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What our members have to say...
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"Thank you for an excellent service. No one here in Australia comes close, (speaking from experience) the others are overpriced and non responsive."
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Derick Lucas - www.screwuclothing.com.au |
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15 Ways To Build Up The Reputation of Your Startup
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There’s no better way to build your startup’s reputation than by promoting your startup online. These days, your online Internet reputation is your reputation. Every startup should start building its own reputation before being forced to build one in defensive mode. Competition is heavy these days; a savvy startup is one that uses every possible advantage, especially the internet advantage, to build a sterling reputation.
1. Claim Your Online Identity
• Put out every possible effort to obtain your preferred domain name
• Establish business accounts in various common blogging platforms and social media networks.
2. Prevent Reputation Damage
• Generate positive content to keep negative content off your Google search results page. You can upload your achievements in the business arena, tie-ups, future plans, social accomplishments, positive customer feedback and so on.
• Link to positive or neutral content on blogs and accounts of online friends, contacts and supportive business networks. This will help mitigate possible online reputation damage.
3. Build a Strong Online Brand
• Communicate your guarantee of quality products, service and performance via social media networks, blogging networks, Ads, promotions and so on.
• Post video interviews with management people on YouTube so that people can put a face to the name.
• Invite your consumer base to connect with company representatives via your blog.
4. Find out What Your Potential Customers Think
• Monitor what people are saying about you on social media sites.
• Search for key industry terms on Twitter and Google and subscribe to the RSS feeds of the searches that mention your company’s name.
• Skim through your RSS reader every day and search for specific patterns in customer issues.
• Attend networking events and talk to people face to face about what they expect from your brand.
5. Pick the Right Questions to Answer
• Select a few questions to answer from your RSS search feeds each day.
• Watch relevant conversations on various social media sites using tools such as HubSpot and pick up questions.
• Also check for questions on blog comments and LinkedIn Answers.
• Pick questions that you can answer with confidence
• It’s safe to ignore negative comments that are personally insulting to company representatives.
6. Answer Consumer Questions Honestly
• Do not ignore questions if you’re not able to answer them immediately. Admit to the consumer that you’re working on the question and will revert.
• Respond to customer queries and feedback personally and follow up on their issues.
• Provide solutions wherever possible; if you’re not able to solve issues, offer discounts, replace the product, or try to assuage customer grievance.
7. Generate Content to Answer Consumer Questions
• Document your answers neatly in a well written blog post and upload it on your blog. Let your post be a testament to your expertise, experience and industry know how.
• Pick out the top questions from your social media network monitoring efforts. Elaborate each question in a separate blog post and share your expertise freely. Publish an article per week.
8. Demonstrate Trustworthiness
Remember that you are a virtual unknown and that you have to demonstrate you’re trustworthy. Transparency is a strategic imperative and you should ensure that everything you say or do on the internet will stand the test of validation. One small slip up is sufficient to bring your reputation crashing down.
9. Leverage Social Media
• By monitoring social media networks, you can get more ideas, questions and concerns which you can elaborate into blog posts.
• When you publish the answers in your blog and publicize your blog via social media networks, you can enable people to follow you and interact directly with you. Social media works as a gold mine of information that you can leverage to gain publicity and build your reputation.
• Make sure you share your blog posts with your consumer base via mass messages. You can also share the articles in response to individual consumers in answer to their questions.
10. Network with Opinion Influencers
The important aspect of building and projecting yourself as an industry thought leader is to get familiar with other thought leaders in your industry. You can find these influencers in social media sites and the blogosphere.
• Find out if these influencers read your content and encourage them to share it with others
• Ask them to discuss your company while giving out interviews; this way you get some cheap media coverage
• Network with these people to obtain a greater understanding of the latest industry happenings
11. Return the Favor
When you reach out and ask people to give you mileage, you need to return the favor. Read articles that key influencers in your industry publish and post intelligent and value-add comments on their articles
12. Market Your Offerings Diligently
Don’t fall behind when it comes to marketing your products. Use every aspect of networking to launch multiple promotions including coupon strategies. Non-stop marketing efforts, combined with other reputation building strategies will establish you firmly as a confident and capable company in people’s minds.
13. Address Negatives Quickly
When you come across a negative feedback or opinion concerning your company, acknowledge it quickly and objectively. Find a solution to the issue at the earliest. Once you’re assured that the complaining customer is satisfied, spread the positive message of your resolution. Do this before the negative impact of the feedback gets amplified.
14. Hide Negative Content
Going by the popular adage, what people don’t know won’t hurt them. Bury negative feedback in a deluge of positive content. The idea behind this is to ensure people don’t easily find negative content. Optimize on SEO tricks and use the services of companies such as DefendMyName to push or busy negative content and links out of sight.
15. Delete Unnecessary Content
Use experts such to completely remove unwanted content such as comments and threats from your blogs and social media accounts. It’s quite easy to do and will help maintain your hard-earned reputation before it gets soiled.
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