Maintaining a solid online reputation is one of the most critical aspects of success for your business, regardless of your industry. As the world is becoming increasingly digital, it's essential to stay ahead of the curve and develop a comprehensive reputation management strategy.
A study conducted by Dimensional Research found that 54% of respondents who had shared a bad experience shared it more than five times, compared to 33% of those who had shared a good interaction.
All these mean that you must quickly identify bad reviews and mentions and address them as soon as possible to maintain healthy growth for your business.
This article will teach you tips and best practices to help you effectively monitor and manage your online reputation.
What is online reputation monitoring?
Online reputation monitoring is the process of tracking and managing a business's presence and reputation on the internet. This process can include tracking your business's online reviews and ratings on sites like Yelp, Trustpilot, or G2 and monitoring your presence on social media.
This is extremely important for your business because it lets you stay aware of what is being said about your company online, so you can quickly and appropriately address any issues or negative feedback.
How is online reputation monitoring done?
The best way to monitor your online reputation is to set up automated alerts for when your business is mentioned online so that you can stay on top of any new developments.
Going one step further, you should website so you can later analyze any issues your customers might have had and stay ahead of any compliance issues.
Why should you monitor your online reputation?
Monitoring your online reputation is essential to maintain a positive brand image. With the right online reputation management strategy, you can protect your brand by keeping a close eye on what is being said online so you can respond quickly to criticism and address customer concerns.
Here are more reasons why you should monitor your online reputation:
- Boost credibility - People are more likely to trust a business that answers questions and tries to fix all customer issues promptly
- Increase customer experience - A happy customer is more likely to continue doing business with a brand that quickly helps them
- Get business insights - Monitoring and keeping records of your online presence can help you make better business decisions by showing you what customers love about your brand and what they don't
- Rank higher on Google - Good reviews can help your brand rank higher on Google, which can result in higher revenue and conversion rate.
You can see what people say about your brand by keeping an eye on your social media and review websites. Still, doing this manually increases the risk of missing out on valuable feedback or concerns.
As I mentioned, using a brand monitoring tool is one of the best ways to keep track of your online reputation. This will drastically reduce the time spent searching and reading through tens of websites so that you can focus on your customers and business.
How to choose an online reputation monitoring tool?
You should look for multiple features when choosing an online reputation monitoring tool. Certain businesses may benefit from custom-made solutions – for example, a product that monitors hotel reviews – while others may only need some of that functionality.
As a rule of thumb, here are the main features you should look for when picking an online reputation-monitoring tool:
- Ease of use - You should spend time replying to feedback and analyzing data, so the tool you pick must be easy to use.
- Works with all mediums - Monitoring your online reputation involves looking over multiple websites like social media platforms, forums, and review aggregators. The tool you pick should be able to track your presence everywhere online.
- Export and storage options - A good online reputation monitoring tool should offer export and storage options so you can collect and store all data in one place.
Some tools come with integrated AI (Brandwatch, Reputology), which can analyze and rate your online reputation, but they struggle to cover all mediums. And since people can discuss your brand anywhere online, it's better to rely on a tool that can help you monitor and archive conversations on any website.
Urlbox - Best Tool To Monitor Online Reputation
Urlbox is a screenshot service API that can snapshot any webpage by its URL and convert it into an image file (JPG, PNG, SVG, PDF). You can link it to an S3 bucket or any cloud storage provider (Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.) by using the official Zapier connector.
How to use Urlbox to monitor online reputation
There are two ways in which you can leverage Urlbox's functionality to monitor your online reputation:
- Via API - You can use the API to create your own service regardless of your tech stack. This functionality works best for businesses that have access to development resources.
- Via Zapier - Connect Urlbox with thousands of apps with this no-code option. It works best for smaller businesses that want a quick way to start monitoring their online reputation.
The way Urlbox works is universal, regardless of the method you choose. All you have to do is sign up for a free trial, compile a list of the URLs you want to monitor, set up the frequency, and find a place to store the files.
Online reputation monitoring strategy example
For this example, I will use Urlbox as the online reputation monitoring tool, Google Sheets as the data source, Google Drive for storage, and Zapier as the connector between all platforms.
You will need a paid Zapier account for the no-code implementation to work.
Step 1 - Compile a list of mediums to track
The first step is to create a Google Sheets file to add all websites you want to track. Here are the most important mediums you should track regardless of your industry:
- Review Aggregator Websites - Yelp, Trustpilor, BBB
- Social Media Profile Pages - Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc.
- Social Media Interactions - Twitter mentions, Facebook comments, etc.
- Forums - Subreddits of interest or search pages, Quora questions, and search pages
- Google Search Pages - These will contain results for keywords of interest, like your brand name.
Getting the URL of a search page is extremely simple. All you have to do is search for your brand name on a platform (be it Facebook, Google, or Reddit) and simply copy the URL of that page.
You have to cover all variations if your business name gets misspelled often. Otherwise, you might be losing valuable data.
Once the list is ready, you'll have to decide on the frequency with which it will be checked:
- Weekly - For small businesses that are just getting started
- Daily - For companies with a lot of social interactions
- Hourly - For large companies with tens of thousands of customers or more.
You can always change the monitoring frequency as your business grows.
Step 2 - Configure the data-gathering process
With your list ready, it's time to move on to the actual data-gathering process. You can use either Zapier (follow documentation).
The fastest way is to use Zapier and connect it to the Google Sheet you just created. Then all you have to do is set up the frequency using the built-in Zapier automation and connect your cloud storage provider (Google Drive).
If everything goes as expected, Urlbox will start capturing screenshots at your specified time interval, and Zapier will upload them to your Google Drive.
Step 3 - Reach out to your customers and analyze the data
The benefits of monitoring your online reputation will show after you gather enough data.
Some businesses can wait up to a few months to have enough conversations and reviews to analyze. On the other hand, if you run a successful business with thousands of active customers, you can start analyzing the data after just a few weeks.
Remember not to make assumptions based on an incomplete data set. It's safer to wait and gather more information before estimating how people feel about your business.
The most significant benefit of using Urlbox as your online reputation monitoring tool is that it automatically archives all screenshots. This means you can look back to see how your reputation evolves and take action if things don't go as planned.
Why does online reputation matter so much?
Businesses only grow if they have an expanding customer base. If people start having bad experiences with a particular brand, they will stop buying and tell others to stop doing business with that company.
Online reputation can drastically influence revenue, so you must stay on top of any problems that may arise and always address negative feedback as quickly as possible. The faster you start monitoring your online reputation, the more data you can capture and analyze to make better business decisions.
Read more about social media archiving to get a complete overview of how online reputation monitoring works.
