Monitoring and Managing Your Online Brand: 4 Tips for Small Business Owners

What is your company's online reputation? This is one of the most critical questions that any small business owner could ever answer, and yet it's one that leaves many of the most zealous entrepreneurs dumbfounded.

Perhaps a few words of explanation are in order. A company's online reputation is essentially its online footprint -- the sum of information that is found by consumers when they seek out the company via Google, Bing, online review sites, and social media platforms. If you Google the name of your company right now and find only positive online assets -- your company website and Facebook page, for example, as well as positive, five-star reviews -- then you have a good, healthy online image. If, however, your search reveals complaints or bad reviews, then you have a negative, and potentially ruinous, online reputation.

Because the Internet is so influential over consumer behavior, the quality of your online reputation could prove make-or-break. With that said, business owners do not have to leave their online image up to chance. There are four steps you can take to monitor and moderate the online credibility of your company.

Monitoring is Essential

To begin with, note that online reputation management begins with online reputation monitoring -- because if you don't know where your company's online image stands, how can you possibly make the proper moves to defend or repair it? There are plenty of ways in which small business owners can monitor their online listings. Simply Googling your company name is one method, though putting Google and Bing Alerts into place is easier and more efficient.

Suppressing Negatives

So what happens when you're monitoring your online reputation and you come across a listing that you don't like? Sadly, there is no way to have unwanted listings removed from the Internet altogether. With that said, small business owners can work to suppress online listings, pushing them outside of the public eye. The way to do this is to be regular in flooding the Web with positive, brand-enhancing content -- company blog entries, press releases, and the like.

Defending Your Domains

If your company is called Red Fox Widgets, then you'd better make sure you own RedFoxWidgets.com. In fact, it's prudent to buy the rights to the .net and .org incarnations, as well. Simply put, it would be embarrassing -- and possibly catastrophic -- for someone else to steal those domains away from you.

Understanding Online Reviews

A final point to make is that online review sites -- like Yelp.com, and countless others -- are incredibly powerful in shaping a company's online image. This is especially true of smaller businesses, because they tend to have fewer online assets available -- which means online reviews provide consumers with the bulk of their information about the company. Sadly, not all online reviews are positive or even honest -- and fallacious, defamatory ones can all but destroy a company's online integrity.

The only proper way to respond to online bullies is to focus on that content creation, mentioned earlier. Don't make the mistake of responding to defamatory reviews directly. While responding to constructive criticism is one thing, engaging with bullies only adds more traction and visibility to the reviews that you'd much rather see suppressed!

The long and short of it is that online reputation management is not a matter of vanity; for small business owners, it is a matter of life and death! A positive reputation impacts your bottom line for the better, while an adverse one can cause sales to plummet. These tips provide small business owners with the foundation they need to put online reputation management first.

Mike Zammuto is the President of Brand.com. The company provides services for online reputation management, which in turn gives people and businesses full control over their online search results.