The great investor and entrepreneur Warren E. Buffet puts this idea behind this term in a nutshell with one of his most famous quotes: “It takes twenty years to build a good reputation and five minutes to destroy it.” A loss of image is, at the same time, always a loss of turnover. With professional reputation management, however, you can be initiative-taking and avoid image crises.
General standard – not with us! We design customised solutions and adapt them to your individual requirements.
A project manager, your contact person, will oversee all aspects concerning your project
Together we will find the best solution for your company and your industry based on our experience from other projects.
We update you with individual reports and regularly inform you about the project status.
Reputation analysis helps to determine how your customers perceive your company, service, or product.
Through comprehensive monitoring, we keep an eye on your reputation, and through early warning of negative reports, we can act quickly.
An individual strategy offers your company a tailor-made solution that is a sensible addition to the online measures already in place.
Thanks to our many years of experience, we can provide individual support from different branches of corporate group, regarding online marketing measures – all from a single source of expertise!
We don’t just look at individual measures but dovetail existing and additional solutions into a holistic strategy.
Our self-developed tools offer effective results and efficient time management so that you can keep an eye on your company’s reputation.
Reputation management is concerned with developing, building, maintaining, managing, and reviewing an organisation’s reputation with all key stakeholders. Professional reputation management aims to positively influence the perception of stakeholders and the resulting interpretation processes with appropriate measures and improve the reputation in the long term.
Online reputation management (ORM) focuses on building and maintaining a good reputation in digital media. The goal is to monitor and influence reputation in the digital space and thus in public. This is achieved by spreading positive information about a company to suppress negative coverage.
Corporate reputation describes how a company is perceived by its stakeholders. This includes past and future aspects as well as positive and negative reports.
Reputation is one of the most important factors in building relationships with customers and other stakeholders, such as employees and business partners. A company’s reputation can be managed and positively influenced through active reputation management. A positive reputation, in turn, is a strong protective shield in times of crisis.
Target-oriented reputation management consists of four measures:
To build a positive reputation, reputation management relies on relevant online PR, recommendation marketing, and the careful cultivation of the community.
The strategic management of a company’s reputation is a major challenge for many companies. Depending on the industry, various sub-disciplines offer numerous tools for effectively monitoring and influencing public opinion in digital media. We reveal what is important for successful online reputation management (ORM)!
No matter how big the company you work for or what industry it is in – reputation remains one of the key factors for the relationship with customers and all other stakeholders. In combination, a continuously growing reputation is more effective than any brand-building measure and creates the necessary trust to bind all stakeholders to your company in the long term.
Thanks to the Internet, nowadays there is a never-ending flow of communication between customers and companies. A company’s reputation can thus be damaged immensely by just a single utterance.
Therefore, it is necessary to develop a holistic management concept, in addition to the improvement of your products and services, that makes a company’s reputation a controllable measure. Professional reputation management starts exactly here and provides your company with great competitive advantages.
Just because the internet is a digital network, its not an extra-legal space. That’s why you don’t have to accept the fact of your reputation developing in the wrong direction, you may take actions to limit the damage.
Strategic monitoring is the first important step in reputation management, with which you can regain control over your reputation on the Internet. To be able to control opinions online in a targeted manner, you need to know how your customers write about your company and where exactly they exchange opinions and recommendations. Only then can all further measures be determined as part of a comprehensive strategy.
Community management is a sub-discipline of online marketing that is particularly important in reputation management. An active community must be managed continuously and professionally and conveys transparency and authenticity through active engagement. The greatest possible exchange should be ensured in all relevant social networks, which subsequently positively affects reputation. In cases of crisis, the emotional customer loyalty that has developed can serve as a strong protective shield.
But beware: two factors are particularly crucial for effective community management.
1
Response time: Customers want to experience you value their opinion and take there concerns seriously. If a customer must wait several days to receive a reaction from the company to a problem or other important concern, a possible consequence is arising resentment. To credibly convey the interest in the greatest possible customer satisfaction, a fast response time is particularly important. If your internal coordination processes allow, responding to comments within the first 48 hours is crucial.
2
The tone: However, not only the “when” is important but also the “how.” A dissatisfied customer expects not only a remedy for his problem but also a proper way of approach. Show interest in a solution that benefits both sides, and don’t forget that other customers usually read your response as well!
The motivation to write a review is usually much lower with satisfied customers than with dissatisfied ones. This makes it all the more valuable to build a solid rating base. Customer opinions enjoy the highest credibility compared to other marketing measures and shape trust in your company. With targeted referral marketing, you can take advantage of this on a large scale and significantly increase your referral rate.
Despite the fact of the internet not being an extra-legal space, at certain points dynamics can arise. At first sight, they might seem incontrollable. Repeatedly, so called “shitstorms” hit companies without any preliminary warning. In these situations, anger and resentment of customers can develop a dynamic of their own. Even minor trivialities may already cause a downward spiral: other users get encouraged to share their negative experiences, often even without having any verifiable experience with the company. The anonymity on the net promotes hate speech and ensures that such opinions are spread within a truly short time. How justified negative contributions are is irrelevant.
But what is an appropriate action? A total withdrawal from the internet because of this? Of course not. Often, without your intervention, the risk of an image crisis increases even more. Moreover, a professionally managed web presence opens up new opportunities. So, the motto is: be active and take precautions! Because the holistic development of a powerful reputation is the best preparation for unpredictable courses of events.
No matter what the current state of your reputation is – whether negative, protected, or under reconstruction – a professionally planned reputation management adapts exactly to the company’s specific situation.
Various instruments and tools are available for quick and long-term help, which can be coordinated as needed. The results of the monitoring do serve as a very reliable guide for the necessary measures. After the comprehensive analysis of the status quo, reputation management originates an individual strategy that includes, among other things, the development of high-quality online PR or the effective moderation of reviews.
No matter whether there has already been an “emergency situation” or not, the prevention of image damage is a vital component of reputation management. A detailed crisis strategy is worth its weight in gold as ’emergency insurance.’ In the event of an undesired crisis, it can be used to react quickly and avert major losses.
If an image crisis occurs suddenly, it often leads to poorly considered measures caused by in panic activism. Open confrontation and emotional reactions to dissatisfied customer opinions are seldomly effective and can worsen the situation.
Inconsiderate action is taboo when it comes to protecting reputation. A plan worked out in advance to avert image damage on the social web is important to ensure the professional conduct of the conversation. The right reactions can restore destroyed trust and remove any misinformation.
Communication scientist Paul Watzlawick puts it quite well: avoiding overall communication with your customers is virtually impossible. For example, let’s suppose you decide to stay away from social networks and online media in general, just to be on the safe side. In that case, there is only one message conveyed by your actions:
close dialogue with your customers doesn’t matter at all.
But how to do better? Use the valuable opportunity of an exchange on equal footing, show your presence, and thus oversee the direction of the discourse.
With progressive online marketing, you ensure that the Internet is not left to those who are negative towards your company. The targeted scattering of high-quality online PR on your own and other media platforms supports search engine optimisation.
But those who want to profit from a strong presence on search engines should not do so by risking their authenticity. Instead of using interchangeable and common content, it pays off to rely on high-quality content that represents the company’s values in an adequate manner.
Good reputation management aims not only at customers, but at all stakeholders of a company. This includes, in particular, the company’s employees.
Momentarily, the situation on the employment market is very tense. In almost all sectors, filling vacant positions with skilled personnel remains a major challenge for employers. In order to ensure long-term success in this ongoing crisis, the greatest possible efficiency in personnel recruitment and long-term employee retention are necessary at the same time.
One of the most crucial factors in successful recruiting is developing and maintaining a strong employer brand. With a thorough analysis of your company’s reputation, you should identify your company’s strengths and weaknesses concerning potential employees – keyword employer reputation.
This should result in creating a list of actions. These are determined to raise the company’s visibility among prospective employees. However, it’s crucial to remember that any presence on social networks and career portals implies the responsibility of maintaining dialogue with potential candidates. Above all, taking care of the incoming reviews is crucial.
A brand is an idea anchored in the minds of (potential) customers that distinguishes the products and services of a company from their competitors. Therefore, it has an important differentiation and orientation function for consumers. The services of a brand are identified with a corresponding corporate identity or a corresponding logo. The wider dimension of a brand also includes additional benefits, such as quality promises, influencing customers’ purchasing decisions. Branding refers to all measures that promote the development of a company within the framework of its brand strategy. The reputation and branding of a company vitally influence each other. A strong reputation impacts the brand’s perception and branding, influencing reputation management, for example, in the type of communication.
Strong brands are a huge asset that can exist independently of products or businesses. A company’s success is guaranteed if it has successfully managed its goal to develop a corporate identity with a long-lasting positive brand image. Due to their ability to guarantee a company’s ongoing existence in the face of an increasing flood of products and communication, strong brands are becoming more and more crucial. They may also generate significant profits for businesses and positive transfer effects.
