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Social media and general marketing can often be categorized as separate entities, but they actually work in tandem far more often than people think. Social media, in particular, has become an increasingly influential force in branding and content marketing efforts. With over 500 million social media users across the major platforms in the United States alone, marketers and social strategists alike can’t afford to ignore the influence of social media on buyer behavior.

How are consumers using social media? 

Generally speaking, many users search the internet and various social platforms to find and interact with brands they like – and brands they’re considering purchasing from. This type of intent is extremely important, as it means users are nearing the end of the sales funnel and are likely to convert. 

A consumer looking to buy some shoes for a company holiday party, for example, already knows what they want. They’ve probably already narrowed down their search to a few specific brands, and are looking for more information to help them make their decision. Thus, social proof in the form of a review or a post from a trusted celebrity is up to 12 times more trusted than bland sales copy or product language on your landing pages. 

However, social proof can be a double-edged sword. If that same consumer puts a specific shoe retailer into Google and finds a myriad of negative results for the brand name, they’re far less likely to purchase from that brand. Let’s look at a real-world example for some context. Coffee retailer Starbucks is one of the largest chains in the world. They throw millions upon millions of dollars into marketing and advertising every year. But what happened when they made headlines for a racial profiling incident in one of their stores? 

Footage of the incident went viral on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, forcing Starbucks to close all 8,000 U.S. stores for a mandatory afternoon of racial bias training. The temporary closure cost the global retailer an estimated $12.4 million in lost sales – for that afternoon only. The figure doesn’t account for any sales losses resulting from the continuation of the news cycle, or the loss of new and returning customers to its competitors. 

What is reputational marketing?

Brands like Starbucks depend on reputational marketing in order to best control their brand image. Reputational marketing, also known as online reputation management (ORM) is a collection of strategies that blend together PR, marketing, social media, and SEO best practices in order to help a brand secure their branded search results. This is especially important because according to a study on click-through rates by Advanced Web Ranking, the majority of branded clicks happen on the first half of the first page of Google results.

You may be CEO of a Fortune 500 company looking to bounce back from a series of false or negative news articles, or an Ecommerce retailer struggling to manage online reviews. Whoever you are, whatever your brand, your online reputation has a massive impact on your revenue. Thus, you’ll want to invest in the right strategies to move the needle.

A helpful way to look at ORM as a strategy is to look at the first page of Google results. Try googling any major brand or celebrity you can think of. What shows up on the first page of branded results? Typically, you’ll see a mixture of web and social profiles, trending news, or other third-party content (such as a review site like Yelp or Trustpilot). The only results on page one that you can directly influence or control are ones that belong to your brand. If you leave your branded search results bare, you’re essentially leaving a vacuum to be filled by third-party content. 

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Let’s take a look at some more actionable reputational marketing strategies your team can use today to manage the brand and mitigate sales losses.

Land & expand with social profiles

If your business doesn’t claim as many official profiles as possible, they risk giving up page one real estate to third-party content or having “copycat” accounts pop up. To avoid brand ambiguity or fake accounts misrepresenting the brand, identify key platforms and engage your customers on them. Depending on your industry or business goals, the types of social profiles you’re on might change, but here are a few basic profiles you’ll want to claim in branded search:

• Your official domain (www.example.com) 
• Any common misspellings of your domain or alternate web addresses. These can be redirected to your main site. 
• A Facebook page
• A Twitter profile
• A LinkedIn page (hey, you’re probably hiring, right?)

If your brand is writing content for sites like Forbes and microblogs like Medium (which it should, but we’ll touch on that a bit later on), you can typically claim profiles on those sites as well, either for the brand or for a company executive. All of these profiles have the potential to rank in searches for your brand name. Therefore, these digital assets are one of the most important tools in your arsenal. Google typically prefers to serve up “official” branded content over third-party results that mention your brand if it can’t determine the credibility of the source.

Supercharge customer service

The world’s biggest brands can’t possibly monitor the web on their own for mentions of their companies. They use social tools like this one that are equipped with content monitoring APIs. These tools enable them to “listen” or monitor the internet and social networking sites for mentions of their brands, competitors and relevant hashtags. This lets customer service representatives respond to complaints and comments even if they aren’t directly tagged and enables them to join trending conversations. 

Now, let’s talk about the elephant in the room – online reviews. They can be a brand’s best friend or its worst enemy. The reality is, they’re an important part of the purchase process for consumers. Spiegel Research Center concluded that a whopping 95% of shoppers read online reviews before deciding to purchase a product. But brands have little to no actual influence over the content on these sites. Their credibility cannot be ignored, as most branded searches for retail and Ecommerce companies include review sites somewhere on page one. 

So, what can you do about them? For starters, look at online reviews as a way to build a bridge of trust with consumers. Your brand can display third-party reviews on your site as a badge of credibility for consumers that can keep them on your site rather than bouncing away to check up on your reputation. While you can’t incentivize a review, there are a few things you can do in order to increase the likelihood that a customer will leave a positive review for your brand.

• Design your website so the process of leaving a review is as intuitive as possible. People don’t like to click endlessly!
• Reach out to clients and customers and gather their feedback. These can be developed into testimonials you can also leverage to increase trust. 
• Integrate reviews into your email marketing campaigns, especially for recent purchases. 

The number one rule about online reviews: Be proactive. No one likes to receive a bad review. But if you do nothing, a bad review will just sit there, giving off a perception of your brand that may not be correct. It may even snowball into several bad reviews, or several dozen. Your customer service team should respond instantly, apologize for the mistake, and go above and beyond to make it right. This way, you can turn the tide in your favor.

Create compelling, functional content

It’s not enough to claim branded profiles. You have to actually maintain them. That’s where your social team can lean on your marketing team to help ideate and create branded content that gets published across your profiles. Your content marketing strategy has the ability to establish your brand as a thought leader, increase engagement and leads, and even build up consumer trust. 

Think about the types of content you want to produce. Video, for example, is one of the fastest-growing mediums on social. Statista reported that 85% of U.S. users watched online video content monthly on any of their devices. If your business sells software, it may want to produce explainer videos that help break down their product offering, or highlight one of their customers using its products in a unique way. 

Users also respond well to formats like podcasts, infographics, GIFs and memes. By diversifying your content, your business stands a chance of increasing its overall brand awareness. Your company can also write articles for known publications in the industry, to show consumers that it is a thought leader. Thought leadership articles stand a good chance of being served up in branded search results as well. 

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Showcase Corporate Social Responsibility

Companies with purpose-driven brands can capture millennial audiences and generate positive brand mentions that help keep negative content off page one. Purpose-driven brands also help forge bonds of loyalty with customers. This priceless attribute is supported by data: According to a 2018 study on purpose by Cone/Porter Novelli, 73% of consumers said they’d be willing to defend a purpose-driven brand if it was spoken badly of in the press. 

Your brand should stick with socially responsible programs that are authentic to your business, otherwise you risk coming across as fake to consumers. Patagonia is a great example of a business that holds corporate social responsibility (CSR) at the heart of its business. An outdoor clothing retailer, the first page of search results for the brand are peppered with headlines of their sustainability programs. This makes sense to consumers because it’s tied to the business. Their CSR efforts are ingrained into their website and social media, and it’s because of this that their online reputation as a socially responsible business is secure.

Closing thoughts

Building up and maintaining digital assets can keep your social team pretty busy, but it also provides a healthy level of protection in branded search results. This can lead to a productive partnership between social media, marketing, and customer service teams that ultimately is beneficial for the consumer.

About the Author: Maggie is a New-York based content marketing professional who writes extensively about reputation management and search engine optimization.