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Online Reputation Management
Online Reputation Management
As a business owner, you need to consider your online presence: what messages are you conveying, how do customers view your brand and what are the reviews saying about your service or products? If you are struggling to keep on top of this, perhaps it is time for a chat with an Online Reputation Management specialist.
Red Desk Virtual can help improve your online presence. We work closely with web designers, looking at SEO and social media strategies. This includes keywords, the types of content to post, and the best social media outlets for your type of business or product and how to respond to reviews.
Digital Presence
If you want your brand or business to be taken seriously then you need to ensure that you have a website and some social media. Through these, you can control the message that you want the public and your target audience to see. Never under-estimate the power of social media. Think about how many times you have based your purchasing decisions on information you find online. It could be either the way the website looks, if they are active on social media or their reviews. It all links back to online reputation. So, make sure you are at the top of your game with an updated website, regular social media posts and remember to respond to those reviews.
What are people saying about you?
How can you control what others are saying about you? The best way is to set up monitoring tools so you are informed when comments are posted (positive and negative) and you can then respond accordingly.
The simplest tool to use is Google Alerts. The only prerequisite you need is a Gmail account. Just type in the name of your product or business into Google and then select the “news” tab. At the bottom of the page there will be a button to click saying “create alert”. You can then select the frequency you would like the notifications sent to you.
We often find that if your business is located in a particular area then joining local Facebook groups can help you monitor referrals and comments as well.
Another recent strategy we have used, is to restrict who is able to comment on your social media posts. You may have posts that don’t require comments ie they are announcements or you might be writing something that may provoke trolls, hate speech or negative interactions. You can read more here.
Online Presence Tips
- When someone has taken time to write a review (Facebook, Google Business or other platform) try to respond in a timely fashion
- If the review or comment is negative then you might find our article helpful
- Repost positive comments
You may also be interested in the related articles:
Brand Awareness: Using Social Media to Successfully Reflect your Business Brand
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How to Restrict Who Comments on Your Social Media Posts
How to Restrict Who Comments on Your Social Media Posts
There will be times when rather than encouraging people to comment on your social media posts, you need to restrict or ensure no comments can be posted at all. This could be for a number of reasons such as the posts are purely announcements or if they could provoke trolls, hate speech or negative interactions. In this article we look at the three main platforms and see what options they offer.
In Instagram, you can change who can leave comments by clicking on the cog in the top right of your profile page and selecting privacy and settings. In the settings menu, scroll down to Comments and you can allow comments from Everyone, People you follow, Your followers or People you follow and your followers. You can change this at any time.
Another option is to restrict accounts. You can use this option if you don’t want to block or unfollow people that you know. Click into their profile and the three dots at the top right and in this menu, click Restrict. This is a great option as they won’t be notified that this has happened, you can review their comments and approve them (or not) based on the content and your activity status will be hidden. Only you and them can see their comments.
In the same menu, on their profile, you have the option to block or report depending on what they have posted on your account.
Finally, you do have the option of making your account private which means that only followers that you approve can see your photos and videos.
In Facebook, you can control who comments on individual posts. Click on the post and select Who can comment on your post. The options are: Public, Established followers, Profiles and Pages you follow or Profiles and Pages you mention. Within a Facebook group it is slightly different but you will have the option to turn off commenting.
You can also click on the dots next to an individual comment and either hide or report it.
If you don’t have time to monitor each post, you can select Audience and Visibility, then Followers and public content and in Who can comment on your public posts you can choose Public, Friends or Friends of friends.
If you have identified certain individuals who are trolling you then you can click on their profile and either block or report them.
X (Formerly Twitter)
In X, you can choose who can reply to your post. If you are writing a post within X then select the little globe at the bottom and it will tell you who can reply. Either Everyone, Accounts you follow, Verified accounts or Only accounts you mention. If you use a scheduling tool like Buffer or Hootsuite then you can just visit your profile on X and change who can comment after the post has been published. Simply click the three dots in the right-hand corner of your post and Change who can reply.
Currently there doesn’t seem to be an option to select a default setting for who can reply to your posts.
The other option is to block or report individual profiles which you can do by clicking on the dots at the top right of their post.
We hope the above gives you confidence to use social media. You may also be interested in our articles on related subjects:
- https://www.reddesk.co.uk/negative-comments-on-social-media/
- https://www.reddesk.co.uk/brand-awareness-social-media-reflect-business-brand/
- https://www.reddesk.co.uk/mental-health-tips-working-in-social-media/
If you need some assistance in managing your social media either from an Online Reputation Management perspective or just for some ideas on how to post then please do get in touch at mel@reddesk.co.uk.
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