Category Archives: Advice

Online Reputation Management & Monitoring

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Why is Online Reputation Management Important?

Part of building brand awareness and improving credibility means monitoring what others are saying about you and your business.

Online reputation monitoring allows you to respond to negative and positive comments in a timely manner, and it gives you an opportunity to improve your products and/or service based on feedback from current and past customers.

What Happens When You Don’t Monitor Your Online Reputation

Halifax Medical Center

In the above example, Halifax Regional Medical Center has received several reviews over the last four years or so. However, if you look more closely, it appears as though no one from the hospital is monitoring this social media outlet. Had they been monitoring it, they would’ve seen the image of Bane from the movie, The Dark Knight Rises.

Not only is the image of Bane present; it is the second listed photo in their account! It implies that the hospital is an evil-doer from the likes of the Batman movie franchise. While this is very comical, it is also very serious, and it is also a ludicrous oversight on the hospital’s management of their image and their reputation.

Responding to people’s remarks about your business/brand says a lot about you. It gives you a chance to demonstrate to others your high (or low) level of customer service. It can also serve to reinforce your business’ reputation while building credibility.

Left alone, however, the lack of response on the business’ part seems ineffectual and negligent. The business also misses the opportunity to glean useful insight from customer feedback.

Never pretend that your customers don’t exist. Be deliberate and thoughtful when forming a response to someone as everything is public. Remember, it only takes a second to capture a screen shot.

8 Tips to Monitor Your Online Reputation Better

#1 – Keep an eye on competitors.

How is your competition engaging in online reputation management and monitoring? What methods of online reputation management are you currently employing?

#2 – Monitor mentions.

Monitor any mentions of your brand, business, employees, etc. Do this on a daily basis, and be prepared to respond quickly. When it comes to online reputation, timing is everything. You don’t want to respond to someone’s negative comment about your business only to find out that the comment is more than a week old.

#3 – Monitor key influencers.

Who are the key influencers in your industry? Follow them, and keep an eye on the sort of content, comments, and questions they post. How do they react to negative press? Seeing how your influencers handle themselves on the Web can lend useful tips to you and the reputation management of your business.

#4 – Set up alerts.

Setting up alerts is quick and easy, and it’s a great way to automatically stay on top of any mentions of you on the Web. Using Google Alerts, you can set up multiple alerts for various topics, keyword phrases, and more. When monitoring your reputation online, always be sure to set up a Google Alert for: your name as well as your business’ name.

#5 – Secure your website.

Most hacking is done via automated scripts written to search the Internet for websites that have security weaknesses. It can also wreak havoc on your business and online reputation. Ways to protect yourself against hackers include:

  • Keep your software up to date
  • Do not allow users to upload files directly to your website
  • Speak to your programmer about enacting a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)to create a more secure connection
  • And more

#6 – Perform a daily check of Google+.

Get in the habit of checking your online social media outlets for any new notifications or news. Begin with Google + by simply clicking once on the notifications tab. From there, you can scan down to see what each of the notifications is, who said it, and whether or not something warrants a response from you. You can also check your “ripples” to identify people in your fan base and geographical reach.

#7 – Perform a daily check of Facebook.

Checking Facebook should be a no-brainer. With nearly 1.5 billion users, Facebook is the most popular social networking site out there. You can alter your settings to have Facebook send you updates whenever someone leaves a comment, likes, or shares something on your Facebook page.

#8 – Perform a daily check of LinkedIn.

Over the years, LinkedIn has become a credible go-to source for business professionals. It is also a great place to network. Use this space to post relevant updates as well as build your online reputation. Log in daily to see what notifications or personal messages you’ve received. You can also see who has been commenting on your articles as well as sharing information about you.

5 Online Reputation Management Tools We Love

Google Alerts

Google Alerts

As mentioned earlier, Google Alerts is simple to set up, and it allows you to you monitor the Web for interesting content related to a specific topic (or range of topics). For example, set up alerts about your brand or business, and Google Alerts will send you an email each time your brand or business is mentioned. You can also adjust the frequency of your alerts by having an email sent to you once per week, or once per day (versus as it happens).

TweetDeck

TweetDeck is a Twitter app platform that allows you to manage multiple Twitter accounts at once. View tweets in real time as well, and track specific searches, create lists of influencers as well as more. As far as online reputation management goes, we recommend creating searches to allow you to do real-time tracking related to what others are saying about you and your brand.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a social media management system that allows you to manage multiple social media accounts from a single dashboard. You can integrate it to allow multiple users access (ex: Your social media team is collaborating to manage a client’s account). There is a paid and a free version available, along with independent analytics that you can use to measure brand growth.

Topsy

Topsy is a real-time search engine, geared specifically towards socially shared content. It’s a useful social monitoring tool as it allows you to search  every tweet, dating back to forever, for statistical information about you and/or your brand.

Social Mention

Social Mention is essentially a social media search platform that allows you to quickly and easily track who is saying what about you in real-time. As mentioned by the website, Social Mention monitors more than 100 social media sources, including the big names: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google, and more.

 

FURTHER READING:

  • Entrepreneur | http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/237144
  • Forbes | http://onforb.es/1baOomJ
  • Harvard Business Review | https://hbr.org/2007/02/reputation-and-its-risks

6 Signs You May Need a New Website

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by eofstr on flickr ccIt’s 2015. You already know that having website is important, but how do you know whether it’s time to get a new website? This question is best answered by looking at several criteria, which we have outlined below.

#1 – Your website looks awful.

You don’t have to have a degree in graphic design to be able to look at a website and know that it doesn’t look good. One of the major factors that contributes to website performance has to do with the actual web design. This is also an area where many people will spend the most money. Why? Because a good website design can do a little, but a great website can do wonders for a business.

In a digital age of short attention spans, your website says a ton about your business. You should want to leave a positive impression on people that will make them want to hang out on your site and, hopefully, convert. Therefore, it is worth the time and effort to invest in a killer web design.

#2 – You aren’t getting any traffic.

Think of your website as a virtual storefront for your business. If you’ve got Google Analytics set up on your site, yet still you aren’t seeing any increase in traffic, it’s a red flag – especially if your site has been around for a bit.  From here, you should ask yourself some of the following questions:

  • Am I contributing fresh content to the site on a regular basis?
  • Do I have social media sharing set up correctly?
  • Am I doing any PPC advertising?
  • Is my current content shareable? (ex: well written & informative)

#3 – Your website is slow.

Patience is a virtue. It is also something that most of us lack when surfing the web. If your website is slow to load, there could be several issues happening. Some of the most common reasons include:

  • Your website uses Flash.
  • Your code is messy (aka: bulky).
  • You use too much embedded media + You use a host site.
  • You do not host your content on your own server.
  • Your images aren’t optimized.
  • You use too many 3rd party plugins.

*For solutions to slow websites, talk to us today!

#4 – Your website doesn’t work well on mobile devices.

Welcome to the age of mobile devices. If you want to compete, you have to have a mobile friendly website. C0MPLÉX1 can help you come up with a mobile website design that works for you and your target audience. Also, check out our writeup about mobile devices.

#5 – Your branding/market/messaging has changed.

As we previously mentioned, your website is your springboard to show and tell the world what your business is about. If you’ve changed your branding or messaging since having your website, it’s probably time for an overhaul. The look and feel of your website should accurately reflect who and what your business is.

#6 – You struggle to make content updates.

Technology has come a long way. That said, content management systems (CMS) have also come a long way in helping business owners and staff members effectively (and easily) manage on-site content without having to have a working knowledge of coding.

Being able to make content updates easily and regularly is crucial when looking at the overall success of your website. If your CMS is outdated, it may be time to look into getting your content onto site that uses an easy CMS, like WordPress or Magento.

For more information about website design or for a FREE estimate on a total website overhaul, contact us by filling out our online, located at the bottom of this page.