6 Ways to Protect Your Brand Online—and Why it Matters

What are people saying about your brand online? What do your reviews on Yelp, Facebook and Google look like? What does you social media presence “tell” potential clients about your brand? All of these considerations determine your business’s online reputation, the status of which can make or break your professional credibility. So, are you currently doing enough to protect your brand’s online presence?

Why Reputation Management Matters

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Why exactly is it important to protect your brand online? On the surface, this may seem quite obvious—you want consumers to look favorably upon your company, right? But imagine you were looking to hire a top-notch employee candidate or to partner with a powerful online influencer. Negative opinions about your business can scare off potential hires, influencer partnerships and, of course, customers.

84% of people trust online reviews as much as they would trust the recommendation of a friend, so you can’t afford to let bad publicity slide. According to the Harvard Business School, every one-star increase in your Yelp score can net you an extra 5–9% in revenue. That’s a lot of money down the drain if you aren’t proactively managing your online reputation.

What Brands Can Do

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Brands aren’t helpless when it comes to how their reputation takes shape on the internet. There are a number of actionable steps they can and should take to protect themselves online—and they’re not as time consuming as you may think.

The Takeaway

Brands can be fragile, and one wrong move can undo a reputation that took you months or years to build. As such, it is absolutely critical that brands explore every avenue of self-protection online to safeguard themselves not only against online haters and trolls, but against their own mistakes too.

Your brand deserves to stand on its own merit rather than being cobbled by faulty online buzz, so ensure you get ahead of the issues and have an emergency plan for when things go wrong. Stay vigilant and be receptive: your customers will take notice and appreciate the efforts you’re making. Your brand’s image and reputation are some of its most valuable assets, so it’s well worth taking the time to protect them properly.

Vulnerability sucks and can come back to bite you if you don’t take precautions nowーbefore it’s too late.

Buy Vulnerability.Sucks

Photo Credits: Shutterstock / aodaodaodaod, Shutterstock/ sitthiphong, Shutterstock /  Jacob Lund

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