Leverage Your Online Brand Reputation in 9 Easy Steps

Social media platforms are a great way to build your online brand reputation while at the same time it can result in tarnishing the same reputation if something backfires. With a positive online brand reputation, you can either further your career as a blogger or even boost sales/conversion rates.

The question here is how you can leverage it to the maximum (social media). Well, we have a compiled a list just for you below. These steps will detail how you can craft a successful online brand building exercise.

1. Be aware

Listening is at the helm of being aware. By constantly listening to the conversations that are going around the web one can stay aware of the things in his surroundings. It could be conversations related to your niche, business and/or career. Either way, if you are observing things online closely, there is hardly a chance you could miss on the developments.

2.  Be focused

Having a defined niche makes the job all the easier. By working for the designated niche you can focus your efforts (employing your social media channels) to participate in the content pertaining to your niche alone.

If your brand is all over the place, people will not likely care as they will be confused with what exactly you do or aim to achieve. A niche oriented brand is simpler to manage than a multi-faceted brand. It’s more powerful, you see. Thus, always play to your strengths/area of expertise in coming with successful online brand reputation.

3. Be authentic

Same as consistency is the key to building brand reputation, so is authenticity. Your brand content or conversation shouldn’t feel corporate or something like a promotional brochure. Instead, add a human voice to it.

Keep the brand message as you would be when talking to your audience face-to-face. In other words, keep it conversational. In order to achieve that your brand message must reflect a certain tone that it should portray when the audience learns about it. It should be in tandem with your desired audience’s needs and expectations.

4. Be trustworthy

Honesty is the best policy we all know that but do we apply it to our brand? We rarely do and thus, end up hampering our online reputation. Good news is you can even use the web to induce honesty in your brand’s message by being transparent in your dealing with your customers. It should encompass all your social media participation as it is vital to your brand’s online triumph.

5. Be meaningful

It is also essential that the content you publish online is both meaningful and should serve as some form of takeaway for your audience. If the content is not addressing a need or solving a problem then there is no point for a reader to read it.

In other words, content should bring value to the readers’ lives. Only then you can expect your content to be shared across the web which in turn, will contribute to your online brand reputation.

6. Be “non-self-promotional”

Avoid using a marketing pitch promoting your brand online. No one will care if you keep glorifying yourself. Although, there is nothing bad in doing a little self-praise more amount and time should be dedicated to social media activities which are not self-promotional i.e. 80-20 rule of marketing.

7. Be accessible and responsive

A great of part of social media is realizing that not everything is about you. When you participate in a social media campaign for brand building exercise, you need to acknowledge other people’s presence and contribution there. In this manner, your brand becomes less annoying and more accommodating of others online.

How do you do that? By answering their queries, responding to comments on blogs, tweets etc. This way they feel valued and it tells that you care about them (your audience).

8. Be reciprocating

It is also essential that as you expect others to like, comment and share your content over the web, your equally liable to return the favor. Meaning, also engage with their blog, Facebook or Twitter accounts and spread the word. These people are crucial to your online brand reputation and you cannot just take them for granted.

9. Be uncontrolling

Nobody likes to lose control of the ship they are in charge of. But in an online world you have to be willing to let go so that the content, conversations, and the brand name is spread across the web, far and wide because without it, you cannot expect to build or leverage reputation.

Allow people to talk about you and share what you throw out there. This will certainly entail negative PR about you or your business but again, even negative PR is publicity of sorts. You can always fight back and come up with your rebuttals but don’t let this fear keep you from allowing people to share your stuff, altogether.