strictly understood as the general public perception of your company, and if it follows through on the promises it offers. Centuries ago, a positive reputation would be built simply by word of mouth. But in today’s fast-paced, digital world, much (though not all!) of a company’s reputation is dependent on the Internet.

Why is Your Reputation Important?

It’s easiest to think of corporate reputation as a type of marketing. It’s a way to draw in new customers and advertise your business as better than the competition. When a customer turns to the Internet to scour through their seemingly endless options, they’re going to choose the business with the best reviews or highest overall customer satisfaction. A quality, good reputation will impact existing client relationships and draws fresh clients, too.

Personal and Business Reputation Management

Individuals and companies both have reputations to protect. For an individual, a good reputation can be the difference between landing a job, getting approved for an apartment, one’s self-esteem, and even a successful romantic life.

For a business, a good reputation can drastically affect revenue. A bad reputation can lead to a drop-off in customers, and make it hard to sell products. Below are 20 tips on how a business can improve its reputation, though many of these tips can apply to individuals hoping to add value to their online perception as well.

Improving Your Digital Reputation

There are two major differences in how a company can work on their business reputation: online, and in real life. In recent years, the Internet has proven to be invaluable at boosting reputations. Let’s start by identifying 10 key ways you can boost your online reputation.

1. Post positive customer reviews. Set up a dedicated spot on your website to share customer experience that represents positive interactions with your business.
2. Work with local press or interview with online interest groups. Don’t turn down any opportunities for media exposure! It helps to get your business ethos across to customers in outlets beyond your immediate website and will show up at the top of search results when customers are looking online.
3. Hire a photographer and/or videographer. Beyond words, it’s helpful to have visual information to back up your services. Working with a professional reduces the risk of negative images spreading online.
4. Curate your social media accounts. An active social media presence is a crucial way to connect with customers — the top social platforms (Instagram and Facebook) are often the first place someone will look to try and find information about your business, or find deals. You can also control the narrative by establishing a brand voice, and even including humor!
5. Have easy-to-find customer services information. On both your website and your social media accounts, it’s important to have either an email address or a phone number (ideally, both!) where customers can reach a real person if they need help.
6. Be transparent. Whether it’s shipping dates, product info, warranties or beyond, make it clear what your consumers can expect from you so that they have no reason to be left disappointed. Occasionally, things happen — but set yourself up for success by laying all your cards on the table from the start.
7. Respond to negative reviews. No matter how good a company is, there will always be negative opinions out there. Come up with a plan on how to respond to these in advance — it can even be helpful to have a document prepped with starter answers — and reply to customers who have had issues. Other consumers who see these negative reviews will also see that you’ve responded, which ultimately bolsters your reputation.
8. Pay attention to day-to-day events. Unfortunately, in today’s fast-paced, online sphere, it can be easy for a small misstep to turn into a viral moment. Make sure you keep your finger on the pulse when it comes to current events so that your social media presence doesn’t ever feel ignorant or out of step with what’s happening in the news.
9. Be authentic. In any online marketing, social media or promotional materials, make sure you stick to an authentic voice. Consumers are easily aware nowadays of brands that try too hard — and will see right through overpromises.
10. Repair any aspect of a negative reputation. Perhaps there is already content circulating online that is damaging to your business reputation, and you’re hoping to address how people perceive your company. An online reputation management (ORM) company can find and erase any negative content, giving you more opportunities to change your reputation into something positive.

These tips can help you formulate a comprehensive reputation management strategy, giving you the ability to improve and repair your reputation as you build brand recognition online.

Improving Your Real-World Reputation

Although an online reputation is important in gaining more customers, there’s still plenty you can — and should! — do to manage your reputation outside of the realm of the Internet. Here are 10 tips on how to maintain a strong reputation through concrete practices.

1. Invest in good customer service. Similar to broadcasting your customer services online, you need to ensure that you can back up that promise with actual help provided by well-trained employees, whether it’s in stores or simply on the end of a phone line.
2. Follow through on promises. From client deadlines to product guarantees, the more you can stick to the promises you make, the more likely you’ll receive word-of-mouth reviews that bolster your reputation.
3. Go above & beyond. Whether you throw in the occasional freebie or follow-through after a customer experience, it’s the little things that customers will remember — and this ultimately provides extra value to your reputation.
4. Be positive, even when it’s hard. A positive mindset in the workplace matters, and will definitely influence sales! Cheerful employees always leave a lasting impression. Beyond that, it helps to maintain a positive attitude even in times of crisis. Keeping things light and treating customers as friends will always improve your reputation.
5. Cultivate a productive, safe organization. Your employees are a crucial aspect to maintaining a positive reputation, so it’s also the responsibility of a corporation to invest in a communicative human resources department and provide a constructive workplace. Employee feedback sites with reviews from current and former employees are also critical in maintaining a good reputation.
6. Be consistent. Don’t just show off for one top client — every customer should matter! When you put in the effort for all customer interactions to be 110%, your reputation will soar.
7. Figure out what companies you admire, and emulate them. It’s okay to be jealous of your competitors! Figure out several things that make them stand out, and find a way to incorporate those into your own business. Maybe they work with a local charity, or have a strong community presence. Do some research into others in your industry and see how you could apply this to your own reputation.
8. Think of challenges as opportunities. There will undoubtedly be hurdles to your business reputation in some way, but these should be looked at as growth opportunities. How could you better handle these types of issues moving forward? Come up with a game plan and prepare to address future risks.
9. Get out into the world. Meet customers face-to-face by setting up events or going to conferences in your industry. Charity or holiday-based events that you can sponsor are also a great way to improve a business reputation.
10. Work on your environmental impact. Many consumers today expect companies to address their environmental footprint. Address this head-on within your organization to get ahead of the curve and mitigate your reputational risk.

Working with an ORM

Sometimes, a company’s reputation may face challenges — or it may even be one’s own personal reputation that needs a bit of help. It can be daunting to figure out where to start when it comes to fixing a reputation in more detail, especially when digital information seems permanent.

Luckily, online reputation management (ORM) companies can help. They can manage your reputation by searching for, identifying, and actually removing negative online content that damages a person’s reputation or a company’s reputation. Things like blog posts, Google images, negative reviews, and even mugshots can be deleted so that you can start fresh with your professional endeavors.

Another element of enhancing a reputation is creating positive content, which will show up in Internet search results. Any elements of a bad reputation will slowly disappear as an ORM creates and disseminates new blog posts, LinkedIn updates, and other social media posts.

Key Takeaways

At the end of the day, both individuals and companies have a lot to gain from a good reputation. It can take a lot of time and effort to build up a positive reputation, which is why many people often turn to an ORM for assistance. From social media management to blog posts and marketing efforts, reputation management is a key area of investment for any business or individual looking to succeed!

Contact ReputationSciences Today

Whether you are a business owner or an individual, you know that building and maintaining a good reputation is a complex and challenging process. That process has to be comprehensive. It has to include not just your website, but a variety of outlets (such as review sites) that tend to rank highly across industry searches. But that doesn’t make it impossible.

A reliable partner is just what you need to get started. Contact us or call ReputationSciences at (844) 458-6735 to learn about managing your business reputation with a free consultation.

The post What Is a Good Reputation, and How Do I Build One? appeared first on Reputation Sciences.