Bizsuccess

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Reprinted with permission from Carol Wilson

Creating a brand that is unique and memorable can become an online business’ most essential asset. In today’s society more than ever before, your brand is what defines you in the business world and in the public eye. Companies are remembered and regarded by their reputation among consumers and experts in the industry. This reputation is then tied directly with that company’s brand.

So, building and maintaining a successful brand is key to developing a company or business that is long-lived and profitable. Your brand must project a consistent and distinguishing image for your business. Building a brand can be a difficult task to unfold. Try following these few tips for designing and maintaining a successful and remarkable brand for your young business or company:

Make It Simple

Obviously, one of the more essential aspects of your brand is what your company’s logo actually looks like. Successful logos and brands are those that are simple and therefore easy to remember. Start with a clean and simple typeface and color scheme and use that for all corporate materials. If you have a limited design background, you should consider consulting a designer about developing and drafting your official brand and logo. Work with an expert to find something that communicates a clear and concise concept about your company, product, or business. All too often, entrepreneurs and business hopefuls execute brands and logos that are simply too complicated and convoluted for their consumers to latch on to and understand. Developing a concept and image that are clear and simplistic is essential to making that mark on your customers and standing out among the crowd. More »

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Reprinted with permission from Wilson Maina

Your business is a very small fish – plankton even – in the gigantic ocean of the Internet. But you can be sure that if negative info and poor reviews get out about your business, your potential customers will have homing beacons to find it. You simply can’t afford not to manage the online reputation of your small business, so here are some tips.

Remember that It Starts Offline

The most important thing to remember about your online reputation is that it doesn’t come out of thin air – it comes directly from the experiences that people have with your business offline. It’s true that a competitor can post a fake complaint, but the majority of the time you’re dealing with real customers. Because of this, your first and foremost effort to maintain a good online reputation is to maintain good relationships with your customers, put out good products, give good services, and in general do whatever you can to make your customers happy. Happy customers don’t post bad reviews, but the unhappy ones might, so don’t let them walk away angry. More »

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Reprinted with permission from Debajyoti Banerjee

As any business owner knows, reviews can make or break your reputation. This is particularly true if you have an online presence. People love to make comments about businesses and websites on forums, blogs, review sites, and even online directories. While it may be great to read all the positive things people have to say about you, the negative comments can hurt. In addition, they can be extremely damaging to your business if they are not handled properly. Online reputation management is all about taking those negative comments and making them work for your business.

The first thing to do when you come across a bad review or negative comment is to stop and think before reacting. There is no need to panic or get defensive, as this may only hurt your business more in the long run. Take a few moments to think about what the reviewer is trying to say, and think about how you can rectify the problem.

Realize that the majority of people who leave negative reviews do so because they have actually experienced a difficulty with your product or services. Do not just assume that people are trying to sabotage you. Take your clients seriously, and address their concerns accordingly. Never simply delete a negative comment as this will just look shady to other readers online. More »

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Reprinted with permission from Aileen Perez | Evotive Marketing

It’s best to start your online reputation management initiative prior to having any online reputation problems.  If you take a proactive approach, you can shape your online presence in a way that reflects your business’s essence and personality.

All it takes is one negative comment on a blog, website, or review site with a decent amount of traffic and boom! Your reputation is in the ditch.

There are somethings that help prepare you to see a disaster before it happens, and stop it before it goes too far. The best solution is to be proactive and begin establishing your online reputation before a crisis.

Below are 7 tips to help you understand what direction your online reputation is going in, and it will help you see if you need to make any necessary changes in your business before it’s too late.

Get your online reputation started right! More »

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Reprinted with permission from Bobbie Bailey

Reviews now play a very important role in business. Potential customers often read reviews about a certain business to carefully select the best product/service available in the market. Since these reviews are usually based on users’ experience, potential customers do pay attention to them. Certainly, potential customers will be less likely to purchase products/services from companies with bad reputations. Furthermore, reviews are one of many factors that affect the ranking of Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs). In the same industry, a company with more good reviews tends to rank higher than companies with fewer reviews. Therefore, it is essential that business owners keep a close eye on their reputation. Here are a few ways to manage your reputation:

1.                           DO follow up with customers immediately after the sale/service.

That way, you have the chance of fixing any mistakes you made and redeem yourself before unsatisfied customers boycott you.

2.                           DO follow up with customers again.

Sometimes, faulty products are not detected at the point of sale or some services are not thoroughly done, the once happy customers could turn into not-so-happy customers. Follow up once within a few days after the sale/service and again after 2-3 weeks.

3.                           DO “welcome” complaints.

Customers, who usually do not participate in reviewing products/services, will start participating by leaving bad reviews if there are no signs of follow-up or apology. Creating a complaint form on your site will help prevent bad reviews from ever being made. Make sure that it is visible and easily accessible. Check the complaint form regularly and reply to ALL complaints. Let your customers know that their complaints are heard and that actions are being taken to improve your product/service and their experience. More »

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Reprinted with permission from Dane Carlson

If you are trying to run a small business, there is no way to avoid the Internet. No matter what kind of business you operate, you will need to have an online presence. Having an online presence does not include just having a website and posting your most recent innovations to Twitter and Facebook. Consumers expect more. They expect companies to actively seek out complaints on social networks and address them.

Any business that isn’t taking to the social networks to address their customers is missing out on an opportunity to increase customer satisfaction, and thus, gain more income. After all, without happy customers, there is no small business.

In the past, there was no easy way to reach out to customers. If someone had a complaint, they would tell a friend, who would then tell a friend, and negative word of mouth would spread like wildfire. Now, with customers taking to the Internet to voice their complaints, business owners actually have a way to fix problems, and stop the negativity from spreading.

1. Planning

Any smart business move is going to take a little planning. You never want to jump right in and go crazy. If you just start responding to arbitrary tweets about your company without having an idea of what the plan of attack is, you will be in for a problem.

You also need to do some research. Take a look at what other companies in your field are doing as far as protecting their reputation. Look for things they are doing wrong. Find ways to improve upon their basic strategy and expand upon their ideas. Also take a look at how mega corporations like AT&T and Google handle their online customer service and reputation management. More »

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Reprinted with permission from Craig Kilgore

What are your customers saying about your business, products and/or services? What are your potential customers reading about your business practices? Where do your customers talk about you? Knowing the answers to these questions are the first steps towards building a positive reputation on the web.

If customers aren’t talking about your business online (that you know of), why should you even bother with online reputation management (ORM)? Being left in the dark when it comes to your online reputation can be compared to collecting customer comment cards at a brick and mortar store and tossing them in the trash without reading them. Stay active with your company’s online reputation.

Proactively monitor your online reputation, be ready to take action and you will find yourself sitting in a better spot should negative information about your business arise.

Looking forward to 2012, below are a few online reputation management tips for the New Year:

1. Know What People are Saying:

First and foremost, you have to know what people are saying about your business. If you aren’t aware of what’s out there, how can you manage it? Browsing the web for your brand and setting up email alerts are just a couple of actions you can take towards knowing what is being said about your business. Go to http://www.google.com/alerts and be informed via email when new occurrences of your brand show up on the web. More »

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Reprinted with permission from Jeff Adelson-Yan

If you’ve implemented any kind of social strategy, your brand’s presence is likely peppered across multiple social channels. With so many different platforms to stay on top of, it can be difficult to manage your brand’s online social reputation. But don’t let your social strategy turn into multiple online identities. Here are five tips from Mashable for managing, consolidating and cleaning up your brand’s social reputation. Although these tactics aren’t complex enough to make up a comprehensive online reputation management strategy, they are a good start.

1. Consistency
Just like any other aspect of your marketing initiatives, your social identity should be consistent across the different social platforms. Similarly, it should be aligned with any and all branding across your various other marketing channels. Keep the same logo, design, fonts, company description and tone of voice. In addition, it’s always a good idea to snag vanity URLs on social sites (facebook.com/Levelwing) as well as your domain name (www.Levelwing.com).

Consistency is not the same thing as repetition. Each profile should be a little different depending on the main way each social platform is used, but a common theme should be seen throughout. More »

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Reprinted with permission from Chris Marentis

One of the pillars of establishing a successful local business is maintaining a good reputation. Local businesses take this very seriously. A good reputation can be more potent than advertising when it comes to luring new customers and gaining customer loyalty. In the past, consumer perception of a certain business is passed around the entire community via word of mouth. This idea is still present nowadays but the internet has made things a little bit more complicated.

Disgruntled customers can easily log in the internet and write a negative review about a local business for the entire community to discover and read. Within a span of five minutes, everything that has been accomplished with the help of local business marketing may be ruined. Certainly, it is not fair for a business to lose customers over a single negative review. There are three tricks to overcoming this setback.

1. Be Responsive
Hiding under the bed should someone post a bad review will not help. Businesses need to be responsive. But before being able to post your reply to any review, you need to find these negative reviews first. A simple internet search can help with that task. After finding any negative review, businesses need to respond to the post in the most professional manner. Apologize to the customer and give your side of the story. Assure the customer that the error will be rectified by offering to replace the product or rendering the service again. More »

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Reprinted with permission from Hugh Duffy

At one time, the Internet must have seemed like a paradise for a small firm, with seemingly limitless opportunities to spread the word on the firm’s brand and find new clients.

Today, technology easily supports these advantages – but not every aspect is entirely positive. Clients – both the happy and unhappy ones – now enjoy unprecedented power to voice their opinion about your practice. According to a recent survey by Nielsen Ratings, 70% of people trust the opinions of strangers online, and the mushrooming of websites where consumers can freely comment on businesses has helped create a “Reputation Economy” where a few bad reviews can hurt a firm’s bottom line.

Like it or not, you probably have an online reputation; it’s now up to you to monitor and manage it. And as Warren Buffett has said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and only five minutes to ruin it.”

Everybody’s Got an Opinion

Several well-known websites such as Yelp, Google Places, CitySearch, InsiderPages, Judy’s Book, Angie’s List, and Kudzu offer the chance to post anonymous opinions and feedback about businesses, including accounting and tax-prep practices of all sizes. Often, these sites drill down to specific towns and cities, meaning that the local clients your practice wants to win, and even retain, may be reading these reviews. It also doesn’t matter whether you’re in a one-stoplight town or an ultra-urban U.S. city. If the Internet is available, then reviews about your business may be found online. More »