When parents send their kids to school, they begin to notice that while their parenting and values do have an influence over their little ones, the teachers, peers and general environment they grow up in at school has a major effect too. In effect, the world raises our children just as much as we do.
The same can be said for business. You can market your business a certain way, stick to your values, build your reputation, but sometimes people speak for you just as much as you speak for yourself. This can be an issue if you’re not careful, especially if you let certain narratives go unchecked, which they can through no fault of your own.
Well, in this post, we hope to help you shift the narrative back in your favor, should other people do the talking for your business. Let’s consider that, below:
Make Your Website The Informational Resource Hub For Your Brand
Your website is pretty much the one place online where you have complete control over what people read about your business, so it makes sense to treat it like your home base for setting the record straight. When someone hears something about your company and wants to verify it, they’re probably going to end up on your site eventually, and that’s your chance to assert the information that is true. So if there’s a rumour going around that this year you’re not going to attend a trade convention like you usually do, you can easily put that to rest.
You don’t need to begin cramming every page with defensive explanations or over-the-top marketing speak, but making sure the essential information is easy to find and genuinely helpful is wise. You can use the best web designers to help format this info in your favor, too.
Respond To Reviews Good & Bad Alike
Online reviews can easily change how people think about your business, sometimes more than your actual marketing efforts do. Thankfully, people don’t just read the reviews themselves, they also pay attention to how you handle them, and that can say just as much about your character as the original complaint or compliment.
Responding to positive reviews shows that you do care about your customers and don’t take their support for granted, or are always looking to convert a poor experience. If you’re shownto be thoughtful you can gently push back against unfair critique, which is another benefit of responding well.
Have Obvious, Clear Press Release Channels
If news about your business starts spreading, journalists and bloggers are going to look for official statements or contact information, and if they can’t find it easily, they’ll just go with whatever information they already have. That’s how incomplete or outdated stories end up getting published and then repeated by other outlets, as many have found out.
Having a simple press section on your website with recent news, official statements, and clear contact information for media inquiries is wise, because it can help in how accurately your story gets told. Your marketing or PR team will surely appreciate not having to put out a fire that could have been prevented beforehand.With this advice, we hope that you get to do most of the talking for your own business. You’re the authority, after all.
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