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Your brand reputation is intangible, but safeguarding it is crucial for growth and success.
Does your business have negative online reviews? Has it been the victim of a phishing hack? Are social media users or former employees posting about adverse experiences? Unfortunately, even one damaging incident can wreak havoc on your business. The situation can worsen if you don’t deal with the fallout from a public customer dispute or a disgruntled employee’s actions.
In the eyes of consumers, your brand is who you are. While it’s intangible, it’s also your biggest asset. If you don’t protect your reputation and brand image, your credibility, business growth, and ability to attract capital will suffer. We’ll explore ways to protect and strengthen your company’s reputation so it stands out from the competition.
Industry trends come and go, but what gets posted online about your company could haunt you forever. Follow reputation-management best practices and take proactive steps to present the best public face possible.
Here’s what brand online reputation management involves:
Most of us know that anything we say or do could end up online. There are numerous examples of hot mic mishaps, unfortunate holiday work parties captured on video, and attempts to sow discord for fun or payback.
Aside from never attending a public event or staying in your office at all times, practical measures can help control public perceptions of your brand. Here are 11 ways to manage your online reputation and protect your brand.
Protecting your brand includes trademarking your branding elements and claiming your business domain name. If you don’t, a competitor can appropriate your branding and related content and establish itself as the rightful owner. They could even theoretically sue you for infringing on their intellectual property rights. (Many businesses pursue intellectual property insurance for this reason.)
Consider the following factors involved in protecting your brand:
Legally, your brand includes your trademarks (name, logo and slogans) and your “trade dress” (the distinctive visual appeal of your products, packaging and overall presentation). It also includes your copyrights (designs, content, marketing materials and creative works).
However, in actuality, your brand is so much more. It:
Jesse Swash, branding expert and co-founder of Design by Structure, agrees that branding is all-encompassing. “Brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room,” Swash explained. “Brand is you on your best day, every day. Brand can be your biggest advocate, your most persuasive tool, your greatest asset.”
Additionally, businesses must have a keen sense of identity to build a brand. “Brand is built on understanding who you are, what makes your offer compelling, and recognizing the pain points and challenges you solve for the audiences that matter,” Swash added.
Because branding is so complex and comprehensive, usage guidelines are essential to ensure brands remain unique and easily identifiable. Consider the following brand guideline best practices:
Whether you’re establishing a new brand image or rebranding a business, everyone involved must support the brand and what it stands for. When you do so, “you can create a powerful and persuasive weapon to help you achieve the success you seek,” Swash said. “One company, one brand, one aligned narrative. It works every time.”
Protecting your business from cybercrime is another way to safeguard your brand and business reputation. If you suffer a serious data breach involving customers’ sensitive information, it may be hard for them to trust you again. A data breach may also lead to the theft of valuable intellectual property, which can ruin any competitive edge your business has.
Incorporate cybersecurity tenets into your brand promise to sustain and improve your reputation. Here’s how:
Disgruntled employees, vendors and even competitors who want to torpedo your reputation are significant sources of negative online content. Avoid animosity by conducting business honestly and with as much transparency and integrity as possible.
It also helps to ensure the happiness of your team and business associates. Keeping employees happy is part of branding and your overall business strategy.
To foster your team’s happiness, try the following suggestions:
Your brand’s business processes, marketing strategies, ongoing development programs and intellectual property give it a competitive advantage. You must protect these assets at all costs.
Employees and contractors are potential areas of vulnerability with intimate knowledge of your business’s inner workings. If competitors access your best people and trade secrets, they might beat you to market — even though your investments and efforts made it possible. Plus, if your trade secrets leak, customers may worry about the safety of their own data.
To protect your reputation and assets, consult a business lawyer to add nondisclosure agreements and noncompete agreements to your employment contracts. Ensure these documents define and outline confidential information, how it can be used, who it can be shared with, and what happens if the rules are broken.
When was the last time you Googled your business or searched to see what people were saying about you on social media? Typing your company or professional name into a search bar once a week can uncover eye-opening information.
When you browse the internet through a customer’s eyes, you may find online reviews you didn’t know about. Or, worse yet, someone gossiping about your business on social media and other public commentaries that pop up whenever someone mentions you or your business by name.
If you can see negative information when you search for your business on Google or other search engines, so can potential customers. The good news is that you don’t have to let negative comments sit there and ruin your reputation. Make it a point to monitor and take control of your online mentions in an organized daily process that includes the following:
The only time you shouldn’t delete negative mentions is when they are legitimate reviews or complaints from actual customers. You should respond to all online reviews publicly, quickly and with the goal of a satisfactory outcome.
Track key metrics, including social media stats, for abrupt changes that could be tied to negative publicity. Your Google Analytics and admin web hosting dashboards show traffic spikes and can help you analyze upward or downward trends.
Since timeliness is essential, use tools such as Google Alerts, Social Mention and Semrush. They provide real-time alerts when people mention you online.
Outside of customer reviews and comments, most of what is known about your brand online comes directly from you. Here are some tips on generating good press for your brand:
Lauren Bayne, founder of Personal Brand Creative Director and former chief brand officer for Lodgewell, believes these tactics are essential for shaping the narrative around your brand.
“This approach allows you to showcase your authenticity and values directly to your audience,” Bayne explained. “By consistently engaging with customers, sharing behind-the-scenes content and addressing concerns publicly, you’re not just managing your reputation — you’re building a relationship with your audience based on transparency and trust.”
According to Bayne, controlling your brand story is critical in an increasingly digital world where consumers seek genuine connections with the brands they support.
Consumers are more likely to listen to recommendations or warnings about products and services from friends than from paid spokespeople or ads. Organic word-of-mouth advertising is called social proof; it’s crucial to build social proof for your brand or company to encourage trust.
The following actions are some of the ways you can provide social proof:
Your website is often the first interaction you have with your audience. Ensure your business website design prioritizes security and the user experience.
An excellent user experience accomplishes the following:
Your layout should be clean and easy to navigate; your website should contain useful, relevant content and links; and the checkout process should be secure, fast and hassle-free. Choose a reliable hosting service with a high uptime percentage, and use a content delivery network to improve speed and performance.
In the age of AI and other machine-learning technologies, human-to-human interaction can get lost. Employ advanced tech to streamline and automate core functions; this frees up your staff to focus on personalized service and addressing customer pain points.
For example, you can write personal emails to customers offering special discounts, build customer loyalty programs, or send cards for holidays or customer birthday greetings.
Monitoring your online reputation, managing negative reviews and enticing happy customers to post positive reviews can be time-consuming. Many small business owners turn to online reputation management services for help. Our top picks include the following.
Podium is an excellent solution for businesses that want to combine text message marketing and online review management in one platform. Podium makes it easy to remind customers to post company reviews and lets you monitor and manage your reviews in one interface.
Podium’s reports help you see trends, spot problems and proactively address issues. The service reduces the likelihood of customers posting bad reviews by giving them a convenient way to resolve problems before they snowball. For more information, read our in-depth Podium review.
Reputation Resolutions is an ideal reputation management solution when a brand is under attack because of irate customers or a crisis like a data breach. The service focuses on removing negative reviews; clients only pay if the harmful content is successfully removed.
Birdeye is a great choice for brands that want to acquire positive reviews. The platform helps you collect customer reviews through various channels — including text, email, Facebook plugins and more — to build your online reputation. In addition to helping you generate customer reviews, Birdeye can help you strengthen your Google Maps listing and manage existing online reviews.
One bad interaction can tarnish your brand forever. With so much competition and so many platforms available, clearing up misinformation or negative reviews could become a full-time job. Swash notes that monitoring online channels is particularly crucial. “Firms need to stretch across the channels that matter, particularly the online channels that prospects and customers rely on to gather information and make decisions,” Swash advised.
Swash suggests a three-pronged approach:
“It won’t always be perfect or completely right, but by being active at a volume and pace that suits your company, you’ll be able to make the necessary connections with the audiences that matter to secure the attention needed to deliver on your targets,” Swash explained.
Back up online reputation and brand management efforts by protecting your company network to prevent damaging data breaches. Also, consider hiring a professional reputation management firm to monitor your brand presence.
Finally, if you encounter any brand infringement, start by sending a cease-and-desist letter to the person or company using your brand name or logo illegally. Feel free to explain your ownership of your trademark, including your decision to take legal action if the issue is not remedied on time.
Sam Bocetta contributed to this article.