Social media acts as an effective platform for consumers and users to publicly voice their opinions, air views and post comments – both negative and positive. This obviously can both help and hurt a company. You may like it or not, the networking populace need not always have to justify the statements made or even explain the motive behind them.

The onus lies with a service provider or producer to counter the comments and set things right. This is where online reputation management comes into play.

Regular monitoring of the Web

Here are the few vital areas of the entire process:

• You may not be aware of each and every reference or mentions made of your brand, product or services on the Web. Ideally, you should hire experts to help you unravel them. They will employ reputation management tools and techniques to ease the burden on you.
• What holds the key to online reputation management is regularly monitoring the Web – social networks, forums, review sites and blogs. Remember, monitoring the minutest mentions of a business and a business owner is a continual activity, aimed at alerting smaller businesses about any negative feedback right away.
• Once you come across specific mentions of your brand with the experts’ help, frame appropriate replies and take corrective actions, if required. Quick steps taken in the nick of time can nip negative publicity in the bud. For example, Google Alerts can be activated to inform you whenever specific key phrases/words about you or your business are noticed in Google searches.

Ways of responding to the criticism

At a broader level, the most important aspect of the online reputation management process is to understand what people feel about your brand. This is where the skill of dealing with any kind of criticism comes to your rescue. There will be occasions when you won’t necessarily agree with the feedback regarding your products/services. To deal with such a situation, keep the following things in mind:

1. You should gracefully respond to the criticism, if you think it is constructive in nature with a positive response, though you tend to disagree with the suggestions made by alert consumers. This will help you build solid customer loyalty and lasting trust.
2. Always make it a point to thank the customers who come up with constructive ideas on how you may improve upon your services.
   Periodic monitoring of Web provide a checklist of the relevant results, involving a pertinent customer’s comment or mentions of your brand on review sites, such as CitySearch, TripAdvisor, or Yelp.

You need not feel disheartened by unflattering remarks. In fact, treat this as an opportunity to build bridges with complaining consumers.