Reputation and image management are important for businesses that desire wealth, trustworthiness, and entrepreneurial longevity. The good news is you don’t have to be a genius to keep your company alive online. Just follow these simple steps.

Be seen on search results

In his book on online reputation management, Tyler Collins, a digital marketing expert for Fortune 500 companies, mentions the importance of a company’s search results that appear after pressing enter. These results make up a company’s reputation online. 

If you want people to notice you, your organization should appear on the first 10 spots of the first page of the search results. That page should also have a variety of related content about your business like positive reviews, press releases, and customer testimonials that contribute to your credibility. 

Paint a clear picture of your brand

For entrepreneurs, it is best to establish a good online reputation before launching a business. Create a memorable brand, company name, and slogan to help your organization land on the top 10 search results. Thoroughly research potential brand names to ensure that the one you choose has no negative connotation. 

Get only the best

Employ the best people. Hire trustworthy key executives. Customers are not only interested in your products, but they also want to know the people behind them. Make sure that those leading the organization have a clean online reputation. 

To do this, create short biographies for each executive to help boost your company’s search results. Aim for positive media coverage whenever possible. Everything from blog posts to press releases and memorable quotes will enhance the company’s image. 

Don’t be shy to ask for help 

When the going gets rough, turn to specialists to maintain your company’s image. Remember that first impressions last, so investing in expert advice is vital in creating and maintaining your virtual image. 

We hope you find these four online reputation tips useful. If you need more information on creating a credible online image or want to learn how technology can create a strong online image, give us a call. Our experts are ready to assist you. 

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Social media has proven to be a powerful promotional tool in its most basic form — and even more so if deployed strategically and with enhancement tools. Read on to learn more about apps and other tools that can boost your social media strategy.

Having great content on your site is the magnet that attracts visitors. However, when there is too much competition on the most popular platforms, it can be difficult to drive results based on social media reputation alone. To reap rewards from social media marketing, you need to devise new methods and augment your strategy with social media tools to stand out from the crowd.

Meetup

Meetup is a great site to plan face-to-face meetings with people with similar interests. Does your company sell hiking, camping, and backpacking products? Organize a meetup for the people in your community to go on a hike. You really can’t get a better customer interaction than engaging with them through the activities they love.

Eventbrite

Eventbrite is a formal events planning platform that helps you organize, plan, and market your event, along with an added bonus: recruitment potential. You can easily market yourself as an expert in an industry to either attract freelancers or educate potential customers about the problems you aim to solve for them.

Answer Forums

Popular answer forums such as Yahoo! Answers, Quora, and even certain Reddit sub-channels such as /r/askmeanything or /r/whatisthisthing let netizens crowdsource information about certain industries or products. Many companies use these to promote their brand by answering questions, most especially those that are within their expertise. This helps establish credibility and organic connection with prospective clients.

Disqus

Disqus is a great way to facilitate dialogue while protecting privacy and upholding etiquette and other standards. You can embed Disqus onto your online content such as videos or blog articles so that people can voice out their concerns or opinions but in a way that helps prevent flaming (the act of deliberately insulting or provoking other people online). Disqus lets moderators monitor and regulate responses closely so that the conversation remains civil and productive.

Slack

Most people who use the messaging app Slack see it as a way to communicate with friends and coworkers. However, with a little creativity, you can join conversations from all over the world to boost your online presence. There are countless channels devoted to industries, categories, hobbies and more. All you have to do is insert yourself and your company into the conversation to get people talking about your business!

It’s hard to deny that technology has made our lives more complicated. It can feel a little overwhelming at times. Thankfully, the answer is simple: partner with a managed technology provider. For a never-ending source of information on reputation and social media management, get in touch with us today.

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Instagram has gone from an app that shares puppy photos with vintage-themed filters, to a marketing tool that savvy businesses are taking advantage of. The photo-sharing giant has a billion monthly active users, making it an ideal online marketplace. If you know how to create and promote compelling content on Instagram, you can get more from it than just photogenic filters.

Ensure your posts are shoppable

This simply means providing a convenient path where your followers can buy the products posted on your page. With the right Instagram tool, you can direct users to your online shop where they can make an actual purchase. Instagram is, arguably, not the best eCommerce platform to use if you depend on clickable media, but if you know how to tweak the app to your advantage — and provide an attractive presentation of your products — you can turn likes into sales.

Give away discount codes or coupons

Encourage followers to engage with you and share content with incentives such as discount codes or coupons. You can do this by running contests with an interesting concept, cool prizes, and a sharing or voting element that encourages participants to share your content with their friends. Better yet, engage followers with user-generated content via photo contests, resulting in free promotion for your brand.

Come up with a strong call to action (CTA)

Instagram doesn’t exactly have the most mobile-friendly CTAs, but don’t let this prevent you from sending followers to your sales page. Whether it’s telling them to go to the link on your bio or simply incorporating a shoppable Instagram feature on your page, specific instructions on how to buy or learn more about your product can spell the difference between making a sale and being ignored.

Post frequently and make the most of all available tools

Post photos using stylish filters, create snappy and quirky videos, or let your followers take a friendly behind-the-scenes peek at your organization using the Stories feature. Come up with a catchy and relatable caption that encourages participation and engages your core audience. Also important: always use hashtags on your posts. Any business Instagrammer worth his or her salt knows that a simple hashtag can pave the way for other users to reach your content and, ultimately, buy your product.

Repost content from brands in your niche

There may be instances when you won’t need to create your own Instagram content (especially if you lack the time to produce your own). Other accounts may already be successful in their efforts to engage your target audience, and there’s nothing wrong with reposting content from similar brands as part of your strategy to earn exposure for your account, as long as you ask permission and give credit where it’s due.

Search for brands in Instagram that inspire you and your target audience but are not direct competitors. You can use hashtags to help narrow the search and display the most relevant accounts. Follow these brands, and save any share-worthy posts in a collection with the bookmark icon.

When you find an Instagram post that is worth sharing, either comment on the post or send a private message to the account, and mention that you like the content and you think your followers will enjoy it too. Ask for permission to share the post on your feed, and assure the owner you’ll give them proper credit.

With some creativity, visual flair, and a well-defined strategy, these tips can help transform your Instagram feed into an attractive online sales generator. If you need further advice on how you can make the most of your social media presence, contact us and we’ll be happy to help.

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Whether your business is hit with a brief power outage or by a natural disaster, any kind of interruption to your organization’s productivity cuts into your profits. A business continuity plan (BCP) is critical to ensuring your organization stays open. Here are some of the key strategies many companies rely on.

Backup your data, applications, and servers

Today, companies are more dependent than ever on IT and data. If these critical components suddenly become inaccessible, there’s little chance your business will survive. Regularly backing up these elements ensures they can be restored quickly in the event of a disaster, security breach, or damage to IT equipment.

In the past, most businesses would create backups on-site and with tape backups, but today more and more businesses are using the cloud, and here are several reasons why:

• Cloud backups are affordable and cost much less than onsite backups
  Backups can be automated, therefore saving you time
• Cloud providers usually back up your data to multiple locations (so if one of their facilities goes down, your backups are still safe at another site).
• Backups can be accessed from anywhere, whether it’s at an employee’s home or at an alternate office.
• If you need to access them, backups can be restored quickly

Virtualize servers and desktops

When you virtualize your servers or desktops, they can be used at any location – be it at your workplace, home, or a coffee shop in the Bahamas. In terms of business continuity, this is useful in case your main office suddenly becomes unusable due to hostile weather conditions.

Have a backup power supply

No electricity means zero productivity and money down the drain. Having a backup power supply will ensure that when the electricity goes down, your employees can continue working.

A good solution is an uninterrupted power supply (UPS), which gives employees a fair amount of time to finish their work as if nothing ever happened. Also, if you have a server room, a UPS will ensure your vital servers stay cool.

Utilize social media

Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, or Google+, most people are on at least one social network these days. And if there is any kind of outage or disaster, social media is usually one of the first places customers, colleagues, staff, and vendors will check the status of your business. So when it comes to business continuity, keep at least one social media account active to keep your customers and followers informed.

Implement unified communications

Unified communication (UC) creates a virtualized communication infrastructure. That means instead of your communication tools – like phones, instant messaging, and video calls – all being stored locally at your workplace, you can access them anywhere. So if your office is inaccessible, employees can still use your phones and other communication tools from their homes. What’s more, UC tools can route business calls to your employees’ smartphones. That means they’ll never miss an important call, even if they’re not in the office.

Keep in mind that these are only the first few items you have to address in your business continuity plan. You’ll also need to consider things like training employees and having a communications plan for informing stakeholders. If you want more advice on these areas or need top-class business continuity tools, contact us today.

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