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Things happen. You made a mistake and did something that damaged your reputation. Maybe you said something that people took as offensive. Or maybe your social media manager tweeted something inappropriate. The delete button doesn't erase things from someone's memory. Or maybe your company was the victim of a credit card breach that impacted your customers. In this case, it'll be tough for you to get your customers to recommend your brand to others. But just because you had a slip-up doesn't mean your company is doomed forever. There are steps you can take and changes you can make that will improve your reputation online. That said, this guide isn't just for brands with a bad reputation. Those of you who have a new company with no reputation will need help building your reputation from scratch. Some of you have been in business for a while and don't even realize your actions aren't helping your reputation. Regardless of your situation, I'm confident you'll benefit from this guide. Research shows that 58% of business executives think they need to manage their reputation online. However, just 15% of these people actually do something about it. Furthermore, 41% of brands that experienced an event that damaged their reputation said their revenue decreased as a result. You don't want to be one of these statistics. It's time to do something about your online reputation. Ask your customers to write reviewsRight now, you may have some negative reviews online hurting your reputation. That's bound to happen. It's an unavoidable part of being in business because not everyone will have the best experience with your company. But if you don't have lots of reviews online, these negative ones will stand out more. What about all your current customers happy with your business? You need them to review your brand. How can you get them to do this? Just ask them. Check out this email Sleefs sent out to its customers: The company gives its customers an incentive to write a review. I know some of you are thinking this might be unethical, but that's not so. Look at this message a bit closer. It doesn't say anywhere you need to write a positive review. It just invites you to write a review. Its customers also have a couple of different options here. This will appeal to people who have different preferences. If customers are willing to write a review and share it with their friends, they'll get a free product. The people who just want to write a review will receive 15% off their next order. Another great part about this message is the emoji at the bottom. You can learn how to improve your click-through rates with emojis. If people do write positive reviews after receiving your encouragement, the good reviews will balance out the negative ones. Plus, a mix of positive and negative reviews will show people your brand is authentic. If every review was positive, it may cause prospective customers think that some of the reviews are fake. Nobody's perfect, and people know that. So don't let a few bad reviews bring you down. Ask your current customers to write more reviews, and you'll be just fine. Expand your presenceWhere can people find out more information about your business? You can't just rely on one platform for ratings and reviews. Your customers have different preferences for researching brands. OK, so your business has a Facebook page. That's great. But that alone isn't enough. Take a look at which review sites consumers trust the most: As you can see, the answers are quite different. No single platform is that far ahead of the others.
You need to have a profile on all of these. Here's something else to consider. Even if you don't currently have an account on a platform such as Yelp, customers can still leave reviews on those sites about your business. It's in your best interest to claim those business pages to make sure all your information is accurate. I'm referring to information such as your website address, phone number, physical address, and store hours. If you don't claim your pages and check them for accuracy, it could hurt your reputation even more. Let's say someone sees a bad review online but they still want to give you the benefit of the doubt. They call you to find out more information and get a disconnected line because your phone number was inaccurate. You just lost your chance of getting that person's business. Don't let this happen to you, and make sure your business is getting reviews on as many platforms as possible. Remove ads from your websiteYou may not realize it, but your website may be hurting your credibility. There could be certain design choices or elements that are turning people away and making them think your business is untrustworthy. You need to correct this as soon as possible. Identify the top elements adding credibility to your website, and compare them to those on your own site. One of the first things you should do is get rid of any ads you're currently running for other businesses. Look at how many different types of ads consumers dislike seeing: Pop-ups and banner ads both ranked high on the list. I know some of you may be selling ad space on your site as a way to increase your revenue streams, but it's not worth it. How much are you generating from these ads? Compare that to the potential you could be making from selling actual products and services on your website. It just doesn't make sense to prioritize something like ad space. Encourage customers to upload their photosIn addition to asking your customers to write reviews for your business online, you also want them to upload photos. Why? Well, 77% of consumers say customer photos have a greater impact on their buying decisions than professional photos. This makes a lot of sense. Photos you take of your business will obviously be great and make your brand look good. But customer photos are much more authentic. They won't be taken on a professional camera and be positioned in perfect lighting. Customer photos are likely to be taken quickly on their smartphones. But those images are enough to improve your reputation, especially if they're uploaded with a favorable review. Here's an example of how JCPenney encouraged its customers to upload photos with this email campaign: As in a previous example, this message is designed to encourage the store's customers to write reviews. By writing a review, they'll be entered into a contest to win a $1,000 gift card. This is a great strategy for running a profitable giveaway. But customers have a chance to get additional entries. If they upload a photo with their review, they'll get a second entry to increase their chances of winning. Use a similar tactic when trying to get your customers to write reviews. Ask them to upload photos as well. Publicly respond to customer complaintsWhen users write unfavorable reviews about your business online, it can be a tricky situation. Obviously, you want to defend yourself. But at the same time, you don't want to start an argument with anyone. Ignoring complaints isn't the best option either. Other people will want to see how you're able to handle a negative situation. Remember the first rule of business? The customer is always right. Even when they're wrong, you need to treat them properly. Rather than being defensive and trying to make yourself look better, focus on making them happy. Here's an example of how Best Buy responded to a customer complaint on its Facebook page: This customer had a problem with her experience at a specific store location. Rather than trying to defend the situation, the company politely replied, empathizing with the customer and trying to get more information to help come up with a resolution. Furthermore, this customer continued having problems when it came to reaching customer support on Facebook. Best Buy responded to that comment as well by replying again and making sure her personal information and privacy were protected. This is a great example of how to publically handle customer complaints in the digital world. Share user-generated contentAs previously discussed, customer photos attached to a review are a great way to improve a brand's reputation. However, not everyone who writes a review will upload a photo. Fortunately, that's not the only way for you to get customer photos in the public eye. Start sharing user-generated content on your social media platforms. Now you can control which types of customer photos make your brand look the most appealing. Check out this example on Instagram from Vuori Clothing: This photo shows a real person wearing the company's product as opposed to one of its employees modeling the gear. User-generated content creates social proof of concept and is beneficial to your reputation. Prospective customers will be more inclined to support your business if they see social proof on your platforms. Take advantage of tools that monitor your reputationHow is your online reputation? Unless you had a damaging event, some of you might not even know whether you have a positive or negative reputation online. Sure, you might monitor some of your comments and review websites, but that alone isn't enough to get the full picture of how people really feel about you. You need to start using online tools to notify you when someone mentions your business. For example, a third-party review website could write an unfavorable blog post about one of your products. If you were monitoring reviews only on Yelp and Google, you wouldn't know about this at all. But if you use a tool such as Google Alerts, you'll be notified every time you get mentioned. You can even take this one step further and use Rankur that has more specific software for online reputation management: I definitely recommend trying options like these. After all, how can you improve your online reputation if you don't know where it stands to begin with? Start prioritizing your blogA great way to get a better online reputation is by improving your domain authority. Blogging is one of my favorite ways to accomplish this. If you're one of my faithful readers, you know how much I believe in this strategy. You can start scaling your lead generation through blogging as well. Publishing posts on your website on a regular basis will improve your SEO. You'll be able to get both inbound and outbound links through this strategy. Posting images and enhancing your content by building infographics will increase the chances that other websites will repurpose your content. As a result, your authority ranking will also improve. Partner with social influencersSocial influencers are another way to help you create social proof, which I discussed earlier when talking about user-generated content. Studies show 90% of consumers trust recommendations from their peers. And 71% of consumers are more likely to buy something based on a social media referral. That's what makes social influencers so appealing. Take a look at how CALIA used this strategy by partnering with Anastasia Ashley as an influencer on Instagram: Instead of sharing this image on its own page, the company posted it on the influencer's account. As a result, the content got seen by a much wider audience. Leveraging your relationships with social influencers exposes your brand to a group of people who may not even know your company exists. Plus, if people are following that influencer, they must value their opinions. So they're already primed for you to target them. Showcase customer testimonialsCustomer reviews on third-party sites are an important aspect of improving your reputation. But you can showcase the top reviews in the form of a testimonial on your website. Ask your best customers to take the time to write a testimonial for you. Here's an example of how BuildFire uses this tactic on its homepage: The company highlighted testimonials from three very different businesses. Having a well-respected insurance company such as Travelers write a testimonial for its business automatically improves BuildFire's reputation. Try to get testimonials from authority figures in a specific industry. For example, let's say your business makes musical instruments. A testimonial from a guitar player in a well-known band would help your reputation more than a review from a kid who plays drums in his parent's garage. ConclusionIf your company's reputation got damaged, you can still correct it. Even if you're just trying improve your reputation or build credibility from scratch, you should follow the advice I've outlined in this guide. Encourage your customers to write reviews. Set up a profile on as many review platforms as possible. Reviews with pictures are even more impactful. Get rid of ads on your website. Learn how to respond to customer complaints in the public eye. Use tools that help you manage your reputation online. This will help you stay informed anytime someone mentions your business. Share user-generated content. Start blogging more frequently. Work with social influencers. In addition to reviews, use your website to highlight customer testimonials. If you follow these tips, you shouldn't have much trouble improving or repairing your online reputation. What steps are you taking to improve the online reputation of your business?
I wrote my very first blog post on July 24, 2005. That blog post is no longer live because it was terrible. The post was called, “Winning the Search Engine Marketing War.” It was 412 words long, contained no images, no external links, and it didn't provide much value because it didn't teach you anything. But you know what, back in 2005, the blog post was pretty darn good. See, I wasn't competing with a lot of blogs back then. Currently, there are well over 440 million blogs and back in 2011, that number was 173 million. And in 2005, the web was still so small that there were only 64 million websites (with only a small portion of them being blogs). In other words, my first blog post was pretty darn good because something is better than nothing. People were just happy to get some information, even though it wasn't great. But over the years, blogging has changed. What it used to be in 2005, isn't what it is today. What blogging used to beA blog used to just be a blog. It was a place where you would share your personal experiences with the world. From photos of the places you traveled to and blogging about the food you ate to even sharing personal information about your family life… In 2005, social networks weren't popular. Facebook launched in 2004, but it wasn't what it is now. And sites like MySpace focused heavily on music. As social networks evolved, people realized it was easier to share personal stories on Facebook and Instagram than it was to write a whole blog post. Over 250 million people share what they are doing in their personal life each day just on Instagram. All you have to do is talk (or look) into your phone for just a few seconds. It's really that simple. And that's why more of you use social networks on a daily basis than a blog. Just think of it this way… if you wanted to update your friends on your life, is it easier for you to just upload some pictures to Facebook or is it easier for you to write a blog post? Of course, it's easier to just upload some photos to Facebook. It's why Facebook is so popular. For that reason, people started to focus their attention on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Snapchat over blogging. So why do people continually create more blogs?There are many reasons why blogs have grown in popularity. As I mentioned above, there are well over 400 million blogs today. The biggest reason why blogs have grown in popularity is that you are an end user and continue consuming the content that blogs put out. Just in the United States alone, 42.23% of people from the ages of 18 to 49 read blogs. And because people want to read blogs, Google has no choice but to rank them. The average page that is listed on page one of Google has 1,890 words: There are many reasons you may want to create a blog, but from someone who blogs on a weekly basis and has been for 13 years, here are the main reasons to have a blog:
A blog isn't a blog, it's a businessAs more sites have come online, SEO has become more competitive. Yes, more people are using Google, but they are searching for the same popular terms. With Ubersuggest, we have a database of 646,777,704 keywords. And out of those keywords, only 15,301,405 keywords generate a search volume of an excess of 10,000 searches per month. As more people come online, it doesn't mean that they search for brand new keywords. It just means that the popular terms get even more popular. That's why it is harder to get people to come to your site over the competition because you are competing with more companies to get those eyeballs. See, as SEO has become more competitive, you have no choice but to treat it as a business. It takes time and money to produce content. It takes time and money to promote your content. And then once you have those visitors, it takes more time and money to convert those visitors into paying customers. In other words, because it is so competitive, you won't do that well unless you put in tons of time or money (or ideally both). Just look at Quick Sprout, the marketing blog I don't put much money into it. Even though it's older than NeilPatel.com, it generates a lot less traffic. NeilPatel.com blog generates 693% more traffic because I put over 6 figures into the blog each month (mainly in developing free tools and creating audio and video content), and I treat it like a business. ConclusionLook, I am not trying to persuade you into building a blog. But I believe most companies should have a blog. And if you don't have one, just follow this guide to get up and running. A blog is the only way you are going to rank well on Google and generate traffic without directly paying for it by using Google AdWords or Facebook Ads. But if you want to do well, you can't treat your blog like a “blog”… you have to treat it like a business. If you don't, then you won't do well. Here are the 3 important steps you need to take if you want to do well:
What do you think about blogging? Are you going to start taking it seriously? The post A Blog Isn't a Blog, It's a Business appeared first on Neil Patel. Social media has changed the way we live. As marketers, we need to recognize how our current and prospective customers are utilizing these platforms and use that knowledge to our advantage. Ultimately, you want to be able to convert your social media followers into customers. But this is much easier said than done. Sure, you were able to get people to follow your profiles initially. That's a great first step. However, if you can't post engaging content, your followers will get bored and won't convert. They may even decide to unfollow your accounts. In fact, a recent study from Sprout Social suggests that 41% of people unfollow a brand on social media because they feel the information isn't relevant to them. And 46% of users unfollow a brand because it posts too much, while 18% of people unfollow a brand because it doesn't post enough. You don't want to fall into any of these categories. Recognize how people use social media. With so much content to consume, your followers won't engage with your posts if the content is boring. If you've been posting the same thing over and over again on all your platforms, your content has already grown stale. Some of you may not be posting anything at all, simply because you don't know what to post. No matter what your situation is, you can benefit from reading this guide. I'll show you how to effectively market your small business on social media with the top 21 ideas for your upcoming posts. 1. Your latest blog postOnce you publish a new blog post, you should share it with your social media followers. Take a look at how I do this on my Facebook page: There are lots of benefits to posting this type of content. In addition to giving you something new to post, it will also drive more traffic to your website. Right now, it's unlikely your customers are visiting your site on a daily basis. They may not even know you published a new blog post unless you tell them. Posting it on social media also exposes your blog to a wider audience. Now people who are friends with your followers can see this post and potentially navigate to your profile or website. It's a great opportunity for you to scale your lead generation through blogging. 2. Poll your followersCreate a poll. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram all have options for you to poll your followers. A poll invites your followers to engage. They'll share their opinions and spend more time on your profile. There are lots of ways for you to leverage these polls. You can use them to gain insightful information about your followers, get their opinions about a new idea, or just have some fun. Check out this example from The Muse on Twitter: What will they do with the results of this poll? Who knows? But 223 people already voted! If you're looking for something new to post that will drive engagement, a poll is definitely a top option for you to consider. 3. Use emojisNo matter what platform you're posting on, you should be using emojis in your posts. That's because emojis can help you improve your click-through rates. In fact, 92% of people online use emojis. A recent study from AdEspresso showed that Facebook headlines with emojis generated 241% more clicks than those without one. Emojis will improve your engagement metrics. 4. Photos of your employeesShare photos of the people who make your business possible. Without your employees, you wouldn't be able to operate. Sharing this type of content helps humanize your brand. Your followers will see the faces behind the company. They'll see exactly who is creating the products they're consuming and learn what goes on behind the scenes. Sharing photos of your employees will also boost your engagement. That's because pictures with faces get 38% more likes: Sure, you could post pictures with your face as well. But that will get stale after a while too. Depending on the size of your business, some of you may have dozens of employees. This gives you lots of chances to post new content with a new face every time. 5. Video promosYou need to post videos on social media. More than half of marketers across the globe say video is the type of content that delivers the highest return on investment. Further, 64% of consumers make a purchase after watching a branded video on social media. Social media videos generate more than 1,200% more shares than images and text combined. Take a look at how Thule used this strategy on one of its recent Facebook posts: Notice that the caption is related to the promotion. “Explore the city. With your family.” The video shows a mother and father going for a walk with their baby in one of Thule's strollers. Video content is a great way to mix up your posts because the options are nearly endless. 6. New productsYou're in business to make money. Use your social media posts as a way to build hype for a new product launch. This is a great chance for you to expose your products to your followers even before the products officially get released. Once the product is available for purchase, you can take advantage of features such as Instagram shoppable posts to drive sales. 7. User-generated content (UGC)When you're running out of ideas of what to post on social media, you can always turn to UGC for ideas. Look through your mentions, direct messages, and hashtags related to your brand. Find posts of real people using your products, and share them with your followers. User-generated content will ultimately build trust between you and your customers. Posting UGC will also encourage the rest of your followers to share content related to your brand in the future. They'll do this with the hopes you'll use their content the next time you share a user post. 8. High quality photosEarlier I mentioned that video content delivered higher engagement metrics than images. That said, you can't just post videos and nothing else. Posting nothing but videos will get stale. That's why you need to mix in photos as well. But you don't want to use just any photo. Unless you're using UGC, the images should be original and high quality. Don't use stock images you find online. But you're not a photographer, so how can you find the right photos? It's easy to take these pictures yourself. Review my guide on how to take and edit photos without hiring a professional, and you'll learn how to post quality images on social media. 9. Customer case studiesShow your social media followers how you helped one of your clients do something. For example, let's say you're a personal trainer. You can share a post explaining how you helped one of your clients lose 10 pounds in 10 days. Or maybe you have a platform that helps everyday people build hybrid mobile apps. You could show a case study outlining how much money they saved by using your platform instead of going through standard development. The examples here are endless. No matter what type of business you have, you can come up with a way to create a case study based on the experience of one of your customers. 10. Company accomplishmentsHas your company recently achieved something? Did you win an award? Were you featured in a positive news article? Whatever the case may be, you can use these company accomplishments to increase your credibility. Share this news with your social media followers. Here's an example of how CoSchedule used this strategy on Twitter: It was featured on a list of America's fastest growing businesses-something to be proud of. By the looks of this, it appears the team celebrated this accomplishment. Everyone in the office got together to create this GIF. This also relates to one of the strategies I mentioned above: sharing photos of your employees. 11. Bring life to old contentAs you've gone through the list so far, you may have gotten ideas for new posts. For example, maybe you weren't previously sharing your blog posts on social media. But now you're bummed out because you feel you missed a chance to share some of your best writing. That's not true. You can still share an old blog post on social media if it's still relevant and performed well for you in the past. Or maybe you posted a photo on Twitter a couple of years ago that got a high number of likes and retweets. You could share that old image on Instagram today. Do you have an old video promotion you uploaded to YouTube earlier this year? Share it on Facebook. As you can see, there are many ways to breathe life into your old content by repurposing it on social media. 12. InfographicsIf you created infographics for your website or blog posts, you can use those on social media as well. To show you how powerful this type of content can be, here's an infographic about infographics: Using an infographic as a visual aid can help you persuade your followers to take an action. Plus, images jump off the page at people more than text. We know 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual. If you have infographics, use them. If not, you can find great ones online or create new ones yourself. 13. Inspirational quotesRunning out of ideas to post? Well, there is never a shortage of inspirational quotes. Simply run a Google search for inspirational quotes and find one that's relevant to your brand, industry, or marketing strategy. Or use anything that will appeal to your audience. If you're a good writer, come up with your own inspirational quotes. 14. Insightful researchHas your company done a recent study on something interesting? Share your findings with your social media followers. Post statistics you found while conducting research, or talk about someone else's findings. Here's one thing you should keep in mind when using this type of content: always cite your sources. If you're posting a statistic, give credit to whomever conducted the research. They deserve it, and it also makes your content more credible. Your audience will know you're not pulling numbers out of thin air. 15. Upcoming event informationI'm sure your business will host or attend some type of event throughout the year. Even if it doesn't happen often, it's worth talking about on social media. Check out this example from Tim Ferriss: He shared this event promotion with his audience on Facebook. As you can see from the information he gave, this is clearly a local event. Unless people live in Texas, or more specifically the Dallas area, they probably won't be attending. That's OK. It's still worth sharing. This gives your followers an idea of what you're doing and maybe builds some anticipation for any events you'll be hosting or attending in their area in the future. 16. GiveawaysSocial media is the perfect platform for running a giveaway. That's because all the content posted will be exposed to many people. These giveaways and contests are especially effective if they encourage user-generated content, which I previously discussed. Plus, everyone wants an opportunity to get something free. If you start running contests and giveaways on social media, I'm sure you'll see your engagement metrics spike for those posts. 17. Your recent podcastsDo you have a podcast? Make sure you give your social media followers updates about your latest episodes. Post direct links to them on your social sites. Don't rely on people finding your podcasts organically. While you may get some listeners that way, it's much better to target people familiar with your brand and already following you on social media. 18. Customer reviewsWhen you think of customer reviews, you may not necessarily associate them with your social media marketing strategy. But why not? Showcasing reviews on social media will add credibility to your brand name. Plus, 64% of consumers say they actively look for reviews before buying something. And 35% of people are less likely to make a purchase if they can't find reviews. Make this as easy as possible for your followers. When they see other customers had a positive experience with your brand, they'll be more likely to buy as well. But I wouldn't recommend flooding your social platforms with reviews. Just like everything else, too much of one type of content will get stale. But it's still a good idea to mix this into your content strategy. 19. “How to” postsSo you're releasing a new product. Depending on the type of product and the industry you're in, using the product may not be straightforward. This is a great opportunity for you to share a demonstration video. If you're already posting too much video content and you want to change your strategy, you could also post a “how to” list. Explain a step-by-step process of how to use your product, and share it on social media. 20. TestimonialsJust like customer reviews, testimonials add credibility to your website. This is especially true if those testimonials are coming from an authoritative source. Look at how Olivers Apparel used this tactic in a recent Instagram post: The post shows a high quality picture of one of its products. Simple, right? But now look at the caption. It features a testimonial from Men's Journal, showcasing the company's product in a positive light. If the brand itself wrote those exact same words in the caption without the testimonial, it wouldn't be as impactful. 21. Throwback photosIf you're running out of photos to post and don't have time to take more yourself, you can always look through your archives.
I know you've seen this hashtag used before. You may have even used it yourself. Throwback Thursday gained popularity in February 2012, according to Google Trends. This is a chance for you to post an old picture of your first storefront, old delivery truck, or something like that. You could even share a picture from your childhood, unrelated to your business. But for the most part, it's better to stay on-brand at all times. For example, I could post a throwback picture of me while I still had my hair, but it's not related to my brand. But I'm sure some of you would get a kick out of it. ConclusionThere is no excuse to let your social media content go stale. If you refer to the list above, you'll never utter the words I don't know what to post on social media again. With these 21 ideas, you'll be able to post different content in a variety of ways for a long time. If you use the throwback photo idea, that's one post per week, every week, forever. You can generate a month's worth of content by using less than half of the suggestions on this list. Next time you think there's nothing for you to post, think again. Keep this list bookmarked so you always have it as a quick reference. What type of content are you sharing on social media to engage your followers? |
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