In this internet age, there is hardly any business that hasn’t faced negative reviews online. Today, most of the customers rely on the online review sites to decide the reliability and reputability of any business.

Every business out there must have gone through occasional issues arising with the customer. So, what can be done to regain the customer’s trust and manage reputation of your business online? Aaron Minc suggests you the best ways to deal with online criticism to minimize its negative impact on your business. Read on and get informed!

Never neglect any of your Social Media Accounts

It is very important for you to build out all your social media accounts. Merely having accounts on few of the social media isn’t sufficient in this high-tech world with hundreds of social media platforms. You can build social media accounts to interact with your customers and to increase your engagement and influence scores.

If you fail to do this, those accounts may get weak enough to outrank postings in case someone posts negative things. You can even make use of independent scoring utilities to analyze whether you are achieving growth.

Moreover, you may even require building online materials as well as social profiles for more than your company name. For instance, in case you have product and brand names beyond the company name, you can develop content to rank for these names too. You may require developing websites, social media profiles as well as collateral materials to claim and reserve each of the brand names.

Implement Authorship wherever it is Applicable

Authorship is one of the top marketing tactics that has significant benefits when it is done properly. It is mainly for the businesses where the proprietor or the founder is associated closely with business’ identity.

Apart from it, even blogs act as secret yet powerful weapon for the local SEO. It helps with site’s rankings on the good keywords and offers fodder for one’s social media accounts.

Listen and Apologize

When you respond to the bad reviews or online complaints, consider that there can be some weaknesses in your process that requires to be addressed especially when you get negative feedback often about some specific thing. Your bad response or ignorance may drive your potential or existing customers to the arms of your competitor.

In case, you or your company messes up or do anything wrong, you need to own up to it and make genuine apology to the ones that has been affected. Being transparent and real in apologizing can help you go far towards diffusing a situation and moving the process along towards reconciliation. Ensure that the apology is authentic. You can even make amends in some sort of way.

Reputation development needs an investment in terms of both money and time. Social media as well as proactive reputation management must be considered important elements.

Local businesses are generally more vulnerable to the online reputation attacks. Following the above tips will put you as well as your business in much stronger position when anything is posted that can slam your business’ good name.