Social Media Reputation Management – How to do it right?

Social media reputation management is the practice of tracking, identifying, and addressing any mentions of your business or brand on the internet. Many people believe that social media reputation management is just for big brands with huge followings, but the fact is that it’s for everyone.

Social media allows anyone with internet access to write and share their thoughts. It can be a good thing, but it also means that many people can say and do things on the internet that might damage your reputation.

Social media reputation management helps your business or brand track, identify and address these concerns. Every company should have a plan to avoid PR disasters, from evaluating content before it’s shared on social media to monitoring accounts for signs of hacking efforts.

So, how do you handle social media reputation management the right way? Here are 9 tactics to safeguard your company’s social media reputation.

1. Make A Policy for Social Media

While your company’s core social media efforts are likely to be managed by a team, other employees must be cautious about what they share and post. Writing a social media policy before assigning work tasks will keep them from sharing anything that could jeopardize the security and reputation of your firm.

The following items should be covered in your social media policy:

• Legal Risks: Make sure your social media team understands usage rights, disclosure procedures, and employee disclaimers, among other things.
• Roles: Create rules for various roles, such as branding manager, customer service representative, content editor, etc.
• Brand Vision: It is a solid tactic to create a vision statement that outlines who you’re catering to, what they need to know, and which content types/formats they prefer. It will assist your social media team to determine what can and cannot be shared on social media.
• Brand language: Each post should be written in the same brand language and tone to make your brand more identifiable.
• Confidentiality: Finally, confidentiality is a vital principle that your social media staff and employees must adhere to. Begin by making a list of facts that should never be shared with the general public.

It’s a good idea to get advice from everyone in your company when drafting your social media policy, whether or not they’re on your official social media team. It will aid in the development of strong business culture and lessen the likelihood of disgruntled employees undermining your branding efforts.

2. Answer All Questions

Social media should be a part of every company’s customer service strategy. In addition to promoting your brand to the rest of the world, social media allows you to demonstrate how fast and efficiently your company responds to its clients.

Secondhand reviews only provide a snapshot of private conversations with brands to potential customers. Potential clients can judge your brand’s worth for themselves when a full discussion between your brand and a customer is accessible and viewable online.

Respond promptly and courteously to present or future consumers who inquire about your products or services on social media. Remember that everyone who searches for your brand’s discussion history will find it, especially when we talk about web3 social media platforms where everything is even more open. So, put your best foot forward.

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3. Recognize When You’ve Made A Mistake

So you made a social media blunder. What’s next? Let’s face it; content doesn’t always go as planned.

Perhaps you aren’t conscious of the double meaning of the words you chose. They could be presumptuous, taken out of context, or your followers could have imagined a hashtag signified something it didn’t.

Even with a multi-step vetting process, you can’t always ensure that someone, somewhere won’t misconstrue our posts.

You can save your reputation in the event of a huge public relations disaster by humbly accepting defeat. Make an official apology and continue to make amends until the situation is resolved.

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4. Check Your Spelling

A misspelled word here and there may not break a brand, but a misspelled word that suddenly has a different meaning may.

One of the simplest methods to avoid social media blunders is to double-check your material before scheduling it to go live. Using spell check with your content is a good start, but there are other steps you can take.

• Read it out loud: Reading your content out loud is a good habit to get into as it not only helps you catch spelling errors but also helps identify awkward phrasing or sentences.
• Read it backward: Reading your content backward forces your brain to slow down and focus on the words it sees, helping you catch errors that your brain glosses over when reading normally.
• Have someone else read your content: Sometimes, a fresh set of eyes is the difference between a good piece of content and a great piece of content. Ask a colleague to read your material before you post it.

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5. Set Up An Approval Process

Along with spell checking, having review boards for content to be shared is a smart idea for brands. A board like this could comprise senior executives or a mix of employees from different levels in the same department (Social Media, Public Relations, etc.). They should collaborate to examine and, if necessary, critique and rewrite posts before sending them out.

Formally reviewing all content to be posted on social media is an excellent approach to avoid PR disasters completely. Social media is not an afterthought but rather an essential component of a company’s marketing strategy. As a result, having multiple sets of eyes to check planned posts is critical.

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6. Make Your Accounts Hack-proof

Some things are beyond our control.

To protect your brand’s reputation, you can keep an eye on the people who work with you. However, you cannot anticipate impending threats from outside your organization.

Unfortunately, even if your brand’s social media accounts are hacked, you are still liable for any reputational damage in the commercial sector.

Choosing secure passwords is your first line of defense against hacking. The password difficulty rule of thumb is that the more important the account and sensitive the information, the more difficult the password should be.

On top of that, usernames and passwords for your accounts should be kept private. Only provide your social media manager and personnel access to your accounts.

Use mobile data security precautions to protect your social media accounts as you use for your email. Don’t open suspicious links or download attachments; verify that the sender is who they say they are.

Make sure your employees understand your company’s security policies. Train them to recognize signs of phishing scams and teach them to question links that seem suspicious. Integrate multi-factor authentication for extra precautions where it’s necessary.

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7. Archive Your Social Media Posts

If your company has social media accounts that have been around for years, you could find yourself in hot water if your accounts are suddenly deactivated, deleted, or hacked.

Archiving social media content helps your brand prepare for the worst. Unlike a bank vault, which stores physical items, archiving social media content stores it in a digital space.

A good social media archiving solution will back up your social media content in an easy format to retrieve, organize, and share.

Archiving your social media content can also help you prepare for the future. If you’ve recently rebranded or hired a new social media team, archiving your old posts is a great way to get them up to speed.

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8. Look for Duplicate Pages

There are various reasons why your company’s social accounts may have been replicated, ranging from premeditated hijackers to staff who are unaware of the consequences. Duplicate pages jeopardize not only your reputation but also perplex search engines, which forces them to choose the best version for the query.

Search for your company name on each of your social media channels regularly. If you come across a duplicate account, open it and record who you’re connected to. If you don’t know who created the account, look for solutions in the online support centers for each social media platform.

To minimize internal conflicts, make sure your social media policy states that staff is not allowed to construct their own sites using your company’s name.

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9. Watch Out for Mentions on Social Media

Controversial information can spread like wildfire on social media, regardless of whether it is real or not. While there’s no foolproof way to stop competitors from distributing incorrect information, being proactive can help lessen the impact.

You can set up a social media monitoring tool to notify you when your brand or product name is discussed on social media networks. These tools can also help you join the conversation, allowing you to clear up any misunderstandings or reach out to potential prospects who have expressed a significant interest in your business.

Furthermore, you may use listening technologies to detect popular themes in your niche, which can aid you in coming up with future content development and curation ideas.

Wrapping Up

It’s impossible to avoid social media blunders completely. However, you can prevent blunders from destroying your reputation by establishing a strong social media policy and following it diligently.

The techniques outlined in this article will help your brand steer clear of social media mistakes. However, there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Every brand is different; therefore, what works well for one company may not be effective for another.

By putting the practices discussed in this article into practice, your brand will be well on its way to maintaining a positive online reputation and keeping it safe from harm.