Social Media Reputation Management
Social Media Reputation Management refers to the process of monitoring and influencing an individual's or business's online presence across social networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. With a significant portion of the population actively using these platforms, the information shared can greatly impact personal and professional lives. For individuals, maintaining a positive social media reputation involves regularly checking what is publicly available about them, managing their privacy settings, and being mindful of the information they share online, as it can be permanent and widespread. Similarly, businesses must actively manage their online reputation, as it can significantly affect consumer perceptions and sales. This includes maintaining official profiles, responding promptly to negative feedback, and engaging with customers to demonstrate accountability. A strategic approach to reputation management can help mitigate negative impacts and even enhance customer loyalty, as studies suggest that positive interactions on social media can lead to improved reviews and increased profits. Overall, effective Social Media Reputation Management is essential in today’s digital age, where both individuals and businesses face the challenges and opportunities presented by their online presence.
Social Media Reputation Management
Social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are collectively referred to as social media. Social media plays a huge role in the modern world. According to the Pew Research Center, 72 percent of men and 76 percent of women with Internet access were using social networking websites in 2014. Facebook alone had more than 1.35 billion active users, with more than 850 million using the site every day.
Because of this unprecedented popularity, managing information presented through social media has become a priority for many individuals and businesses. Collectively, all of this information is referred to as one's social media reputation. An individual's employers, colleagues, authorities, friends, and family may easily access most information shared through social media. Some employers use social media reputation to screen job applicants. Additionally, businesses should be aware that consumers have the means to spread reviews of services and products to millions of people at an incredible speed. Social media also provides businesses and consumers with new ways to directly interact.
Managing Personal Reputations
Social media has the potential to make a great deal of personal information visible to anyone with an Internet connection. This information may include photographs, addresses, phone numbers, work history, personal relationships, political views, criminal records, and even medical records. Once posted online, personal information may be difficult or impossible to remove. If the information has already spread through social media, the task of removing it becomes exponentially more difficult.
Experts suggest several steps to manage a social media reputation. First, be aware of one's current reputation. Profiles on common social media outlets should be monitored regularly. Individuals should periodically search their names to check what others have posted about them. Next, individuals need to learn to manage all this information. One must understand what information is safe to share online and what should remain private. Details of one's personal life, such as addresses, personal photographs, and any personal problems, should probably be kept offline. If for some reason these details must be online, individuals should make sure the privacy settings are as high as possible to avoid unintentionally sharing this information.
Finally, and potentially most importantly, individuals need to learn to present a positive image online. To do this, treat everything posted as both public and permanent. Anything communicated digitally—either posted or sent privately—has the potential to be discovered and made public at a later date.
As for permanency, many individuals fail to realize that most posts on the Internet are archived and can be traced. Even if one deletes something that has been posted, the post may be stored somewhere else online.
Managing Business Reputations
Almost every business has a social media reputation. If properly managed, this reputation has the potential to be extremely beneficial. If improperly managed, however, social media use may cause a business irreparable damage. Businesses should monitor their social media reputations in the same way individuals do.
First, maintain active, official profiles on popular social media outlets. These profiles should contain as much relevant information about the business as possible. If a business lacks such profiles it will not have the web presence necessary to combat harmful misinformation.
Businesses should track when they, their products, their employees, or their competitors are mentioned online. If done effectively, the business should be able to use social media to directly respond to any negative press. Experts say that to minimize damage effectively, businesses need to respond to negative press quickly, in a polite, thoughtful manner, and admit fault when appropriate.
Businesses can take advantage of social media to communicate directly with their customers. At the same time, this makes businesses more accountable to their customers and gives businesses a direct and public way to respond to individual complaints. Many consumers in the digital age have high standards for businesses and have come to expect a response from businesses in general. Companies that have failed to respond to their customers on social media have been accused of not caring about their customers. Unhappy customers not only take their business elsewhere, but also may spread negative reviews through social media.
In contrast to this, businesses that use social media to resolve individual customers' complaints may benefit from a positive social media reputation. The Retail Consumer Report on this topic showed that when customers who posted a negative review received a direct reply to their complaint, 34 percent of them deleted the negative review and 33 percent even posted a new, positive review. Several studies have confirmed that negative social media reviews correlate with a decrease in overall profits, while positive views correlate with an increase in profits.
Bibliography
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