“Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it burned in one.” 

Your brand takes a long time to build, with painstaking effort from online campaigns. However, it can be destroyed in seconds.

Your brand is one of your most valuable assets as a business, so you need to make sure that you are putting in the proper effort to protect it. 

Online reputation management should be an integral part of your business, and protecting your brand image should be a priority when it comes to managing your online presence. 

Stick to your personal branding 

If you want to protect your online brand identity, then you need to have a strong understanding of what your brand is about, and stick to this.

If you understand your brand, you can make informed decisions for your business. 

You need to have a comprehensive approach to your online branding. It needs to be consistent across all of your online platforms, whether it’s your profiles on social media sites or your own website. 

If someone googles your company’s name, they should be able to understand your brand story regardless of where they end up. 

Keep your website up to date 

Making sure that you keep your website up to date is key in protecting your business reputation. 

You can put lots of evergreen content on your website, content that is unlikely to age poorly, staying relevant regardless of when someone looks at it. 

If your website is full of out of date content, that is either no longer relevant, or is not even factually true anymore, it will damage your brand. 

If you no longer offer certain products or services, then they should be removed from your website. If you are regularly editing and updating your website, you are reducing the risk of misleading your potential customers. 

Use your social media accounts

Protecting your online reputation is a process that covers the entirety of your online presence, including your social media accounts. 

With social media you have a direct line of communication with your clients. You can offer real time customer service, and quickly and efficiently address any concerns that arise from your audience. 

Many companies have begun administering their official statements on social media accounts because it’s where most of their customers are expecting to see them.

Manage your online reviews

‘Word of mouse’ is the new ‘word of mouth’. Your online customer reviews are where some of your best advertising will come from. 

However you will also be subjected to negative comments and bad reviews online. It’s important to not get too emotionally involved with these responses. It’s all just part of owning a business. 

You should stay on top of your online reviews, and respond to every review whether it’s a positive review or a negative review. 

If a review is fake, or making false claims, you should make sure that you quickly address this so your potential customers don’t see it and take it at face value. 

These reviews have a bigger impact on your brand reputation than you may realise, so it’s important you have a system in place to manage them. 

Know when to take risks

Digital marketing can sometimes feel like a double edged sword; you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. 

It’s important to learn when to take risks. When to hold your tongue and when to stand up for what you think is right. 

Sometimes making a stance and talking out on a controversial topic can be a great benefit to your brand, showing that you’re an independent thought leader, and an expert in your industry. In other cases, it can come with more backlash than it was worth for your business. 

It’s a skill that can take time to acquire, just remember to make the decision that is best for your company. Risks can come with great rewards, but they can come with even bigger drawbacks. 

Need help with managing your online presence? Check out our 6 transformative tips here.