Whether you’re a public figure or a business owner, you know that in today’s digital age, social media matters. A bad review or post can throw off your game, and it’s essential that you stay on top of various social media platforms to monitor what others are saying about the services or products you offer.
Let’s look at the most important social media platforms to monitor and what you can do to keep your (or your company’s) online reputation pristine.
1. Facebook
Millennials and baby boomers are heavy Facebook users. If your target audience includes members of these groups, it’s essential that you get on the Meta train and stay up to date with your Facebook page. Monitoring and responding to comments is key to keeping your business afloat. This can feel like an around-the-clock job. If you have a social media manager, it’s important to ask them to track the time they spend responding to comments to ensure that they’re compensated appropriately.
2. YouTube
If your business posts videos on YouTube, it’s vital to monitor and respond to comments. Pay special attention to questions that viewers ask — this can provide you and your team with new ideas for content. Be sure to promote your YouTube videos across other platforms and monitor those posts for video comments.
3. Yelp
It can be hard to combat a bad Yelp review. If you’ve found that Yelp is hurting your business, it’s imperative to work with an online reputation management company that can help your business get back into the good graces of the public. If you decide to manage a negative Yelp review on your own, be sure to be as gracious as possible in your response. Many Yelp readers look at business responses to comments to get a sense of how the business treats its customers.
4. Instagram
Using photos to boost your products to your audience? You’ll want to monitor a few different aspects of your Instagram account, including messages, comments, and reactions. Using stories to show the day-to-day life of your company can be a great way to engage your audience, but you’ll want to privately respond to any messages your viewers send. Remember, even though messages sent on Instagram are private, viewers can easily screenshot your responses and post them, so be sure to only respond in a way that you’d be comfortable responding in public.
5. Online forums
If you sell a niche product or offer a niche service, it’s likely that there are online forums dedicated to your craft. You’ll want to regularly check whether your company is mentioned in online forums in your area of expertise and respond or privately message people posting about your company if necessary.
Working With an ORM Company
Managing all the social media for your company can be exhausting, and depending on the size of your company, it can feel like a full-time job. Online reputation management companies like Status Labs can help. An online reputation management service can take over your social media needs, respond to customers and reviews and help you maintain a positive image.
Online Reputation Management: What To Look For in an Ethical Company
If you’re not happy with the search results for you or your company, or you don’t have a defined presence, an online reputation management company can help. Not only can these companies help you create and define a stronger reputation, but they can help drive better, more complimentary results to the top of the search engine rankings. Clients searching for you see those results first, creating a positive impression.
What Is Online Reputation Management?
Online reputation management is controlling what people see about you online. You can’t always get rid of things like negative reviews, but you can certainly provide enough positive information that those reviews aren’t as noticeable. The more good things written about you (and by you), the less room there is for anything negative or uncomplimentary that you might not want others to see. Controlling your online reputation is important — and it’s becoming quite common.
Is Online Reputation Management Ethical?
Online reputation management is ethical when it’s done right. If you have a quality company like Status Labs helping you, it’s easier than ever to control what others see about you online. That can mean a better bottom line for your company, since clients will be happy with the results they see. Most people don’t search beyond the first page of results, and some don’t even look at more than the top few. By making sure those results are good, you’ll have a better online reputation.
How Should You Choose a Reputation Management Company?
When choosing an online reputation management company, you want to find one that’s ethical. Some of them aren’t — and that could cause further damage to your reputation. Unethical companies often make unrealistic promises, such as saying they can get anything negative about you removed from search engines. They may keep everything they do very secretive and not communicate with you. You’ll be paying them and hoping for the best.
Status Labs doesn’t operate that way. Online reputation management often requires a lot of rapid strategy changes and last-minute adjustments, especially if something new pops up in the search engines. Being flexible and able to provide new data and information quickly so you can make an informed decision is extremely important. You can trust Status Labs to be honest with you. It’s not possible to just remove everything from search engines.
But it is possible to push most negative information down in ranking. People can still find it, but most of them aren’t going to look that far. If there are slanderous or other inappropriate things listed online, some of those can get removed with some time and effort. You want to make sure you’re hiring an online reputation management firm that gives you status updates, communicates openly, and is truthful about what they’re able to do for you. Status Labs has offices in Austin, Texas; New York City; Los Angeles; London and São Paulo serving clients in more than 40 countries. Named to the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in the United States for four years straight, it’s serious about what it offers to people who need online reputation management, personal branding, and SEO services. You don’t have to try to manage your online reputation yourself. Work with a firm that will do it for you, ethically and with quality.
Protecting Your Online Reputation in the Age of Social Media: What You Need To Know
In today’s digital age, it’s scary to think that much of our daily lives are recorded online. From silly choices made in college to real run-ins with the law, our digital history can make it difficult to move forward in life after a mistake. When embarking on a professional venture, it’s important to keep your online reputation as pristine as possible. Doing so can be challenging, even if you don’t have a nefarious past.
Here, we’ll look at some tips that can help you keep your online reputation positive.
1. Reconsider Your Personal Social Media Accounts
If you have both personal and business social media accounts, you’ll want to be sure that your personal accounts reflect the values of your business. While you do have freedom of speech and the ability to speak your mind, you want to be careful not to alienate groups based on your political or other views. Working with an online reputation management company can help give you specific do’s and don’ts of personal social media use when you’re running business social media accounts.
2. Respond to All Reviews — Including Negative Ones
It’s not easy to stay calm when you see someone trashing your business online, especially if they’re describing the situation differently than it actually happened. That being said, responding to negative reviews provides an excellent opportunity to show your customers how much you value creating a positive experience.
When responding to a negative review, you have a few options. You can resolve the issue by offering an apology and a refund or replacement on the spot, or you can apologize and invite the customer to contact you privately, allowing you to learn more about the situation and determine the appropriate course of action. Whatever option you choose, stay calm and positive.
3. Know When It’s Time To Bring in the Professionals
If you have a business with an internet presence, it’s smart to start working with an online reputation management company like Status Labs. Choose a company that can handle online reputation management and digital marketing to create a one-two punch that keeps customers coming to your business while maintaining your positive reputation.
If you’ve had a reputation management crisis in the past, it’s a good idea to hire an online reputation management company before opening a new business. Your reputation management team can work with you to boost your positive image, making your new business venture more likely to succeed.
4. Be Open and Honest
If your business is at the center of a scandal, it’s smart to be open and honest with the public on your social media. That being said, don’t try to figure out how to handle the situation on your own. Consult with an online reputation management company like Status Labs to discuss the best way to handle the situation. The more open you can be about what happened, the more likely customers and clients will be to give you another chance.
Online Reputation Management and Search Engine Optimization: A Recipe for Success
Whether you’re starting to build a business or you’re well established in your field, search engine optimization is key to building a solid business foundation. Working with an online reputation management company can help you ethically develop a positive online reputation while driving customers to your business.
How Does Search Engine Optimization Work?
Think — when is the last time you searched for a business or product and clicked past the first page of Google results? For maximum visibility, your business needs to appear on the first page of Google search results when a potential customer searches for your product or service.
It can be tough to figure out how to get to the top of the search page, and this is where search engine optimization comes in. When you stay on top of search engine trends, you can tweak your website to help improve the likelihood that you’ll show up as a top search result for many of the terms your customers are using to find the answer to their needs.
What works for search engine optimization changes regularly. If you have a digital marketing team in place, they likely have a crew dedicated to staying on top of search engine optimization. If you don’t have a digital marketing team or you’re running a one-person show, it can be a bright idea to hire an online reputation management company that can take over search engine optimization and other aspects of digital marketing for you.
What Is Online Reputation Management?
When people hear online reputation management, they usually think of mitigating a public relations crisis. While this is one aspect of online reputation management, there are many ways that reputation management can be used to boost a business.
Online reputation management can be used before a product or brand launch or to revamp old ideas to seem fresh and new to a different customer base. Online reputation management can be used to help others see positive reviews and understand how your product could solve one of their pain points.
Why Search Engine Optimization and Reputation Management Work Well Together
Search engine optimization gets people to your page — and a clear, positive reputation keeps them there. When choosing a digital marketing/search engine optimization company, it’s wise to go with a team that handles online reputation management. Allowing these two factors for business success to work hand in hand can make it easier for your business to stay on the path to growth.
Choosing an Online Reputation Management Company
It’s important to carefully choose an online reputation management company that can support your ever-changing business needs. Working with a company like Status Labs that can provide you with digital marketing tools (including search engine optimization) and online reputation management can be the first step toward growing a sustainable business. When choosing an online reputation management company, be sure to select an organization that offers customized plans specific to your business needs.
Status Labs Shares What To Expect From Your SEO Company
If you’ve worked in digital marketing, or if you manage or own an e-commerce store or website, you’ve heard of search engine optimization (SEO). You probably know that this term has something to do with making sure your websites rank well with search engines (primarily Google) and that there are companies that specialize in SEO. However, do you know what those companies do and how they can help your e-business succeed?
Basic Functions of an SEO Company
The basic function of an SEO company is to create or hone a company’s web pages so that they rank well in search engine results. They do this by making sure certain necessary elements are included on your outward-facing pages and in the metadata for those pages.
What an SEO Company Hopes To Accomplish
The goal of an SEO company is to improve a digital company’s visibility by increasing its ranking with search engines like Google and Bing. Consumers generally don’t venture any further than the first page in search results, so if your company isn’t visible there, it’s losing a lot of potential customers. Improving your SEO ranking will increase your web traffic and give your team more opportunities to make sales and garner leads. Good SEO can make more people aware of your company and increase your brand recognition.
What To Expect When You Hire an SEO Company
When you hire an SEO company, team members will meet with you and learn about your company and pore over your web pages during what’s called a content audit. They will then make small and large changes to those pages to make them more attractive to search engines. They will likely add or suggest internal links and links to reputable sites, and suggest new pages based on keyword research. A good SEO firm like Status Labs will monitor your site’s progress and offer reports that give you data on topics including which of your pages are the most popular, where your traffic is coming from, and how many pages a typical site visitor views.
SEO Trends in 2023
The only given in the field of SEO is that everything changes. What worked in 2020 is largely outdated in 2023. That’s one of the best reasons to hire an SEO firm: so you don’t have to keep on top of all the changes. However, it’s still a good idea to be aware of the major trends. For 2023, these include:
1. AI Will Continue To Grow as an SEO Tool
It’s unlikely that artificial intelligence (AI) will ever be able to replace a human’s nuanced ability to communicate. However, AI is very useful in SEO to find keywords to increase reader engagement. Search engines are using AI, such as with Google’s RankBrain, to analyze content and rank a web page’s authority (and thus its ranking).
2. Longer Pages Are Being Rewarded
A few years ago, short web pages of 250 words or fewer were all the rage. You could produce dozens of these quickly and grow your website exponentially. However, these short pages have become less popular with search engines. Experts recommend web pages of around 3,000 words.
3. Mobile-Friendly Sites Aren’t Just User-Friendly — They’re Search Engine-Friendly
Designing your web pages so they read well on a variety of screen sizes isn’t just good for your customers; it’s increasingly a measure by which search engines evaluate your pages.
About Status Labs
Status Labs is the premier online reputation management and SEO firm. The firm has offices in the United States, the U.K. and Brazil. Status Labs is proud to have been named to the Inc. magazine list of 5000 fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. for four consecutive years.
Reputation Management: 5 Events That Can Devastate Your Company Image
Your business reputation is one of the most valuable things your company owns — and the most fragile. It doesn’t take a lot for that reputation to shatter and cause even loyal customers to jump from your business to your competitor. Being aware of what might damage your company image can help you be on the lookout for such events and often prevent them from devastating your reputation.
5 Events That Can Tarnish Your Company Image
1. Releasing a Faulty Product
Launching a product before it’s been fully tested is tempting. After all, you want to get out ahead of your competition. However, an untested product that turns out to have a flaw can give your company’s reputation a hit that can be difficult to recover from. It’s better to patiently wait for your testing and market research results.
2. Terrible Customer Service
Ignoring good customer service is one of the fastest ways to damage your company’s reputation. Customers who have a bad experience are much more likely to share that information than those who have a good experience. The average dissatisfied customer tells eight to 10 other people about the experience. Plus, in the age of social media, a single negative Facebook post has the potential to reach thousands.
3. Having an Employee Get Arrested or Leave On Bad Terms
If one of your employees is arrested, the news may not affect your company directly, but if their picture is in the news, your customers may notice and associate the crime with you. This is especially true if your company is located in a smaller town, where your employee is likely known by more of your customers.
When an employee leaves on bad terms, they may launch a campaign on social media and review sites to damage your company’s reputation. It doesn’t matter if you had a good reason to fire the person. People tend to believe what they read online.
4. Bad Social Media Etiquette
It’s better not to have any social media presence than to create profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the like and ignore comments and questions from readers. Being unresponsive to comments is considered bad social media etiquette and gives the impression that your company doesn’t care. If the comment is about a negative experience, the bad impression is magnified tenfold.
5. A Less-Than-Stellar Website.
A good website isn’t a luxury. It’s an essential part of doing business in the 21st century. If your website is rudimentary, hard to navigate, or nearly impossible to view on a mobile device, it sends the message that your company isn’t tech-savvy, is outdated, and doesn’t care about today’s consumer. Those things may be false, but that’s the impression your bad website is sending.
To learn more about how you can mitigate the effects of a reputation-damaging incident and start on the road to rebuilding your reputation, contact Status Labs at (insert contact info). We’ve been helping companies make the most of their digital presence for more than 15 years.
Get Noticed in a Crowd: 10 Ways to Set Yourself Apart as an Influencer
While anybody can (and seemingly everybody does) call themselves an online influencer, the massive number of influencers makes it easy to get lost in the crowd. You have to set yourself apart from the rest if you want influence. Here are 10 ways to get yourself noticed.
1. Choose a Specific Niche
Don’t try to compete with all of the influencers. Narrow yourself to a specific field or industry. You’ll have far fewer influencers to compete with if you focus on a single niche and you’ll have a smaller community to develop relationships within. Choosing a niche will help you see success much sooner.
2. Identify Your Core Audience
Part and parcel with choosing a niche is identifying your audience. Tailor your content to a narrowly defined demographic and those people will hopefully find your content more engaging than other influencers’. An audience will give you a unique angle for all of the content you create.
3. Research Your Keywords
Whether you’re researching search terms, hashtags, images or anything else, keywords matter. Research the most important keywords so you can use them properly when creating content. This will help ensure your hard efforts get noticed, regardless of the platform.
4. Remain Genuine
Always remember your niche, your audience, and who you are. You might be tempted to dilute your personal brand in pursuit of high-traffic keywords, sponsorships or other opportunities. Always remain genuine to yourself and your audience, only taking opportunities that suit who you are.
5. Post Regularly
There’s no getting around the saying that content is king. To rule as an online influencer, you need a lot of content. Post regularly, and always keep posting.
6. Network With Everyone
Relationships are still the currency of influencer culture. You need relationships to reach people. Develop relationships with audience members, industry leaders, and other influencers — you’ll help from all of these groups.
7. Send Timely Responses
Developing relationships requires responding to emails, comments, posts, and other mentions. Always respond in a timely manner, so people receive your response before they move onto something else.
8. Find In-Person Meets
Even with so many online media platforms, the best way to network is still in person. Find in-person events where you can meet fans, leaders, and influencers, and you’ll easily make lasting connections with attendees whom you get to know.
9. Quantify Your Results
Successful influencers work efficiently. Gather data on all of your efforts so you can determine where your money and time are best spent. Quantifying your results will help you most effectively use your resources.
10. Use a Reputation Management Firm
You will need support with outreach, responses, posts, research, data analysis, and everything else. An online reputation managementx firm is well positioned to give you the help you need. These firms specialize in assisting people in developing visible and positive profiles online — just what every influencer is looking for.
Status Labs is a highly regarded online reputation management firm that’s worked with influencers and other professionals. It has established itself as one of the top firms for personal branding, social visibility, and general public perception, and the firm continues to take on new clients throughout the world. The services Status Labs offer can likely help you fast-track your path to influencer success.
How to Use Reputation Management To Make a Comeback From a Catastrophe
Your online reputation is important. It’s what clients see when they search for you and your company — and it could be a deciding factor in whether they purchase from you or not. But reputation management isn’t always easy when you try to handle it alone. If you’re receiving poor reviews, or you have people posting rude or inaccurate things about you online, that’s going to color how potential clients feel about doing business with you. Here’s what to know about reputation management.
What Does Reputation Management Do?
Reputation management, in its most basic form, helps you and/or your company take control of what people find online. Whether they’re looking to see if your company has good reviews or they’re trying to find out more about you as a person, having your reputation carefully managed makes it easier for you to put your best foot forward. A quality, experienced reputation management company like Status Labs makes it easier for you to look your best online, so clients see the value you have to offer to them.
What Do Companies Gain From Reputation Management?
A company can gain a lot of important value from reputation management, especially after a catastrophe has occurred. The best thing you can do after a serious faux pas is mitigate the damage as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. But that requires more than just taking down the offending statement and saying “oops” or “sorry.” People will want to know what caused you to say or do something in the first place, and what you’ve learned from any backlash you may have faced as a result.
How Can a Reputation Management Company Help?
A reputation management company like Status Labs can help you and your business recover from a catastrophe. Whether it’s a tweet that went wrong, an unhappy client, a lawsuit, an environmental issue, or any other problem that paints you or your company in a negative light, it’s better to get that out of the main search engine results quickly.
Yes, it’s part of what happened in your company’s history. But you don’t want it to define you or be the first thing clients and potential clients see when they look you up. The faster it’s diluted in search engine results, the better off your company will be. That lets you move past it, so you can focus on the value you’re providing to clients and work toward meeting their needs.
Is Coming Back From a Catastrophe Always Possible?
With some rare exceptions, it’s generally possible to get back from a catastrophe, but it can take some time. If you try to do it yourself, you may not see much success. By working with a reputable company like Status Labs for reputation management, you can get the help and support you need to reduce the impact and make a faster comeback. It’s frustrating to see your good reputation get tarnished, but the right people can make it much easier for you to build that reputation again.
How Can You Adjust To Last-Minute Changes?
Quality reputation management requires a lot of last-minute strategy changes, and you and the company that’s helping you will need to be able to adjust rapidly. When you choose Status Labs, you’ll be getting help and support from the premier reputation management and SEO company, with clients in more than 40 countries worldwide. A professional reputation management firm will help you reverse a bad online reputation so you can regain client confidence.
SEO and PR Are Different — and They Should Be Complementary
Visibility has always been essential to running a successful business, but physical locations aren’t the only thing that’s important these days. SEO companies and PR companies can help enterprises gain the visibility they need to succeed. While the two should be complementary, they differ in significant ways.
What is Search Engine Optimization?
Search engine optimization (SEO) encompasses efforts to raise a website’s rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs). Even as social media, QR codes, and other online channels have become more prevalent, search engines remain one of the primary ways people find businesses.
SEO companies specifically target keywords relevant to a business, and they work to rank the business’s website for these keywords through a combination of on-site and off-site efforts. The following are merely a few of the many tactics that can be employed:
— Improving site speed (on-site)
— Properly placing keywords on pages (on-site)
— Developing informative and relevant content (on-site)
— Creating a mobile-friendly website (on-site)
— Building backlinks (off-site)
— Improving searchers’ engagement (off-site)
— Growing social media engagement (off-site)
An initial phase of an SEO campaign might involve one-off efforts to better a business’s website. Much of the work is performed on an ongoing basis, however, as other sites are always trying to outrank.
What Is Public Relations?
Public relations is how a business relates to the public. Depending on industry, target audience, and situation, this might include efforts to:
— Have a business mentioned in newspaper and/or magazine articles
— Sponsor long-form content in newspapers and/or magazines
— Providing quotes and comments for articles
— Writing press releases and articles
— Be mentioned in radio and/or television programs
— Publishing white papers, reports, and other research
— Hosting events for the general public
— Hosting industry conferences, seminars, and networking events
— Responding to media inquiries
These tend to be more intensive efforts and often require the assistance of a PR professional who knows media outlets well. Someone who has contacts within media publications will know which publications want which stories and they’ll know whom to pitch stories to.
SEO and PR Should Be Complementary
When properly designed, SEO and PR should complement one another. Effective SEO is the foundation of online visibility, and publications are more likely to accept pieces and comments from a visible (and presumably established) business. PR mentions can be valuable backlinks or citations in SEO efforts.
For larger companies, PR professionals are often on staff to handle all the aspects of public relations. For small and medium businesses, hiring an SEO and a PR firm may make sense.
Get Help With Your Business’s SEO Needs
If your business needs to be more visible in search engines’ results, let Status Labs assist with search engine optimization. The firm’s SEO professionals are located in offices located throughout the largest cities in the world and the SEO company has been widely profiled in publications such as The New York Times, New York Post, The Daily Beast, and others.
Reputation Management: 5 Signs It’s Time You Had a Makeover
Your online reputation can fluctuate, and sometimes it can take a gradual or steep turn for the worse. If you notice any of these signs, your reputation is likely suffering. It’s time for a reputation management makeover.
1. Unfavorable New Articles
If you’re in the public eye, any scandal or controversial incident could result in unfavorable news articles. Often, multiple pieces are written as different outlets and reporters cover your actions.
Numerous new unfavorable articles usually stem from a single incident or issue, and they can directly damage your reputation. Moreover, the damage can continue indefinitely if it’s not addressed.
This type of situation usually calls for swift and significant action, which might include publishing press releases, engaging social media followers more, or creating new digital assets that you control.
A professional online reputation management firm can help navigate the situation. Their staff know what methods will most effectively diminish the impact of articles. You’ll want a firm on your side when a crisis occurs.
2. Searches Yielding Negative Content
Anytime an online search yields negative content within the first few pages, you should publish more positive content that hopefully outranks the negative. Most people only look at the first page of results. To be more thorough, however, you should see what the first five pages of results show.
Negative search results are generally addressed by publishing positive/neutral content and working to rank that content above the negative material. The negative content probably won’t go away — but fewer people will see it if you outrank it with other pieces.
An online reputation firm that also provides effective SEO services is especially helpful in this situation, as the firm will know how to effectively rank the content that you create.
3. Negative Product/Service Reviews
Negative reviews of your business’s products and/or services can have a devastating impact on sales. Product search results and personal decisions weigh reviews highly, and satisfied customers are less likely to leave positive reviews. The result is that negative ones have an oversize impact.
The best way to counter damaging reviews is to get more positive information about your product/service published. You might request reviews from satisfied customers, ask influencers to write their own reviews, share customer testimonials, or get better comments published.
An online reputation management firm will know how to get more positive reviews on various platforms/websites.
4. Your Content Doesn’t Rank
Your reputation doesn’t have to be harmed by negative information to need a makeover. If content you publish isn’t ranking, it’s not significantly helping your reputation. Whatever strategy is being used should be revised to create more effective content.
A reputation management firm that offers comprehensive SEO services will know how to create content that ranks well.
5. You’re Not Getting High-Profile Positions
Have your sights set on political office, C-level executive positions, or board seats? All of these have become increasingly public positions, and those in them must have a polished public profile.
If you’re being passed up for high-visibility positions that you’re qualified for, your online reputation might not be quite enough. Consult with a reputation management firm to see where you can emphasize holistic values that organizations want to promote.
Get Help With Your Online Reputation
Status Labs is a global online reputation management firm that’s been among the 5,000 fastest-growing companies in the United States for four years. The firm has quickly established its reputation as a preeminent reputation management service, and it can help you become widely recognized too.
5 Important Social Media Platforms That Will Be Big In 2023
