Your digital reputation is one of the most important aspects of your business. Not only is it an essential tool for bringing in new customers but it also helps you stand out from the competition and showcase what makes you unique. As a brand, you want to make sure that your values, ideas, and products are all recognizable to your reputation.

Managing your digital reputation can have a large positive impact on your business, which is why understanding its value is so crucial. More and more consumers are changing the way that they interact with brands, specifically online. Did you know that before purchasing a product, 81% of customers will look up your brand online? This has even increased by 20% from last year. 

With more and more consumers making the shift to research brands online you need to know what they may be seeing. Whether this is monitoring your own brand, looking at competitors around you, or simply keeping up with the current trends, managing your online reputation ensures that you’re up to date and taking care of your company. 

Here, we will be discussing the in’s and out’s when it comes to managing your online presence. Keep reading to learn more and connect with Turbine Labs to get started with advanced media monitoring.

Table of Contents

1. The Importance of Digital Reputation for Businesses in 2022
2. The Correlation Between Business Reputation Management and News Consumption
3. 4 Steps to Improve Online Reputation
4. Your Comprehensive Crisis Management Plan Template
5. What is Business Crisis Management and How Does it Apply to You?
6. What Not to Do: 3 Crisis Management Examples to Learn From
7. Minimize Digital Distraction Overload For Better Reputation Management
8. Simplify Your Internal Communications with Turbine Labs
9. Conclusion

The Importance of Digital Reputation for Businesses in 2022

Understanding your digital reputation allows you to understand how to better your organization. Digital reputation is a reputation your brand develops through online media, reviews, social media posts, and other digitally presented opinions about your brand. All of these, both positive and negative, create the general tone or perception about you, which is the core of your digital reputation. 

Consumers use this information to gauge the quality of your services or products. While this may just be digital, this reputation has strong effects outside of the digital world too. Media that can make up your digital reputation can include: 

• Social Media (Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, etc.)
• First pages on search engines 
• Third-party review sites or local business directories

Your digital reputation shapes the impression shoppers, prospective customers, and potential repeat customers have. This general impression then shapes the interactions for better or worse. 

Some of the specific ways that your digital reputation affects you are as follows: 

• It provides transparency in response to negative reviews or bad press
• It builds trust and credibility for your company
• It helps you climb the search engine result pages 

There are steps you can take to improve your digital reputation. While there are things that will be out of your control, the way that you react to situations is everything. Here are some ways you can improve: 

• Choosing to respond to negative feedback: Whether this is a bad review or a simple conversation with a customer online, responding to negative feedback shows that you care about your customers and their experience. 

• Maintaining insight through data analysis and competitor intelligence: Stay ahead of the game and see what your competitors are up to. 
• Use a media monitoring tool: Turbine uses competitive analysis, media monitoring tools, and up-to-date industry news briefs to give our users more comprehensive insight into their real-time and long-term digital reputation.

Learn more about how to improve your digital reputation by reading our blog post. 

The Correlation Between Business Reputation Management and News Consumption

As we have learned, an online reputation can fluctuate. This can be due to seasonal trends and expectations, positive or negative reviews, social media, and so many other factors. However, there is a direct correlation between reputation and the amount of news a person consumes. 

Consumers use online sources, especially social media, to get the bulk of their information. Before potential shoppers even see your business or consider making a purchase, their impression of your business is formed by news articles, posts, and reviews.

Social media posts, word-of-mouth reviews, local directories, and other third-party review sites all have a strong influence since this is where shoppers are spending the majority of their time. 

How Can I Boost My Digital Reputation?

1. Interact with your customers through social media: Repost their images, respond to comments, link tagged photos, etc.
2. Develop responses to both positive and negative reviews: This showcases that you care about their experience and can grow and change to fit their needs. However, avoid copying and pasting the same response to bad reviews.
3. Create a process to monitor your media: Depending on the size, you may have a full team dedicated to media monitoring or it may be one person who is doing other roles. Either way, utilizing tools can help make media monitoring less of a daunting task. 

The correlation between reputation management and news consumption is direct. As people start to digest more information about your business, whether that information is put out by you or by a third party, that information is shaping how they view you. If they are consuming negative information they may start to have negative opinions even if they have not shopped or worked with you before. Similarly, positive reviews and information will paint you in a better light, making people want to work with you. 

Learn more about this correlation and how you can improve it by checking out our guide. 

4 Steps to Improve Online Reputation

Just like many things in life, being prepared is key. Taking proactive steps to improve your digital reputation can make all the difference when it comes to preventing digital crises. According to Sotrender, "84% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation." 

The more you can do to boost positive reviews and showcase the great part of your business, the stronger your brand grows. 

Here are four simple ways that you can boost the online reputation that can help you grow: 

1. Ask for direct feedback from your customers: An excellent way to gain first-hand knowledge about how your consumers view you and your brand is to ask them directly! Sharing both negative and positive experiences shows real-time feedback. Consumers also tend to trust brands that aren’t all positive reviews. It can seem fishy if everything people have to say about you is good. If you’re only showcasing positive feedback people may think you’re hiding something. 
2. Listen to your customers and clients: Similarly, while you can ask for feedback, what you do with it after is the ultimate test. Genuine, timely responses that provide tangible results can help resolve even the most gnarly of negative media. So transparently acknowledge the problem, discuss how you will resolve it, and then (later on) what you did to resolve it.
3. Be consistent: Reputation management and improvement campaigns take time. Your business will need to respond to any type of media for months, if not as a permanent effort, to substantially improve and manage your brand reputation. Being consistent over long periods of time can also build trust. It shows you’re actually trying to fix the issue, not bribing customers or buying positive media.
4. Be aware of what's going on in your surroundings: Monitoring what is happening in your industry, along with your own company can help you spot issues before they happen. Monitoring your media can make sure that nothing slips through the cracks and goes unnoticed. 

Learn more and dive deeper into these four steps by reading our blog.

Your Comprehensive Crisis Management Plan Template

Whether you are a veteran in the industry or if this is your first time in a management role, crisis management is one of the most important elements you can include in your business plan. No matter who you are or where you are located, you are susceptible to any type of corporate crisis, making planning even more essential. 

While you should tailor your response to fit the situation at hand, creating a crisis management template can help make things less overwhelming. This can not only ease internal stress but external as well. It shows both your employees and your consumers that you are prepared and have a plan, which can be half the battle of resolving a crisis. 

To start it is important to understand what type of crisis you are in. The types of crises can be any of the following: 

• Financial

• Personnel

• Organizational

• Technological 
• Natural

Within your plan, there are a handful of items that you should present and consider, depending on the type of crisis you are facing. 

• Identify the types of crises you may be susceptible to and their possible early warning signs.

• Determine the impact of each type of crisis on your business.

• Consider the actions you’d need to take to resolve each type of crisis.

• Decide who will be involved in the actions you need to take in each scenario.

• Develop a clear communication line of how you plan to respond.

• Develop resolution plans for each type of crisis.

• Train everyone who needs to be familiar with your plans.
• Revisit and update your plans regularly and when necessary.

Recognizing the various stages of a potential crisis can also be extremely useful. Not only can this help you delegate how to handle it but it can also help predict a crisis and prevent it from getting too out of hand. The stages of a crisis are warning, risk assessment, response, management, resolution, and recovery. 

Once the crisis is resolved, it is also important to go back and revisit your plan. Take a look at what worked and what didn’t. What would you change? Were there things that came up unexpectedly? Asking yourself these questions can help you be even more prepared, hoping you don't face another crisis. 

Create your own crisis management plan and learn more about how to construct it by reading our guide. 

What is Business Crisis Management and How Does it Apply to You?

A business crisis is an event that threatens your organization and jeopardizes its current or future success. There are different types of crises they can all have similar consequences. From harming your reputation, interrupting daily operations, harming employees, and decreasing revenue and profits, the way you manage this crisis can make or break your company. 

Handling a crisis is a component of public relations and can be handled by a team or a single individual. No matter who is in charge of maintaining your business's reputation, you don't want to wait until the emergency arises. In fact, many times organizations have made the crisis worse by not speaking out in a timely manner. You may think you’re taking your time to assess the situation but your consumers may see a delayed response as a lack of care. 

Some of the direct effects of a business crisis can include: 

• Costly or time-intensive legal issues

• Disruption to your daily operations at individual locations or across your whole organization
• Immediate harm to reputation

Each of these effects can either be quickly resolved or create long-term resistance to growth. Poorly handling an emergency can worsen the reputation more severely than the initial crisis itself. But handling a crisis well can help your organization gain new followers and customers that appreciate how you managed the crisis and what changes you made to your organization as a result.

Understanding how business crisis management applies to you and your organization can be one of the most telling signs for you and your customers. Even if a crisis arises and you handle it well, consumers will remember that. This can prolong the longevity of your brand and even bring in new customers. Continue to learn more by reviewing our blog. 

What Not to Do: 3 Crisis Management Examples to Learn From

No matter how amazing your company’s reputation is or how long you’ve been in the industry, you are always susceptible to a corporate crisis. Internal scandals, financial emergencies, and natural disasters can strike at any moment no matter how prepared you are. 

This is why crisis management is such a key component of your success. HubSpot recently collected statistics about what companies wish they had done most to prepare for crisis scenarios, with the most common regrets being not investing enough in:

• Crisis scenario identification: 34%
• Executing a fast and comprehensive plan: 29%
• Internal communications: 29%

All of these aspects can be related back to preparation. Let’s take a look at some real-life examples of corporate crises. 

Delta Airlines 

Following the terrorist attack on September 11, Delta Airlines found themselves in a financial crisis. They ended up having to file bankruptcy in 2005 but have been able to recover. 

This financial crisis affected the company's ability to pay off its debts, invest in new capital, and otherwise continue to function or grow. One of the most common causes of a financial crisis is a loss in demand or customers.

Hurricane Katrina 

Hurricane Katrina killed over 1,800 people when it flooded New Orleans and surrounding areas along the US Gulf Coast. While this natural disaster could not have been predicted or prevented, there were elements that made it worse. Poor crisis management and lack of investment in the levies made the death toll and property damage even worse. 

This natural disaster had a significant impact on property, disputed operations, and endangered both employees and prospective customers. 

Wells Fargo

More recently, Wells Fargo lost the trust of the public when its employees opened millions of accounts without the consent of customers. They used customer data and did things on behalf of these customers without them knowing. This included fake records, false signatures, and billions of dollars in fraudulent revenue. 

This large organizational crisis was based on poor treatment of employees and its customers which developed into a huge crisis. While the crisis has been resolved, people are choosing other banks due to lost trust in Wells Fargo. 

Learn more about these specific crises and how you can avoid making the same mistakes by reading our blog post. 

Minimize Digital Distraction Overload For Better Reputation Management

We live in a world of media and according to USA Today, we have thousands, about 3,000, media outlets trying to get our attention. This is just when it comes to new sources, not to mention the number of personal pages, bloggers, podcasts, and other forms of media that are created by third parties.

With click-bait and other attention-grabbing headlines, it can feel overwhelming to know where to start, especially if you’re looking to start media monitoring. Digital distraction is real and it can lead to messy sources of information, which can give consumers feelings of uneasiness. 

Digital distraction can have strong negative effects on your company. These effects can be things like workplace anxiety, reduced performance, high turnover, and poor information quality, just to name a few.

However, there are steps you can take to avoid distraction overload, specifically when it comes to maintaining your digital reputation. These steps are: 

• Understanding bias in media: Not all news channels are unbiased. In fact, many of them sway one way or the other. When looking at the media, make sure that you are understanding their bias and where they are coming from.  Research their credibility and assess each major channel for legitimacy. 
• Clean out your sources: Similarly to understanding bias, once you have done your research, be sure to only use sources that are trustworthy. There are plenty of unbiased news sources to use, you just have to know where to find them. Once you have sorted these out you can move forward knowing you have eliminated some of the fluff you had to previously search for. 
• Simplify the searching: Depending on the size of your business, create a streamlined process and simplify who is doing the searching on your team. If you have a whole team of people doing the exact same thing, this can lead to too many sources and too many opinions. Simplify your search and eliminate “too many cooks in the kitchen”.

Continue reading to learn more about the consequences of digital distraction and how you can avoid it by checking out our guide. 

Simplify Your Internal Communications with Turbine Labs

When it comes to communication, the way you communicate externally to your customer’s matters. However, the way you communicate internally with your employees about the customers can set the tone for how you are going to handle situations. 

If your company is facing some type of crisis, the way you respond can make or break your reputation. Did you know that 80% of shoppers lose trust in local businesses if the online information isn’t correct? Here, we are going to go over how to simplify your internal communications. 

Starting off, it is important to recognize when you may be facing an issue with your internal communications. Here are some problems to look out for: 

• Low Employee Engagement
• Task Confusion
• Poor Internal Communication Skills
• Information Overload
• Performance Confusion

While all of these problems can add up internally, they can also cause external problems that consumers are not blind to. One of the biggest intangible costs to you is trust. Customers will also be hesitant to trust you again. According to Retail Dive, the majority of shoppers will abandon a brand after three negative interactions (or fewer).

Even if the outside doesn’t know you are experiencing issues, showcasing and caring for your internal employees gives consumers and employees the opportunity to see that you care. Showing that you are making changes, and care about people’s perspectives and pinpoints, can go so much farther than you may expect. It allows people to trust your business.

Find out more information about simplifying internal communication and how to improve them by reading our blog post.   

Conclusion

Maintaining your digital reputation takes work. At Turbine Labs, we help business leaders make informed decisions based on sources that you can trust. We help you save time and money by helping to keep you in the know at all times. 

Protect your organization's reputation before it's threatened by creating action plans and using media monitoring tools. Whether you’re looking to handle a potential crisis or you’re wanting to understand more about reputation management, utilizing media monitoring with Turbine Labs can allow you to minimize the damage and regain control of your company's reputation. 

Contact us to get started or to schedule a demo!