Every review shapes the narrative of your brand. And in today’s market, where a bad review can mean the difference between a won and a lost sale, online reputation isn't just a buzzword—it's the heartbeat of your enterprise.
While reputation management matters for all businesses, big and small, managing your enterprise / corporate reputation comes with unique challenges - usually related to a realistic scale across multiple locations.
In this post, we’ll delve into the intricacies of enterprise reputation management and provide strategies for positioning your brand as the right choice in a competitive market:
Enterprise-level companies are large, established organizations with complex operations, distributed teams and a significant online presence/brand reputation to manage.
The definition of enterprise reputation management (ERM) is the practice of monitoring and improving your reputation across all online channels at a corporate level. It involves a range of activities, including:
All businesses need to invest in their reputations to be successful. For enterprises with a high public profile and diverse range of reputation goals, reputation management looks a little different.
The main difference between ERM and SMB reputation management is centralization or the standardization of reputation management efforts across all locations and departments. But, there are a few other factors to consider when determining your strategy:
A precise and targeted reputation management strategy (one that focuses on specific review channels or social media) often works for SMBs. Enterprise businesses, however, need to take a more proactive and large-scale approach.
Brand consistency is key to successfully managing your enterprise and building a positive online reputation.
Investing in a scalable reputation management strategy for your enterprise will make it easier to align individual locations, onsite teams, sales channels and customer touchpoints with your brand standards.
Establishing uniform processes and protocols for reputation management ensures consistent branding and messaging across all locations.
Internally, any technology or tactics used to track reputation metrics–such as reviews, social media performance, competitive stats or emerging trends–should be the same across the board.
Enterprises deal with higher review numbers and volumes of data. They also require multiple users and admins. Ensuring uniformity across locations (via standardized review response tactics, escalation procedures, brand guidelines, etc.) mitigates any miscommunication and makes it easier to glean insights from your review data.
Externally, ERM is unique in that a damaged reputation for one location can affect the entire company's bottom line, leading to lost customers, decreased sales and weakened credibility across the board.
While it can be difficult for an enterprise to bounce back from a reputation crisis, it’s not impossible. A unified approach to your reputation management strategy will make it easier to rebuild lost trust in the event of bad press.
While many SMBs manage their online reputations through location-specific reporting, enterprise businesses must operate differently.
With diverse sources of feedback from various locations and platforms, it’s often easier for enterprises to measure performance via single-point reporting.
Single-point reporting offers the most efficient method to gauge your enterprise’s reputation performance. It provides a more comprehensive overview of your brand's online reputation at scale, allowing you to highlight individual locations and compare them across your entire organization.
Further, single-point reporting makes it easy to identify trends/track performance metrics like review volume, brand sentiment, and areas for improvement across your brand.
Reputation management is essential for all businesses. For enterprise corporations especially, investing in a comprehensive, strategic approach is key to maintaining brand consistency and building trust with your customers.
Empowering your teams to proactively monitor, manage and improve your online reputation can protect your brand and drive growth in a competitive market.
To learn more about what a reputation management strategy can do for your brand, check out Widewail’s Enterprise Reputation Management Service and Solutions.