Council Post: Four Powerful Ways To Build Your Brand Reputation

By John Brackett, founder of Smash Balloon, the world’s leading social media feed plug-ins for WordPress.

In today’s digital landscape, your reputation is everything. Consumers often look for trusted brands with a track record of providing excellent customer service and delivering stellar products. 

If you’re virtually unknown, there’s a good chance that many potential customers will never find your website. To make matters worse, the people who discover your website will have no idea whether they should trust you with their hard-earned money. When a consumer questions a business’s reputation even for a second, there’s a good chance they will leave without completing their order. 

The best way to build your reputation is with your website and through the community. Today, I will share four powerful ways you can start building your reputation, even if you’re a brand-new startup.

Tell your story.

The first thing you’ll want to do is tell your story. Consumers tend to connect with brands when they understand why the owner started their business. Think carefully about why you decided to sell your product or service and how it personally affects your life. 

Create an “about” page that puts your values and story on display for everyone to see. New visitors will likely check this page out first when they land on your site. If you can impress them here, you can expect to see more conversions and engagement. 

Imagine what a new visitor would look for when clicking your website’s about page. There’s a good chance they will stick around if your story resonates with their pain points or goals. These connections are the foundation of your reputation. People are more willing to trust someone if they know they’ve experienced and conquered similar issues. 

Your story should span beyond your website. You can include the information from your about page on your social media profiles or even make a video showing your story for YouTube.

Write high-quality content.

Do not underestimate the power of content marketing as it relates to your brand reputation. Once a visitor makes it to your blog, it’s your job to impress them with your content. I suggest writing plenty of evergreen content, which can help improve your SEO ranking. As a result, more people will find your business, and your reputation could slowly improve. 

It’s also vital that you include essential statistics throughout your evergreen content and average blog posts. Consumers see this information as helpful and accurate, especially when it’s sourced from a highly reputable website. 

We also suggest looking for guest posting opportunities. You can find plenty of businesses and publications in your niche that are more than willing to accept guest posts. The key is to find brands with similar types of content and target audiences.

If you can write a compelling guest post about a relevant industry topic, people will turn to you when they have questions in the future. As your reputation as a content creator develops, more people will become aware of your products and services. 

Stay active on social media.

Without a doubt, social media is one of the best ways to show that you are a reputable member of the community. Over 3.6 billion people currently use social media, and that number is expected to grow to 4.4 billion by 2025. Business owners can get more website traffic and conversions by having a strong social media presence. You’ll want to find out where your target audience spends their time and start working on your accounts. 

If you know that most of your audience is on Facebook, you should consider creating a social media marketing plan to share popular posts from your blog to social media. You don’t want to overdo it and annoy your subscribers, but you can benefit from sharing three to five posts per day. 

You should also spend time talking to your subscribers about their pain points and goals. If you’re there to help them work through their issue, they will likely consider your brand when they run into future problems. It’s also possible to build your reputation by answering questions in niche-specific groups. For instance, if you have an email marketing SaaS, you could hang out in popular email marketing groups on Facebook and answer questions with resources that lead them to your website or an off-site solution.

These small interactions add up, and before long, people will start to see you as a reputable source when they have questions. 

Learn and grow from feedback.

Finally, reputable brands always learn from feedback and grow. We’ve all seen business owners turn customers away from their websites because they refused to make accommodations. The truth is, you’re not going to please everyone. However, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t listen to what people have to say about your website, product and brand. 

When you notice many people leaving the same kind of feedback, it’s time to make a change. Businesses often change throughout the years, and this is mostly due to customer feedback. You can learn more about the needs of your target audience by reaching out to existing customers. Use your website, social media and email to ask consumers for feedback. People are usually happy to answer these types of surveys if they are genuinely interested in the brand. 

The ability to learn and grow from feedback humanizes your brand while helping you build trust with your audience. When people see that you listened to what they said and made changes, they are likely to give you more feedback in the future. 

Final Thoughts

The process of building your brand reputation is time-consuming, and everyone’s path can look a bit different. But it’s clear that a firm understanding of your target audience is the key to building your reputation.