What is your digital reputation?
Your digital reputation is defined by any and every bit of content about you online. That could be what you’ve written about yourself, what you’ve written about others and what others have written about you.
The term “digital reputation” is often used to refer to individuals, but it can also refer to organisations. For example, a brand’s digital reputation is comprised of its website, its social media channels, product reviews, articles, blogs, vlogs and forums.
With so much big data out there, getting a full and comprehensive understanding of your digital reputation is increasingly difficult for organisations. But there are tools out there to help you, as we’ll explore.
How do you measure your digital reputation?
Individuals
Most individuals are only concerned with the most immediate information available out there about them. Think about a potential employer who Googles your name after an interview, or a new love interest who wants to find out more about you.
If you’re only concerned with first impressions, there’s no need to measure your digital reputation as such. Think about where people might search you out (Google, Twitter, Instagram, Linked In) and see what comes up first. In these scenarios, you only need to be concerned with what’s visible on the first few pages of results.
Organizations
Organizations have a bigger task on their hands. There are far more channels for people to write content about you. And depending on the size of your organization, the data is coming in thick and fast.
Almost all of that data is unstructured (in the form of long-hand text, audio and video). This kind of data is notoriously difficult to capture and measure. But the Symanto Insights Platform can help you do exactly that.
The Symanto Insights Platform is connected with around 75 online portals including major review sites such as TrustPilot, Yelp and Google reviews, and social media channels too. Enter a hyperlink to the page you want to scrape and the Symanto Insights Platform can convert thousands of written comments and reviews within a matter of minutes and convert them into useful insights.
Symanto uses Natural Language Processing technology to organise and categorise unstructured text by topic and subtopic. It also scans text entries for sentiment, and communication style, and even assigns each author a personality trait so that you can see the kinds of people who are writing about your brand online and how they feel about you.
How do you get a good digital reputation?
Digital reputation management is about controlling what is easily visible online about you or your business. It’s PR for the digital age. The techniques for digital reputation management vary depending on the amount of noise out there and what you aim to do.
Create new and regular content about yourself
Who cares about old news? People care about what’s relevant. Creating new content is one of your biggest tools for managing your online reputation.
If, as in the example of the interviewee above, you want there to be more positive content about you that ranks highly online, it can be as simple as drowning out the negativity by writing more positive content about yourself, or creating a blog, and then working (or paying) to make that content rank as highly as possible.
Buy domains that contain your name
As a personal brand or organisation, you’ll also benefit from buying out as many domain names that contain your name as possible (joebloggs.com, joebloggs.net, etc).
Respond to negative reviews
Make sure you claim your business review sites such as Google and Yelp so that you can respond to negative reviews.
In fact, you can use negative reviews to your advantage. 97% of consumers read reviews before making a purchase and 85% of consumers actively search out negative reviews to help them make an informed decision – a figure that raises to 91% for consumers aged 18-29.
Positive reviews are easily bought, positive content is easily written by the brand, but a few negative reviews show that your reviews aren’t rigged, and as a result they authenticate your positive reviews. They also help consumers weigh up the pros and cons of your product and feel more in control of their decision to purchase.
Responding to negative reviews helps you regain control of the situation. Take negative reviews as constructive criticism, and use it as an opportunity to take positive action and flip the switch. Respond with compassion, take responsibility, and where possible, offer a solution.
Show that you listen
Don’t shy away from negative chatter online. Create a feedback loop and a culture of listening and responding to your customers. Using the Symanto Insights Platform, you can detect what most disgruntles your customers, and work to fix it, whether it’s improving customer service or directing product innovation.
Keep going
Your digital reputation is never fixed. With every online comment, every review, every piece of content you post, your digital reputation is constantly in flux. Review your parameters regularly and take constant action. Use the Symanto Insights Platform to keep track of online sentiment about your brand and watch it improve over time.
Get in touch to find out how the Symanto Insights Platform can help you measure your digital reputation, and how Symanto’s insights can help you make business decisions to improve the reputation of your business online. You can book your free personalized demo to see the Symanto Insights Platform in action.
