Word travels fast in the world of social media. When the buzz is positive, you have a powerful marketing tool at your fingertips. But when the buzz is negative, however, you could have a serious PR problem on your hands. That’s why reputation management is critical to your social media marketing strategy.

Start The Conversation

Don’t wait for disgruntled customers to start coming out of the woodwork to start employing reputation management techniques – get out there and establish your brand online. A website is a start, but you should also have an active blog and several relevant social media accounts. If you don’t have this already, you’d better get started.

Remember, a blog is the perfect way for you to not only provide content to your clients and affiliates – past, present, and future – but to also influence social conversation, increase rankings and drive traffic to your website. What’s more, by using the proper social media channels, you can distribute this content far and wide, which increases positive brand exposure while generating fresh leads.

Creating engaging SEO-optimized content is only part of the equation. Make and encourage social connections by sharing the content of others or breaking industry news, and keeping up with trending topics. The more people you can involve in your social conversation, the more of an authority you’ll become in the social media landscape.

Be Honest

Thanks to social media, even the most insignificant incident can become a PR nightmare overnight. Unfortunately, many brands haven’t learned the lesson that transparency is an absolutely essential element of reputation management.

One of the worst things you can do in today’s social media-driven world is to try to fool the public. Instead of trying to censor complaints or sidestep negative conversation, take control of the situation. Admit where you are wrong, apologize, take responsibility and attempt to correct the situation.

While the news of your positive reaction won’t spread nearly as fast as the initial negativity, you’ll reinforce your status as a trustworthy business partner and hub of industry information.

Be Proactive

The best way to handle PR problems is to nip them in the bud. Of course, this requires real-time involvement with your social media channels. Surprisingly, many fail to recognize the value of such efforts, but this is an essential feature of successful reputation management.

The trick is to monitor social conversations about your brand and industry, and to recognize current trends that may influence the way you and your competitors do business moving forward. In doing this, you also have the opportunity to quickly respond to negative comments, engage your detractors and influence social conversation to keep the buzz around your brand positive.

For more information on reputation management and what we can do to help your efforts, contact Social Strategy1 today.