Social media has become part of most people’s daily lives. It’s the first thing they check in the morning and the last before closing their eyes to sleep at night. According to research, an average person glances at his or her Facebook page 110 times daily.
As a business owner, you should use this frequency to lure potential customers into interacting with your brand. Social media platforms can be a great place to make your first impression on prospective customers. It can also allow you to continue talking with them after they’ve left your shop.
Just as social media has advantages for business owners, it’s also given consumers a voice. You can easily engage your customers, though disgruntled customers may have a platform for spreading negative sentiments about your company. You can use an online reputation repair tool to control negative thoughts from damaging your reputation. It’s also important to know how to leverage social media in online reputation management.
This article explains how you can use social media channels to manage your brand’s reputation.
- Develop A Social Media Strategy
If you haven’t established a presence on social media channels, you need to create pages and fill profiles on these platforms as soon as today. Platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, and Instagram, can help you reach a wider audience.
Once you have accounts in place, you need to have a social media strategy because every platform is different. You also need to have content and approaches that suit each of them. It may take time to come up with a strategy that works for your brand on these channels. Getting the right strategy may also require you to do some trial and error.
The internet is rich with information and free resources that give a detailed step by step direction on creating a social media marketing plan. In your strategy, you need to consider the type of content you post, posting frequency, and tone. Everyone who visits your page should relate to the style you use in writing. If you choose to use a funny tone, stick to that, and if you decide to use a serious one, stick to that.
- Customize Your Marketing Strategy Based On Your Niche
The engagement you have with your customers can build a robust community. The products and services you offer likely to fall into a specific niche. Knowing your niche and audiences’ needs can help you come up with a customized marketing strategy. It may also help you understand who to target with your services, and the social media platforms to connect with them.
Being specific during your interactions with customers can help to build your brand’s reputation positively. This is because the customers will feel seen and spoken to. That thought alone can help them visit your site every time they need goods and services.
One of the ways to identify your target audience is by collecting customer data. This data should include the occupation, age, gender, and other identifiers that can help you paint an accurate picture of your buyer persona. If you own a coffee shop and want to improve your marketing efforts, the demographics of your buyers will help you decide the best social media platforms for accessing your customer base.
Suppose the coffee shop is located in a thriving college town, and the majority of your customers are college students and young professionals. In that case, you may want to use platforms like Instagram and Snapchat to reach them, you must try to get Instagram verification badge. According to data collected by Pew, 78% of 17 – 24-year-olds use Snapchat, Twitter, and Instagram. Therefore, it makes sense to invest in these social media platforms.
- Track Your Online Reputation
To effectively manage your social media reputation, you need to know what people think about your brand. Have your marketing team track your online reputation. Doing this can help your business be above other enterprises. Experts recommend small centralized teams because they make faster decisions and monitor customers’ communications with a unified voice.
Setting up a Google alert is the first step to start monitoring your reputation. This alert can email you any news or mentions about your company. Reviewing your business on sites like Yelp can also help you monitor client reviews. However, these techniques should be used alongside others.
The best way of managing social media comments is through the use of social media monitoring software. Such software can allow you to track hashtags, monitor brand mentions, and manage several social media accounts. This tool also helps to initiate conversations with unhappy customers. You need to deliver a unified customer experience if you want people to take your business seriously.
- Build Relationships With Your Customers
Because most social media’s pages are public, people can make insincere comments about your brand. The words don’t have to be necessarily negative, but they can also be positive. Positive comments that flatter your business may destroy your brand’s reputation, just like negative comments.
Building a social media presence that has locally minded people is a great way to build relationships. Not only will the wide community help others to get solutions, but it may also increase your brand’s popularity. If your business is a local one, having a page for the local community may be a better way to encourage relationships. On your page, you can document local events, cheer sports teams within the community, or document local events on your Facebook or Instagram page. That way, you’ll establish stronger relationships with your consumers.
- Keep Your Audience Updated
If you have a social media manager who manages your accounts, you need to ensure he maintains an active presence on each one of them. Social media users love consistency, and most of them expect regular updates from the brands they follow. Though knowing this is helpful for your content strategy, it puts you to the task of responding to users’ queries. Users don’t like slow responses. That may be a cause for receiving negative comments.
To build goodwill around your brand, you need to be friends with your customers. That’ll not only enable them to leave positive reviews and comments, but it will also help you clear negative comments. Your audience can be your supporters, and they can help you to control negative feedback before things get out of hand.
- Don’t Delete Negative Comments
Most of your social media strategies should help you to engage with your audience. However, not everyone will like the products and services that you provide. In case anyone writes a negative comment, you need to handle it courteously before it turns into a great disaster. The first urge you want to resist is that of deleting the negative comment. Doing that may make you appear as though you’re hiding something. Instead, you need to provide a genuine, mature, and professional response to address the issue.
If a customer is unhappy with your services, apologize, and ask for recommendations for fixing things. If they tell you they’re disappointed with how you run your business, inform them that you appreciate their feedback and ask them how you can improve it. Being respectful and concerned may help to influence even the most unhappy customers to become your ardent supporters.
Final Thought
Social media platforms are vital in maintaining a good business reputation. If you avoid this platform, you may miss the opportunity of reaching thousands of customers. As a brand owner, you need to know how to respond to all comments, whether negative or positive. Besides that, you need to establish personal relationships with your consumers and target audience. You can do this by creating an excellent social media management reputation.
