When was the last time you tried a business for the first time without doing a little research first?
Can’t remember? Well, you’re not alone.
According to recent studies, 98 percent of people go through online reviews before patronizing local businesses. Another 87 percent evaluated local businesses with Google in 2022, a 6 percent increase from 2021.
The truth is that online experiences are taking center stage in the digital age. This means more and more consumers make their purchase decisions by researching what people are saying about your brand.
The question is, what will they find when they go searching? The answer has a lot to do with your brand reputation and your brand reputation score. Let’s find out more about these.
Brand reputation score defined
What customers say about your business online—whether it’s on Tripadvisor, Yelp, Facebook, or anywhere else—determines your reputation score. It shows what online reviews and ratings say about your brand. User-generated content that appears in brand searches also affects your score.
That definition shows how customers’ opinions and experiences affect a brand’s reputation. In turn, this emphasizes the importance of actively managing your reputation score to maintain brand credibility and competitiveness.
Promoting brand reputation requires proactive brand monitoring, quick response systems, and strategic customer engagement. Businesses that do this well will succeed in today’s competitive market.
Why brand reputation tracking is important
Modern consumers are cautious about where they spend their money. They expect their favorite brands to have a strong online presence and a positive reputation. So even small details, like choosing the right domain name from a trusted and secure platform like Only Domains, can affect your ability to attract leads and close sales.
Having a positive reputation makes it easier for customers to trust your brand. Tracking and managing your brand’s reputation score is, therefore, vital for fostering trust and credibility. This trust and credibility, ultimately, can help you drive more sales and conversions for your business.
To succeed, marketers and business owners must understand how to leverage trust and credibility to build a reputable brand image. This might involve using tools like a VoIP phone service for business that can help you project a professional brand image, or having bulletproof and reputable payment gateway services.
Now that you know why tracking your brand reputation is so crucial, let’s find out how you can achieve this.
5 ways to track your brand reputation score
1. Social media listening and monitoring
This involves tracking, analyzing, and engaging with conversations about your brand on social media. Doing this helps you understand public sentiment about your brand and access customer feedback across social media platforms.
Why it’s important:
- Social media monitoring helps you get instant feedback from customers, which allows you to respond promptly to customer issues or inquiries.
- Engaging in social media conversations shows your commitment to customer satisfaction. This drives loyalty and trust among consumers.
- Tracking conversations allows you to identify patterns and trends, which can help you improve the products and services you provide.
How to do it:
- Use Hootsuite, Sprout Social, or Brandwatch to track brand mentions, hashtags, and industry discussions on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
- Set alerts for brand-related keywords, product names, and industry terms to follow relevant discussions.
- Respond to both positive and negative comments, messages, and mentions.
- Understand your social media impact by analyzing engagement metrics.
- Adjust marketing, product, and customer service strategies based on monitoring results.
2. Online reviews and reputation management platforms
Customer reviews are available on sites like Google My Business, Yelp, and Trustpilot. You can collect and organize these reviews with the help of tools like ReviewTrackers and Podium. Regularly reading and responding to reviews can help build customer trust and credibility for a brand.
Why it’s important:
- Online reviews have a big impact on people’s decisions to buy from a brand. It is easier to trust a business after reading good reviews, whereas negative reviews might turn people away.
- Managing and responding to reviews shows that your brand cares about customer satisfaction, which boosts credibility.
- Managing reviews gives you a chance to address concerns and highlight positive feedback, which ultimately changes how people see your brand.
How to do it:
- Keep track of customer reviews with tools like ReviewTrackers and Podium.
- Respond quickly and professionally to reviews, whether they are positive or negative. Listen to customers’ concerns and try to solve them. Also, thank them for good feedback.
- Make it easy for happy customers to leave feedback. To balance out any negative feedback, ask happy customers to share their stories.
3. Brand mentions and news monitoring
It’s also important to keep an eye on brand mentions in news stories, blogs, or PR publications. You can use tools like Google Alerts or Mention to keep track of people talking about your brand. Good press coverage can have a big effect on your brand’s image and credibility.
Why it’s important:
- Media coverage of a brand affects how people think about and trust the business.
- When press is positive, it helps boost the company’s image.
How to do it:
- Create a search alert for your brand’s name, and follow the news for any mentions it receives.
- Make sure you analyze the context of each mention your brand gets.
- Talk to reporters or publications to fix any information that was misrepresented.
4. Customer surveys and feedback analysis
Getting direct feedback from customers is very helpful. Surveys or feedback forms on SurveyMonkey or Typeform help you identify what customers like and what needs improvement.
Why it’s important:
- Feedback helps improve products and services and shows customers that their opinions matter.
How to do it:
- Create short and clear surveys to get specific feedback.
- Examine the responses to identify patterns and trends.
- Put the suggestions to use, and let your customers know what you have done to improve.
- Effective data engineering solutions can give you the tools and infrastructure you need to keep track of customer feedback.
5. Website traffic and SEO monitoring
By looking at website traffic and search engine rankings, you can learn more about how visible and trustworthy your brand is. Online marketing tools like Google Analytics and SEMrush provide valuable information about your brand’s credibility and online presence.
Why it’s important:
- Having higher search rankings and more people visiting your website are signs of a strong brand presence.
How to do it:
- Keep an eye on your website’s keyword rankings, traffic, and bounce rates.
- Optimize content based on how well keywords work and how people engage with it.
- Keep track of how your site’s traffic and search rankings change over time.
Using all of these strategies together gives you a more complete way to keep track of your brand’s reputation score. Also explore other useful resources like Delta Book, which provides valuable insights into data management and analytics that can inform your reputation-building strategies.
Tracking brand reputation in the PR industry
Now that you know the importance of your brand reputation score, it’s time to start tracking it!
The information you get from tracking your reputation score will help you craft more targeted PR campaigns. You’ll be able to spot potential problems, build stronger relationships, and take charge of your brand’s image by closely tracking its reputation.
