Online reputation management is a global term, which means how your brand appears to others online. For example, if someone searches for your branded search term, what will they find about you? The same applies to your name; think about human resources managers looking to hire new talent. They might not pick you as a top candidate based on what they find online.
It is always best to be very active on social media and online in general. Sometimes the first instinct people have when they do get an online attack is they close down all accounts and want to be inexistent on the web. But that is actually the worse course of action. Chances are there will be someone writing negative information about you at some time. In order to make sure the negative does not rank higher than the positive, you have to have a strong online presence.
That means be active on social media, blog as often as possible, collaborate with influencers and this will lead to the public knowing more about you and what you represent. To truly understand social media and how it works, first you have to understand the terminology. When you publish a post on social media, the people who will be able to see them are your followers or friends. This is also known as reach. Let’s say you have 1,000 followers on your Instagram, your potential reach is 1,000 people. To know the engagement rate of your profile you can use Instagram account stats tool.
Once someone likes your post, their friends will be able to see what you liked. That is known as exposure. It is calculated by the number of followers your followers have. So if the people who engaged with your content end up being 36 people, the total numbers of friends these 36 people have will be your exposure.
Every social media platform works differently and has different terminology. That is why you should first be more familiar with each of the accounts and then start building a presence. As you may have noticed, there are a lot of different social media sites out there so be sure to focus first on the ones where your potential and current customers spend most of their time on.
It is even a good idea to understand just how many mentions you get online. Mentions are the number of times people type your branded name for a particular post. This way you can see what people’s sentiments are for your brand.