Reputation theory and online reputation management will most definitively help you build a solid foundation for your business. By building a positive brand image you’ll stand out from the competition. Understanding the nuances of reputation theory can be pivotal for your business. If you’re seeking personalized guidance, don’t hesitate to give us a call at (844) 458-6735 for a consultation tailored to your company’s needs.

Follow their guidelines and it will assist you in maintaining your good reputation. Creating a good image for your brand is vitally important.

What is Reputation Management or Reputation Theory?

The reputation management theory is a collection of concepts. These concepts help you build and establish the image of your business.

The group of theories about your business will help you gradually build your reputation. It will build in multiple areas and will serve as a trust meter between you and your competitors.

There are various techniques to manage brand reputation. You and your employees can follow these in order to improve your brand’s reputation.

Whether it’s for your own business or for a client it never fails. Follow these steps, and you are on your way to a bullet-proof process for boosting brand identity. You’ll establish a positive image on both search engine results and physically. We are going to talk more deeply about those techniques, so stick around!

What Are the Types of Reputation Management Theories?

There are certain guidelines that you can follow to boost impressions. You’ll also get more online reviews. This all leads to raising your corporate reputation to a better standing.

To build up a company’s reputation and achieve success, you’ll need to know the different aspects of reputation. The types of reputation management strategies and building around those points from every aspect get you the best results.

So here’s the first one:

Engagement

To increase recognition and be more present on the internet, you need to increase the engagement with your audience. This is where your social media profiles will come in and help you spread the word about your work.

Make sure you reach out to the people leaving bad reviews. By doing this, you will be able to change their mind. You can apologize, offer them better service, new products, discount coupon codes, and more.

This will help you get closer to your audience and they will feel important and respected by your brand. These are two values that every customer appreciates and if you correct their wrong, they will certainly be recurring clients.

Brand Value

Sometimes the engagement will not help you clean your name or increase your popularity among your customers. The next thing that you can do is to try and increase your brand value. Show the wider audience your principles of work and why you are worthy of their time and money. Applying these reputation management strategies can be intricate and demanding. For expert assistance in navigating this landscape, reach out to our team for dedicated support.

To increase your brand value, you can start sharing your work and explain it in common and honest words. One good technique is to ask satisfied customers for a good review. Testimonials of the service/product you offer by loyal customers are a great way to improve perception.

Once you have the good words from the client, share that on your website and social media. This will show hesitant and potential clients that you are legit and that you provide real service and quality products.

Hostile Client and Environment

Ignoring reviews and not managing engagement with your audience creates an environment ready for reputation attacks.

In terms of search results, lack of engagement leaves you open to better-ranked websites attacking you. This could be in their articles or elsewhere on their site. They are trying to ruin your reputation and eliminate competition.

These malignant websites are taking up the name space where you need to rank positive news about your business. When clients will try to search for your name, some bad results might appear. Here you can take two roads: the first one is to overrank them. This will push them down in the search results.

Or, talk to these webmasters and have them remove the hurtful articles and deindex them.

When it comes to social media, if you avoid engagement with unhappy clients, it shows apathy. Do you not care? It shows that you have nothing to say about your brand and have no response to their unkind words.

That’s why engagement is important to show that you care about your business and change people’s minds.

By working towards making an unhappy client or person change their minds, you take back control. By trying to remove or push down bad reviews in search engines, you are taking back your rep. Once this is sorted out, you will have a clean slate to build from and improve your business reputation.

Result Flipping Strategy

To flip the results on the search engines means to turn the bad articles on yourself into good ones. This is where you need to reach out to the webmaster. Provide proof that you are doing legitimate work and that you actually stay behind your brand.

This is a two-edged sword. Sometimes you successfully turn a bad article about you into a good result. But, some people might push even harder to take you down and rank more harmful content about your business.

This can initiate an SEO competition. If they are an authentic competitor this is a tough spot to be in. They will outrank the flipped result and flood the results with their destructive content again.

In response try and do your best to show that you are not what they make you out to be. Promote your name as a legitimate business.

Another strategy is to try and outrank them with your own content. You will attack the same keyword they are ranking for you. Only you’ll do it with better search engine optimization in order to have better chances to take them down organically.

NameSpace and Contested Name Space

In terms of namespace, we can say that this is the term that you want to rank on the search results and you want to dominate this phrase/brand name.

This is part of the SEO that you need to do on your brand, so if you have space to rank for that particular keyword phrase, you will be able to dominate the name space you want to compete in.

The contested name space is a term for the results where you are competing with other people on the same phrase, keyword, identity, and term. In case you try to build your brand name and you have a unique name, this won’t be that hard to do, but if you are using a common phrase, let’s say something like “violins manufacturer”, you will have to share that space with other violin manufacturers that are trying to rank for the same keyword.

This is a shared namespace where you cannot dominate it on your own since you have a competition that wants to rank for the same keyword. The easiest point to this is if you have a low-competitive keyword or name you want to rank and to have most of the results on the first page showing your pages.

But in most cases, this will be hard since you are not the only “violin manufacturer”.

In that case, you need to focus a little bit more on your SEO and try to outrank them and get at least in the top 3 results of the search engines.

If you are having any hard and old competitors already ranking for the desired keyword, you should try any variations of your own brand name to try and compete and actually take the very wanted first positions.

Managing Your Reviews

Another point that we want to mention in terms of reputation theory and building and improving your corporate reputation is to try and manage your online reviews. If you have a public relations team in your company, they can take care of your customer complaints and company organization.

One other thing that you can take care of is the negative reviews, make impression management, and improve social judgments for the sole reason of reputation repair. There are various tools and websites that can help you out with this task if you feel like you are not professional enough to take care of it, you just need to research and create a campaign with some of them.

To summarize; working on all the points we mentioned above will certainly help your brand reputation. Corporate governance is something that you need to focus on and actually be a specialist in it. In case you attended any academy of management journal, you will know the importance of this process. You will be able to find more about this in the Encyclopedia of Corporate Reputation from Sage Publications where you learn game theory and other attributes to get the ability to develop knowledge to increase one organization’s reputation.

What Are the Key Elements of Reputation Theory and Reputation Management?

Once again, sorting out the problems online and in the real world should both be the focus of any corporate reputation strategy by an ORM company or your in-house team. In terms of key elements, we would list these strategies:

• Improve your social media presence and increase engagement with your potential clients and customers.
• Employ or work more on the Search Engine Optimization method where you will be able to rank your website and products/services.
• Try to push down the bad results and flip the bad reviews with constructive blog posts and reviews.
• Be truthful about your work and do not reach in for some black or gray methods of boosting your leads.
• Have access to the problems in your society and try to solve them with constructive advice where you offer your brand as a support platform.

If you pay enough attention to those methods, you are on the right way to improving your reputation, which leads us to answer the next question.

How Effective Is Online Reputation Management?

Online reputations depend on many factors. If the companies have the expertise to tackle this on their own, taking into account that every step needs to be covered, they are on a good way to retaining their current consumers and getting new ones. More and more organizations take an interest in managing their personal or brand reputation, no matter if it is a political, business, or financial reputation.

A living example of this phenomenon is that more and more online reputation management companies appear daily and the business world created the need for such innovation. This form of addressing your management issues is guaranteeing you to improve the status of your reputation and take you on the road to building a network of collaborators that will stay with you for a long time.

With this being said, we state that the effectiveness of the online reputation management campaign will certainly improve your reputation and we highly suggest trying it out. Many brands that faced attacks on their image and worked with such companies, came out victorious and rebuild their status.

We tried to cover all the basics in terms of the theories that come around the reputation management services that will be of crucial importance when you have the task to rebuild your brand and start enhancing your business standings. The complexities of reputation management require a strategic approach. Ready to elevate your brand? Contact us today and let’s craft a reputation that stands tall in your industry.

Need help with your reputation management strategy? Click here to contact us at Reputation Sciences!

The post What Is Reputation Theory? Our Guide for 2022 appeared first on Reputation Sciences.

Learn how to remove negative information from the internet with our complete guide.

It is never a great situation when you are a business owner and you discover there are bad search results (bad information) on search engines that are associated with your brand’s name.

It is a normal thing for you to make efforts in order to keep your customers happy and satisfied with your services or products, however, there are always people that will not be satisfied and they will use the internet possibilities so they can write bad comments or reviews about your brand.

To be honest, negative search results have the potential to hurt your business and brand’s reputation online. This may happen mostly because people are using the internet in order to make research for your company or brand and to decide if they should buy your items or use your services. After Google’s search results give them more information, they will make decisions based on what they find online.

It is very important to know that people who are going to find negative information posted online about you or your company will make negative assumptions, and there is a low possibility they are going to use your services.

With all this being said, you can understand that your online reputation is one of the key factors that plays part in your company or brand growth. It is necessary to have a positive online reputation and to do that, you will need to learn how to remove negative information from the internet about your brand.

Reasons To Remove Negative Search Results

It will be very easy for you to understand that people put a lot of trust in search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, Coc Coc, or Yandex. In case those people who are searching for your brand or company online see negative reviews, comments, scandals, or scams it is very possible they will avoid using your services or buying your items.

From other research and statistics, we can also see that people are only willing to buy products who are having at least a 4-star rating.

What will happen if some badly intentioned people decide to keep putting negative information or keep uploading 1-star reviews? The result will be that all your potential business partners or customers may avoid contacting or using your brand because of that reason.

You need to be informed that negative information about your company on the internet can cost you a lot of money, especially if they come from websites that have high authority. For example, a few articles published by New York Times that appeared high in google search results in past made some impact on certain brands which cost them millions of U.S. dollars.

The negative content which is shared on the internet does not standstill. This kind of content may spread fast (even faster than positive information) and in a short, time can appear in many different places. In most cases, other websites will copy the same content and share it additionally which will make it appear on the internet even more frequently.

Because of this reason, the process of removing bad content from the internet is not only done in one place but additionally, it will continue to other locations as well. Always be sure that you remove the negative information from every source on the internet because a partially done job will not bring any positive results.

For those who want to use online reputation management services in order to remove negative or defamatory content from search engine results, we have some suggestions later in this article.

Content Removal and Affecting Factors

In order to have full control of their digital footprint, many companies are in need of online reputation management. The reputation management companies’ tasks are not simple because the removing techniques are changing with time. Some of those reputation management companies offer a free consultation.

Overall the content removal depends on 2 factors.

• What kind of information is published online.
• The location where that information is published.

Those criteria already mentioned are very important because they decide how easy or hard the removal project will be and how much it will cost if you are using an online reputation management company.

Most of the companies that are working with this kind of issue will not be able to remove your bad content or negative links from the internet if that content is still newsworthy or if it’s based on facts.

The negative content and information they are providing can be removed from Google search results if they match specific conditions. For example, it will be possible to delete or remove defamatory content online, sexually explicit content, or fake statement that causes damage to a company’s reputation or an individual.

For this situation we have some dedicated rules from Google reviews that concern the following types of content:

• Offensive content.
• Fake content.
• Off-topic content.
• Spam content.
• Dangerous content.

In case some of the reviews left for your business match one of those mentioned before, you will be able to ‘flag it’ in order to alert Google. It takes usually a couple of days for Google to respond. For ‘Google My Business’ reviews, they answer within three days.

Completely Removing Negative Information From The Internet

Whenever you see a defamatory remark, negative article, or a bad review that is associated with your business on a Google web search, the first thing you want to do is to remove it completely from the internet so it never appears again on search engines.

When you remove a web page that is containing negative content about you or your business, it is certainly something that will break the link and dissociate your name with it.

After this step, people will not be able to see anything bad or fake about you on the web search engines, and that is also the best way to remove the content but also the most difficult way as well.

They are hard to remove mostly because these defamatory remarks, negative content, or negative reviews are on different websites that you don’t control. In case this bad content is posted on websites, pages, or social media sites that you control, the removal process will be a lot easier.

Removing Negative Online Content From Third-Party Websites

Identifying the original source where this harmful content is posted will be your first step in process of removing bad info from the internet. From that point, you will need to start tracking all other sources of negative content related to your business and brand name.

There is a possibility for you to use Google Alerts in order to monitor the negative content about you that is getting published on the internet.

You will need to input a keyword (ex: “your brand name” scam) and like that you will be able to get alerts or notifications of websites mentioning them and they will come directly to your email inbox on a daily or weekly basis.

This will help you to suppress negative search results faster and in a more efficient way.

Once this is sorted out we have some additional guidelines and steps that you will need to follow so you can properly finish this job.

Get In Contact With Publishers

Once you find the main publishing source that is the place where the removal of bad and fake data will actually start. That should always be your starting point and you should never try to contact Google directly about issues like this.

Google’s primary job as a search engine is to crawl and index web pages. Google does not create content on its own and they are not responsible for bad or good content that third parties are posting about you or your company.

You will need to discover the original source and contact the webmaster. You should politely ask them to remove the negative content (ex. blog post) from their website that is associated with you or your company. If the information posted is based on facts the webmaster is not obligated to remove them and being polite will ease your communication and can bring a positive outcome.

While you are doing communication with the webmasters, be sure to always keep tracking proof. In case something happens and things get more serious later, you will need to have those records. For example, while you work with an attorney having these screenshots and submitting them will significantly help you to win and close that case.

In case you are having a hard time finding and contacting the webmaster, you should look at the contact form first (which is usually at the bottom of websites) and collect the phone number or their email address. Another option is to perform a domain lookup with Whois and also you can check LinkedIn to see if some of their managers have an account there.

You additionally have the option to contact the website hosting company (Whois can provide this kind of information). You need to be aware that hosting companies do not always reply, but when they do, they will be able to share the right contact information.

If the webmaster is unable to remove the negative content or they are unwilling to do that, you can always ask them to add a no-index tag to that content. This process is not going to remove the content from the internet but will tell the search engine not to index it. You need to be informed that these steps in real life are not always working as you would like.

Another option is to request a content edit from the webmaster, which will remove the brand name associated with bad or fake information and the publisher will be able to replace it with some more generic description instead of directly using your company name.

Before you request removal, you need to be sure that you understand the content removal policies of the specific platform or website. For example, on Facebook, there are community standards that are clear and strict.

In case contacting the fake content publisher doesn’t make a positive outcome, you should know there are other options to consider.

Reporting a page/site that violates Google Policies

Third-party websites that publish content that is defamatory, vindictive, or provide personal information about sensitive topics can be reported to Google and then get removed from Google search. Such information is getting de-indexed by Google from their search results because it goes against Google’s user privacy policy guidelines.

All information like Email addresses, Social Security numbers, Credit Card numbers, account numbers, and others that can be used for fraudulent activity can be reported and Google will remove them. Additionally, offensive images or videos with explicit content are also against Google Privacy Guidelines and can be reported.

Notice

It is important for you to know that de-indexed pages are not going to appear in search results; however, they will still be available on their website owned by a third-party person. This means if you have the exact URL address of that page, you will be able to see that information that is de-indexed from search results.

Reverse SEO Method

Deleting negative content and information is not always going to be possible and because of that reason, you will need to search for other methods to fight against negative information on the internet. In case you cannot delete the information from the internet, a great option for you will be to apply the reverse SEO method.

Reverse SEO is a reputation management tactic that involves forcing positive content at the top of Google search engine results, so it can push away the negative content of the first page, on the pages that none is looking at or reading. This action will push down and bury negative content on the second page or lower in search results.

If you check some statistics you will notice that 95% of search traffic is happening on the first search page of Google and a very low number of people are going to search further on the next pages. Knowing this you will better understand the whole strategy with reverse SEO and you will probably be better when applying it.

To be honest, pushing down negative content cannot be a better option than deleting it simply because some traces will always appear somewhere. Additionally, Google makes a number of updates regularly which means SEO factors are constantly changing and you will need to invest your precious time in updating your content.

Besides these negative aspects, we can say that this method is working and it is a great option for businesses and individuals that want to get rid of negative information on the internet.

You need to know that just like SEO itself, Reverse SEO is also very technical. In case you are considering this method it is recommended to contact SEO professionals.

Taking a Legal Action

You can go to court and file a suit in case you are a victim of online discrimination, defamation, or copyright infringement and in situations where you can make use of the digital millennium copyright act.

If you win in court you have an option to submit a copy of the court order to any specific website to remove the negative content related to you or your business. You need to know this kind of action can remain active for a very long time and you will need to be patient with this process.

Before you decide to begin with this process, you should be aware that it can be really costly, especially if it’s lasting for a long time. Taking this kind of action may cost you thousands of dollars and have the potential to draw a lot of public attention which can negatively affect your business.

Be sure to carefully think about the risks and cost of taking legal action before you decide to go for it.

Removing Negative Content From Social Media and Web Pages

There are a lot of people who are going to write bad about you or your brand on social media channels you own. You will also notice some other places like YouTube channels, Facebook, and Google My Business Page which people use to leave bad comments or reviews about someone’s business.

If you experience something similar on your social media platforms, you shouldn’t worry because there are a number of options for you to deal with such situations. You should always look to respond to bad comments or reviews in a professional and helpful way.

You can try and update your business profile from time to time so it can be more interesting and more positive. In case you experience some bigger problem you can always change your address on your Google My Business page and it will give you a new address but the old reviews from your previous address will be gone.

If you experience a more complex situation you can use even more radical options like deleting your profile permanently from those channels which will get rid of negative content as well.

It is important to know that some websites may keep the customer reviews public and they will remain there even if you delete your profile. Because of that reason as we previously said, it will be great if you respond positively and professionally to negative comments or reviews related to your business. With that approach, you will encourage more potential customers to seriously consider you.

Negative Content on your Website

In recent times more and more businesses offer their customers a page on their website dedicated to testimonials and feedback. Many e-Commerce businesses recently offer their customers an option to leave a review about the experience they have with their ordered products.

This comes as a great help for other potential customers to understand the product better from others’ experiences and then make their purchase decision. In case you own one of those E-Commerce businesses and there are people who are writing negative comments you should know there is an option for you to remove them from your page.

However, as we already mentioned the best way is to respond in a helpful and professional way. Helping your customers and resolving the situation in a positive way will bring a lot of benefits to your business. You should encourage your customers to send their complaints to the customer care team and to resolve the situation through phone or email communication.

Do not let your customers go unhappy because they can write bad comments about you in public forums as an act of revenge. Always remember that more than 70% of people make their purchase decisions after reading others’ reviews. Bad reviews will make potential customers avoid your business and go to your competitors. You cannot afford to lose customers because of unresolved issues or negative comments written by other people on the internet.

Does it Take long For Negative Content to be removed from the Internet?

The time that is needed for certain negative content to be removed from the internet depends on circumstances and all factors that we mentioned above in this article. This process of removing your negative content from the internet can take from 2 weeks up to 6 months. This suggests that the average time between sending the removal request and content removal action should be 3 months.

Always keep in mind there is no guarantee that online content removal will be successful because this is a scrupulous process that depends on many different factors. One great news is that if you manage to delete that negative content in most cases it is forever. Also, reverse SEO seems like a very reliable strategy that is most effective when handled by SEO professionals.

Last Words on How to Remove Negative Information from the Internet

We can freely say that search engines and the internet have become the main reference point for many different things. Many people make their purchase, dating, hiring, and employment decisions based on the information they manage to find on the internet. This means that negative content and negative reviews written about your company will surely make a bad impact on you as a person or on your business.

It is a sure thing that nobody wants negative information about him floating on the internet and a high number of people will try to remove it or will hire someone to remove that content for them.

Many people hire experts or companies that offer these services to remove negative information from people’s searches and public database sites.

Looking for professional help? Contact us today!

The post How to Remove Negative Information From the Internet appeared first on Reputation Sciences.

Online reputation is how people will see you when they search for you online.

What Do You See When You Google Yourself, and How Are You Being Represented?

Everyone has a reputation online, including the companies you deal with every day.  In fact, we’ve seen companies that have amazing reputations and some with the worst presence online.

The question is, do you have a say in it? Online reputation management (ORM) refers to taking control of the conversation. Its strategies and techniques ensure that people will find the right materials when searching for you on the internet. The main purpose of online reputation management is to create a balance and counter misleading trends.

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Why Should You Care About Your Online Reputation?

Online reputation has become so prevalent in today’s world. The internet is our first stop for anything we need. Not only do people view the internet as their primary source of information, but they also trust it at face value. More importantly, they make decisions on what they find:

97% of people read online reviews when searching for a business (BIA Kelsey)
Two out of three people see the internet as the most reliable source of information about a person or business (Edelman Insights)
More than 70% of hiring employers have rejected a potential candidate because of something they found online (Cross-Tab)

Others Are Creating Your Reputation

While it’s reassuring to assume you have significant leverage on what others think of you, you actually have very little of your online reputation. Your reputation is mainly determined by what strangers say and think about you online.

There are things that you can do to influence how people view you or your business. These efforts can take time or money, but being able to control your name makes the process worth it. The worst decision you can make is leaving the internet in control of your reputation.

Your Online and Offline Lives Are Combining

With each passing day, the online world is becoming more integrated with our daily lives. From smartphones and TVs to the self-driving cars that seemed like science fiction, you are living each day more connected to the digital world. That means there are more ways for you to leave a mark online, both positive and negative. You might not think people are searching for you online, but the chances are that someone is.

Some common reasons include:

Employers doing research before an interview
Landlords looking into potential renters
College admissions evaluating students
Former colleagues
Risk assessments from insurance companies

No matter your lifestyle, there is a large amount of information about you online, and people have access to see it.

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Your Online Reputation Lasts Forever

If a person writes something negative about you online, it can put you at a severe disadvantage over the long term, especially if you’re not aware of it. It’s essential to keep tabs on what people are saying about you online and then take steps to counteract them. You also need to monitor the things that you post about yourself. Thanks to social media, posts from decades ago can come back to harm you.

Why Do You Need Online Reputation Management?

Given how advanced technology has become, why can’t reputation online handle problems on its own? Despite the advancements, that’s not likely to happen. Google’s algorithms only give us what we search for. If we ask for gossip, conspiracy stories, or negative reviews, that’s what gets associated with our search terms.

Search Algorithms Will Prioritize Popularity

No algorithm can tell if information accurately reflects you or not, so popularity becomes the primary measuring method of what makes a good search result. That’s why petty lawsuits dismissed years ago, embarrassing photos, and other kinds of irrelevant-clickbait results often dominate online reputations.

Online Reputation Management Prioritizes a Balance

Online reputation management counteracts human bias, ensuring the materials that matter aren’t overwhelmed by false information. If you don’t trust an algorithm to represent you online, you need to develop an online reputation management strategy to protect your interests.This need will always exist.

As time goes on, it will become more and more essential to manage our online reputations as search engines and other online algorithms take on a more significant role in our everyday lives.

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Are ORM and SEO The Same?

While there are similarities between online reputation management and search engine optimization (SEO), there are also significant differences. SEO focuses on promoting a specific website or page to the top of the search results. While online reputation management is about controlling the assortment of websites that appear in your results. This means the tactics and measures of success are different for both.

The post What Is Online Reputation Management? appeared first on Reputation Sciences.

Consumers want brands they can trust. In fact, a recent study from Label Insight found 94 percent of consumers will be loyal to a brand which offers transparency. Even more eye-opening is 73 percent of respondents said they would be willing to pay more for products which offer complete transparency.

Why is transparency so important? Transparency builds trust.

Customers trust companies who are transparent about the what’s, why’s and how’s of their product and their manufacturing process. CMO put it this way:

“Trust bestowed by the consumer can not only make or break a business, it can also ensure you survive a problem in the future.”

Consumer trust is a brand differentiator which is critical in an environment where consumer expectations and competition increase exponentially daily.

Transparency is the catalyst to trust. Customers must feel like “what they see is what they get.” Maintaining transparency must be an integral part of corporate reputation management -a corporate focused version of online reputation management also known as ORM.

Why Consumers Care About Transparency

Sadly, trust is at an all-time low in America. According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, only a third of the respondents in the U.S. trust their government “to do what is right.” That’s a drop of 14 percentage points from 2017. Only 42 percent trust the media. Trust in business and non-governmental organizations dropped by 10 percentage points in just one year. Edelman has been doing their global research for 18 years and have never seen such substantial drops in trust.

Out of the 28 countries surveyed, the U.S. is home to the least-trusting informed public. Less than a decade ago, Americans witnessed a global economic crash, which was largely blamed on greedy and deceitful business practices, especially among financial institutions. The Edelman report noted, “it’s gotten much harder to discern what is and isn’t true, where the boundaries are between fact, opinion and misinformation.”

All industries have experienced a trust crisis. Uber. Facebook. Equifax. Target. It’s not unusual for our most trusted brands to fail us. Remember in 2010 when Toyota had to appear before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to apologize for safety issues which killed 19 people? Or, who could forget when two peanut butter company leaders received prison sentences for practices resulting in salmonella poisoning which sickened more than 700 people and killed nine? This led to a lot of bad pr which is why all of these companies had to use online reputation services to mitigate the damage to the company.

Simply put, American consumers have trust issues which aren’t unwarranted.

Authentic Communication is Key

Seventy percent of consumers just don’t trust advertising, according to research published by Marketing Week. Why? “Big business scandals and arrogance around brand purpose.”

What does “arrogance around brand purpose” mean? Simply bragging about your product and making big promises is not the advertising approach which connects with consumers. They want words backed up by actions. They want transparency about their products from credible sources. Therefore, authentic communication is key. Here are two ways to accomplish that.

1. Teach

Today’s consumer doesn’t believe what a paid actor says about a product. Focus on teaching customers, not just talking to them. Build trust in your products and services by speaking candidly about them, including their limitations. This will help customers feel you are not trying to hide any defects.

Use brand ambassadors to teach consumers what your product can do and what it can’t. Brand ambassadors are more than just a celebrity giving you an endorsement. They are people who are truly passionate about your brand. They will not just talk about how great your products are, they will teach other customers how to use them.

An Example in Teaching Through Transparency

As Americans are adopting more healthy lifestyles, they are incorporating more fruits and vegetables in their diet, many even becoming vegan or vegetarian. Dole Food Company wants to reach this audience to promote its many frozen fruit options. Frozen fruit, however, isn’t as desired as fresh for this audience. Dole could launch a series of advertisements promoting their products.

However, a better way would be to enlist the help of brand ambassadors. Dole searches for credible social media personalities who focus on a healthy lifestyle and have over 5000 followers. They identify their top three.

These ambassadors are given free products to try, and might even be paid. They, in turn, post pictures of luscious smoothies made from Dole frozen fruit. They tell their audience why they like Dole products (i.e. easy to use, convenient, no sugar added, always top quality).

Followers are excited to learn about new recipes and techniques for incorporating more fruits into their diet. Dole builds trust with this coveted audience. The brand ambassador loves getting promotional products and getting paid for simply maintaining their Instagram account and showcasing their inherent love of the product.

Companies across industries can use this technique. Strategize educational topics you could teach your consumers, and find ambassadors to do the teaching. CEO of JVZoo Laura Casselman says:

“Your product may create satisfied customers, but educational content creates the kind of cheerleaders who will outsell your sales team by a 10-1 ratio.”

Greater transparency leads to increased trust, which gives you greater sales.

2. Listen

Transparency is more than just revealing your hand. It’s about listening to feedback, even if it’s negative.

This is where brand ambassadors are especially effective. Using the example above, Dole’s brand ambassador is promoting the product in an open forum. Followers all across the globe can provide feedback. This feedback, when positive, works to validate the ambassador’s claim.

Let’s say a follower posts a question about where Dole sources its produce. Does it come from organic farms? Is it produced in the U.S.? These questions serve four main purposes.

First, they provide invaluable insights for Dole. The company can find out what concerns their customers the most. They can adjust their sourcing or manufacturing process based on the feedback and draw more attention to sustainable practices they already have in place.

Second, asking questions in an open forum tells customers Dole is not afraid to reveal their practices in a public setting. It gives the perception of transparency. Surely, a company would not open the door to comments if they had something to hide.

Third, Dole may stumble upon future ambassadors from the positive comments.

Lastly, Dole can get valuable feedback for future products. Customers may ask for specific fruit mixes for Dole to consider. Listening to customer feedback creates a partnership-based relationship. Customers feel invested in a company which takes their feedback and concerns seriously, and they trust a company which allows everyone to see the feedback and concerns of others.

Be Transparent with Employees Too

Building consumer trust starts with building employee trust. If employees feel company leaders are not trustworthy, customers will pick up on the perception. Just as is true with building consumer trust, transparency is key to building employee trust.

How are companies doing in this area? One global survey of nearly 10,000 full-time workers found the following:

• Only 46 percent have a “great deal of trust.”
• 39 percent have “some trust.”
• 15 percent have “very little” or “no trust at all.”

Researchers found a high level of trust was associated with happier employees, higher quality work, and more engaged and productive employees. Employers who instilled trust also had employees who stayed with the company longer and recommended the company to others.

Do you consider employee opinions in your corporate reputation management strategy? Here are four behaviors leaders can cultivate to build trust with transparency.

1. Be Unambiguous

Company leaders must be specific when communicating direction. Ambiguity sends a perception of secrecy (the opposite of transparency), which drives mistrust and skepticism. Be clear and direct with the company’s vision and direction. Help employees clearly see their role in the vision. This makes them feel engaged and builds loyalty.

2. Don’t make promises you can’t keep

Don’t make false promises in order to motivate employees. If company leadership makes a promise, be ready to deliver. Failing to deliver a promise violates trust and makes employees think, “what else are they hiding?”

3. Delegate critical tasks

Delegation sends the message you trust your employees, which employees will reciprocate. In addition, it makes employees feel like they are in the “inner circle.” There are no secrets because you have empowered your employees with knowledge to complete leadership tasks. Even those not delegated to will notice this shift in power, decreasing the perception that all tasks are completed by a select few with secret knowledge.

4. Keep the lines of communication open

Just as “listening” was key to maintaining transparency between companies and consumers, it’s also critical to building trust through transparency between employers and employees. Employees have valuable feedback, both about company culture and customer needs. Tap this powerful voice by creating opportunities to gather feedback, whether it’s in-person or via an employee portal.

Treasure the Benefits and Maximize the Pitfalls

Trust is the No. 1 benefit of transparency. However, there are numerous benefits trickling down from there. Loyalty, from both employees and customers, is the backbone of success for any company, regardless of industry. One report noted the link between transparency and loyalty. Ninety-one percent of customers said they were more likely to trust companies with their personal information if they were transparent about how they will use it to improve the customer experience. In turn, 95 percent of customers said they are more likely to be loyal if they trust a company. Ninety-three percent said they were more likely to recommend companies they trust, and 92 percent said they were more likely to buy more products and services.

Forbes explains another lesser known benefit of transparency, greater efficiency. How so?

By spending less time talking around the limitations of your products, sidestepping your customers’ concerns and embellishing your results, you save time for more productive work.

Invest time fulfilling customer needs instead of covering up or making excuses for shortfalls.

With all its benefits, transparency does have its pitfalls, however. It’s not easy to wear the white hat. Transparency requires you always take the high road, offering the whole truth even when it’s not positive. Being transparent means you are vigilant, always fact-checking to stay ahead of the controversy.

Transparency Highlights Your Flaws

You will likely receive push-back from industry peers and other leaders within your organization. However, maximize this pitfall by setting yourself apart from the competition. Using the tips above, build a positive corporate reputation, earn loyalty and establish market dominance.

Being transparent can also be a pitfall because it exposes your shortcomings. However, you can maximize this pitfall too. Consider the example of Airbnb and how they saved their reputation when accusations of discrimination arose. Note, it was transparency which opened them up to criticism, but it was also transparency which saved them. The transparent nature of their business allowed the home-sharing platform to undergo scrutiny from Harvard researchers. In 2015, Harvard released a report revealing travelers with “distinctively African-American names are 16 percent less likely to be accepted relative to identical guests with distinctively White names.” At the same time, social media lit up with negative experiences from African-American travelers, and numerous lawsuits were in the works.

Use Criticism as a Chance to Build Even More Trust

Instead of dodging the problem or becoming defensive, Airbnb proactively addressed it to build trust with transparency. Later, its CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky released a statement of apology, acknowledging the company was too slow responding to the issue. Then, Airbnb hired Laura Murphy, director of the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office to perform an audit. It ended up being 32 pages, outlining how Airbnb failed to prevent discrimination and measures to put in place to discourage discriminatory behavior. The company publicly launched a campaign of inclusion, climaxing with an ad during the 2017 Super Bowl. So, their quick reaction, willingness to hire an outside expert, and publish her findings gave the public the perception Airbnb was being transparent. Did it work? Well, last year Airbnb reported $2.6 billion in revenue and $93 million in profit.

In conclusion, building trust must be a priority in today’s competitive environment. Markets used to provide consumers with a handful of brands, and now have a global mix of hundreds of brands to choose from. Before making purchasing decisions, customers want to know who they can trust. Build a trustworthy reputation through transparency. Contact the team at Reputation Sciences, a reputation firm- to learn more about successfully managing your corporate reputation with their many online reputation services.

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If you are a small business owner, you’re probably no stranger to the highly competitive digital marketplace.

Online reputation management, or ORM, is critical to success because it allows you to control how your business appears on search engines.

What is Online Reputation Management?

Your online reputation is the sum of everything that mentions your business on the web. This includes anything from negative reviews and customer comments to social media discussions and slanderous materials created by your competitors.

When a prospect starts looking for product or service, they head to Google. If they’re considering your business, they enter your name into the search bar and judge you by the results on the first page.

If Google’s first-page results are positive, you’re leaving a good impression. If they are negative, however, the customer will likely move on to someone else.

Online reputation management is just as it sounds: the practice of managing and guiding your online reputation. It gives you more control over your company’s search results and your brand’s online conversation.

Why Online Reputation Management is Important

“Say no to the things that keep you on a certain level and say yes to the things that will help you keep moving on.” -Brian Honigman, CEO

When purchasing decisions are influenced by Google’s first page, the power to control search results is worth its weight in gold.

Imagine the ability to remove negative reviews from sight, or to reverse them through effective customer communication. And imagine the potential of eliminating unfavorable links on Google, and to replace those results with content you’ve created!

This is the power of ORM.

The use of ORM also sets your company apart from others with bad reputations.

The Impact of NOT Implementing an ORM Strategy

Highly trained professionals provide online reputation management services, and their expertise comes at a cost. Should you opt not to implement an ORM strategy, you might feel that you are more intelligent with your budget.

Businesses without ORM, however, are likely to take a hit to their bottom line—particularly in the long term. If you don’t have negative reviews or results about your business now, it’s likely just a matter of time.

When a search for your business yields negative results, Google’s first page can be your worst enemy. When consumers are exposed to negative information, they’re likely convinced to spend their money elsewhere, which hurts your image and your bottom line.

In short, ignoring the need for reputation management could cost you dearly.

Don’t Wait Until It’s Too Late

Why wait for negative reviews and results to appear on Google? If you don’t have an online reputation management strategy for your small business, you’re giving your competitors the advantage.

Damage control is much more complicated than proactive prevention. Visit Reputation Sciences today before it’s too late.

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What pops up when you Google your brand?

If the results aren’t exactly flattering—or even downright embarrassing—it may be time for some online reputation management.

But how do you get started? What do you do first? Where do you go for help?

When it comes to managing your small business presence or corporate reputation, you’ll likely have more questions than answers. But as the leader of your company, there are two basic routes you can take to shore up those negative results (and polish up your brand in the process):

Reputation Management DIY

The first option in online reputation management (ORM) is doing it yourself—taking the time to ensure your brand is not only featured in a positive light, but is also compelling enough to inspire engagement and drive customers to action.

And to make sure your approach is starting off on the right foot, you’ll first need to:

Map out your online presence

Every strong reputation management strategy starts with actionable data. You can obtain it for developing a comprehensive roadmap of your reach and impact online.

This begins by identifying every article, blog, profile, social media thread and review that mentions your name on the web. It continues with an assessment of your brand’s performance for key search phrases—as well as how you stack up among online consumers (sentiment) and the competition.

Once you’ve given your digital footprint some perspective, it’s time to:

Build your strategy

With a big picture in place, you can then put together a strategy for mitigating online problems, fortifying your brand and improving engagement.

But to be successful, it’s important to build a plan that covers all your online bases—a multi-layered attack that not only suppresses negative search engine results, but that also thrusts your brand into the spotlight and gives customers a reason to take the next step.

An effective online reputation strategy combines anything from asset creation and curation to social media marketing and online review management to heighten visibility, reach and profitability.

And once your strategy is kicked into high gear, you must now work tirelessly to:

Maintain a positive corporate reputation

Whether you’re a professional, small business or global conglomerate, it’s not enough to simply establish a positive presence on the web. In an unpredictable online environment, things can change on a moment’s notice.  You must be vigilant to monitor and maintain the brand you’ve worked so hard to build.

Threats can come from anywhere and anytime. And while the internet offers a variety of tools for tracking new mentions and monitoring the conversation. you must maintain an ever-watchful eye to protect your brand’s integrity, authority and ability to feed your bottom line.

Your Other Option? Hiring a Pro

Of course, you could dedicate precious company resources to reputation management DIY—putting invaluable amounts of time, money and labor into an effort you can only hope will accomplish the task.

Or, you could hire a professional—someone who understands the digital landscape. Who has the proven digital marketing experience, expertise and tools needed to protect, preserve and promote your brand on the web.

With ORM specialists at your side, your business has the opportunity to:

• Avoid the risks of going it alone.
• Focus your time, money and personnel on what’s important.
• Build an online reputation that can withstand digital threats and create meaningful connections with your customers.

At Reputation Sciences, we offer custom, outsourced online reputation management solutions that protect your image and grow your revenue. Call (844) 458-6735 today to schedule a free consultation.

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