The Importance of Online Reputation Management

Many small business owners erroneously think that as long as they provide courteous service and a quality product, their online reputation will in essence manage itself. In reality, taking a passive attitude towards reputation management can do serious harm to your business—even if you’re doing everything else well.

Controlling Your Online Reputation Before It Controls You

Though the Internet is wonderful in many ways, the mask of anonymity it allows users to put on has long become a haven for people who wish to express unduly negative or aggressive sentiments. Likewise, this anonymity makes it easier to produce fake reviews and untruthful endorsements. For small business owners, the potential problems inherent in neglecting online reputation management are therefore two-fold. Here are the reasons why:

1. Inconsistency in Consumer Attitudes

            Firstly, ignoring online reviews means that your business is vulnerable to unfairly disgruntled customers, who either cannot forgive an honest mistake on the part of one of your employees (no matter what efforts were made to correct said error), or who simply have an axe to grind (perhaps they were, for example, already having a bad day). Likewise, sometimes a customer will later find what looks like a “better deal” for similar products or services elsewhere and so become unhappy. The list of potential complaints is limited only by the human imagination, so even the most reputable business owners may find themselves targeted by negative online reviews.

2. Lack of Business Ethics in Competition

            Secondly, when neglecting reputation management, you are indirectly leaving your business as a helpless prey to competitors who are paying people to post negative reviews of others and manipulate customers into thinking their own is a better choice. Though Google is fairly diligent about tracking down fake reviewers and people who post a significant number of phony reviews, they cannot possibly catch all of them, and other online review services are often far less dedicated to this cause than Google is.

3. Backlash from High Customer Expectation

            Besides the damage done by unfair and fake reviews, there is also a third (and much less discussed) factor: loyalty. Loyal customers are, ironically, among the most likely to leave a critical review of your business. Research conducted by Eric Anderson, Prf. Of Marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, and Duncan Simester, MIT’s Sloan School of Management, revealed that many writers of negative reviews are among the best customers of the businesses they criticize. Quoting the French maxim which states that “your best friends are your hardest critics,” the professors point out that when customers become familiar with a business, they are more likely to treat it like they would with a friend, offering honest opinions not out of malice, but in the hope that they will help that business improve. This is why many online reviews have the tone of, “I usually love this restaurant and I come here every Friday, but last time I went, the service was slow,” or, “I have ordered from this store for years and never had a problem, but on my last order, they forgot to include an item I ordered.”

The above issues are a significant problem because most consumers trust and rely on online reviews to guide their purchasing decisions, despite the fact that many people are aware of the way the faceless nature of the Internet facilitates negativity and dishonesty. According to Nielsen’s most recent Global Trust in Advertising study, 66% of global consumers has high faith in online reviews—from complete strangers—when they are deciding whether or not to buy a product or service. In short, enough negative reviews can kill a business, and if you’re not on top of the situation, you won’t know what is happening until it’s too late and your revenue has completely dried up.

The Art of Active Brand Reputation Management: Protecting Your Reputation Online

1. Be Present

            Reputation management starts with simply being where the action is: On social media. Whether customers are voicing their opinions through Google reviews, Yelp reviews, or on Twitter or Facebook, you need to be there and be ready to respond to each review in a way that is polite and professional while still defending your business approach to the problem being reported. Being properly “present” in this way will also ensure that you notice fake reviews and can alert the responsible authorities before your reputation is unfairly damaged.

2. Be Active

            Interacting regularly on social media also helps to build trust in your brand; prospective customers can tell by glancing at your responses on social media that if they do run into a problem, there is a real human presence available to talk to. Taking the time to interact directly with customers in this way shows that you do genuinely care about their concerns, particularly if you take the time to actively empathize with even the most aggressive customers.

3. Be in Control

            You should also be aware that in the worst case scenario, you may be entitled to take legal action; online reviews, which use defamatory language and report false information, obviously aimed at damaging a company’s reputation are illegal (they are a form of libel). If your business is being slandered in this way, seek legal counsel as soon as possible—A lawyer can help you fight back effectively and restore your reputation.

Google Local SEO: What’s In It For Your Business

What is Google Local SEO? Most of us take the convenience Google provides for granted. In what way you may wonder? For example, when typing phrases like “best sushi restaurant” into Google, we seldom pause to wonder why the results that pop up are automatically relevant to our current location. Wherever we happen to be at the time of our query, Google is there to guide us in the direction of whichever service we require through our mobile devices.

Google-search-sushi-AllinBrand

Little do we know that beneath this apparent simplicity lies a studied and intentional process called: Local Search Engine Optimization (local SEO). In order to appear in local results when a prospective customer makes a search query—no matter how specific the query is, like the example in the prior paragraph, quite general—businesses must not only be optimized for organic SEO, but also for local SEO.

What is the difference between Organic and Local SEO?

Organic SEO

Organic Search Engine Optimization is a complex series of “best practices” business owners undertake (or being managed by a second party) designed to optimize a business’s website so that Google’s search algorithm recognizes it as a site of relevance and authority when users input related keywords. Organic SEO is absolutely necessary to any small businesses, as it is needed to direct traffic to different sites without the business owner needing to continually invest in costly marketing tactics like Google AdWords. Organic SEO strategies include keyword research (so that business owners can effectively target keywords users associate with their niche), content creation, on-page optimization (effective titles, headers, sub-headers, etc.), and link building.

Local SEO

Local Search Engine Optimization, on the other hand, makes direct use of Google’s interface so that one’s business will not only rank well generally but also featured prominently when local users search for related keywords. Local SEO relies heavily on the use of Google My Business (GMB), which in 2014, fully integrated with Google+ Local so as to provide businesses and similar consumers with a seamless and cohesive experience. As Google stated in its official announcement at the time when these services were fully integrated, the purpose of GMB is to integrate all the services Google has to offer businesses—allowing even small business owners who lack significant technical or SEO experience to set their businesses up and connect with local customers. Creating a GMB page is free of charge, so optimizing Local SEO is not only one of the most effective forms of SEO but also one of the most cost-effective. As such, if you cannot yet afford to invest in the content creation strategies required for Organic SEO, Local SEO provides the perfect place to start getting words about your business “out there”.

How can Google My Business benefit my business?

Synchronization

  • Easily update their business information on Search, Maps, and Google+, all from one convenient location. Merchants can update any kind of information related to their business, such as contact information, hours of operation, website details, and business descriptions, at any time. This information will then automatically appear in Google’s Knowledge Graph, the box of related material that pops up when users input related search queries (this graph includes facts, photos, maps, etc.

Visualization

  • Create a “virtual tour” of their place of business. GMB lets business owners upload photos of their place of business so that prospective customers can easily locate them by sight, hence get a better sense of the business identity, level of professionalism, and so on. You can upload photos of your storefront, employees, customers, products, displays, and there is no limit to how many locations you can add.

Interaction

  • Manage online reviews. With GMB, not only you can receive reviews from customers, but also actively manage and respond to them. As online reputation management is absolutely essential to the success of any modern businesses, this ability is invaluable.

Connection

  • Share upcoming events with new and existing customers. GMB lets business owners post events, news, updates and more thanks to its full integration with the business’s Google+ page. You will be able to immediately notify customers of sales events, for example, and your customers can comment on these events on Google+.

Data Correlation

  • Gather additional information relevant to SEO. GMB provides services like custom insights and AdWords Express which can yield further data on how customers are finding your business and interacting with it.

Convenience

  • Manage business information on the go. GMB provides mobile apps, the“Google My Business”on both Android and iOS platforms, which allow business owners to update information relevant to their business from anywhere. In case there is a temporary change in your hours of operation, you can immediately notify your customers using the GMB app. In short, GMB puts you in direct, constant contact with your customers—no matter where you are, and no matter where they are.

To get started using GMB, you need to first “claim” your business on Google, then go to “Choose Business Type” and tell Google whether your business is a “Storefront,” (e.g. a restaurant or retail outlet), “Service Area,” (for instance, a Taxi service), or a “Brand.” A Brand, in this case, is defined as a “non-local” entity such as a “product, sports team, music band, cause, etc.” If you choose “Brand,” you will not need to include an address or any other location information.

Or you can just leave the Local SEO services to us and watch your business grow across the digital marketing platform. 

Contact – AllinBrand
E: info@allinbrand.com   |  T: +1 416 886 8855.

 

 

 

 

 

8 benefits of having professional photography for business

Photography is capturing images that make memories capable of being shared. It’s a new way of thinking and imagining. If you embrace photography as a lifestyle, you will get much more pleasure out of your day. Once you get your hands on, you’ll realize how lively and inspiring your surroundings actually are.

The featured image you’re seeing was a portfolio piece of our current professional photography team member “Phenu” Contact us at info@allinbrand.com for more demos, portfolios, and booking!

Photography is not just your camera or your lens, it the creativity, and the story of the photographer. Having a professional photographer in the business is very important these days. Photography plays a major role in promoting and marketing the business. This is also one of the best methods to increase business social presence, attracting more costumers, and ultimately driving sales. Here are a few benefits of having professional photography for your business:

  1. Engage your social media audience with your professional photography:

By using photos of your business, you can engage your intenders, leads, and even friends on social media sites. The professional photographer helps to take photos that convey a business message and share it across social media. Sharing photos on social media helps to increase business overall image. It also helps your business to get more clients and investors. Photos uploaded on social media attract costumers and makes your business more interesting. Specialized photographer for a particular business helps to promote its brand to a tailored and specified audience.

  1. Target your social media audience:

Targeting your social media friends or the audience is one of the best methods to increase the status of your business. The professional photographer of your company helps to add competitive creativeness by producing images that show a diverse and multi-functional business. By adding these photos into the social media and tagging or sharing it with your friends, it shows that capability of providing quality service to a broad and dynamic audience, plus tagged individuals will feel valuable and remembered, which obviously plays a major role in customer loyalty. To a higher degree, targeted audience can start to share your photos; this creates a non-stop spreading effect that helps you and your business to uncover new audience, as well as increase its online presence.

  1. Promote your Brand Awareness events:

The professional photography also helps to promote your business by presenting the photos on the events of the company. By presenting the photos of the events or in any brand awareness occasions where many of the clients, investors or the CEOs will be present. When the people notice your business photos, they get impressed as your photos will be professionally clicked. By promoting your business in events by presenting your professional photos, it helps to make your business raise its standards.

  1. Highlight your Social Functions:

Highlighting your social functions by presenting the images clicked by your professional photographer. Chances are, people care about social events, and having your business social functions presented professionally and aesthetically will increase your rate of brand’s overall favorable opinion. Social functions help to interact with different corporates and help to promote business. These corporate functions also help to promote your business if you present your photos on the events. Highlighting your photos or the images on the corporate functions will help to increase the productivity of the business, and as well the connection with other interested individuals.

  1. Create Customer Awareness:

Creating customer awareness is one of the most important parts in promoting business. It helps to get more customers into the business. Using professional photography and by posting on social media, one can easily promote his business. This is one of the most common and effective ways to enhance your business performance. It spreads around very fast. Having one professional photographer in your business is most important as they can click photos according to your preferences. By using these professional photos you can create awareness among your customers and can help to increase your business.

  1. Create your own Content Marketing Explosion:

Creating content marketing explosion plays one the major role in the business. It helps to make your own identity. Professional photography has a major role in the marketing explosion. People usually remember the visual memories than listening to the long lectures. Marketing the business by utilizing the skills of a professional photographer has a huge effect as it is one of the best methods to make your business stand out from all other business.

  1. Cost Efficient: 

Having a professional photographer in the business is most profitable as they can save the cost of getting individual photographer per event and business need. It is most cost efficient method to hire one own business professional photographer. The photographer will do the work according to your cost. It helps to minimize the company’s expenses.

  1. Convenience and Flexibility

Having a professional photographer helps in many ways. It is flexible to make him/her work according to your creativity and business objective. It also helps in saving time and money of a businessperson. Hence, it is essential to keep a professional photographer for a business.

Hire a professional photographer now! Contact us for more information of our team of photographers and check our their portfolio at portfolio page.

*The featured image you’re seeing was a portfolio piece of our current professional photography team member “Phenu.com” Contact us at info@allinbrand.com for different photography field and portfolios!