Manage Your Brand's E-reputation and Influence

Discover Online Reputations

Before getting to the heart of the matter, let’s define a few key concepts!

Online Reputation

Brand image, brand awareness, brand reputation, brand e-reputation... Generally, learners tend to confuse them. Online reputation is just one type of reputation, transposed digitally to the Internet. Reputation can be defined as the shared, provisional and socially localized representation of a company. It is the image that we have of a brand and our perception of it. This perception is based on a whole range of factors: any experience we may already have, the beliefs, feelings, or knowledge we have about a brand.

On the Internet, we often think about e-reputation as representing all the information that can be found about a company, for example using search engines. If I type the name of a company into Google or on the social networks, the first results will give me information about it. The entire digital identity of a company will form its e-reputation. This is an increasingly important issue for companies, with digital technology now taking on a predominant role, particularly in the consumer's purchasing journey.

Digital Life VS Reality

This can be seen quite easily just by looking at a typical customer's purchase journey. Ten years ago, there was a real separation between the Internet and the physical world, between digital life and reality. The only links that existed were automatic behaviors: you'd go online to learn about the company, type the product into Google to find information, and then go buy it in a store.

Today, we see a much stronger intertwining of the digital and the physical. For example, in a store, a customer can scan items, I can go on Yuka to look up the composition of a product. If you're buying wine, you can go to Vivino to check other customers' opinions on a particular wine. The Internet is also obviously used for price comparisons.

This intertwining and these new consumer behaviors reinforce the power of e-reputation, as searching for information on the Internet often replaces spontaneous purchasing.

The Impact of E-commerce

Apart from the close links between the two, we note that e-commerce is booming. According to Statista, e-commerce sales have been multiplied by 2.7 worldwide between 2015 and 2021,  growing from $1.8 trillion to approximately $4.9 trillion. E-commerce also offers consumers the opportunity to learn more before they buy. Marketplaces themselves often even have review sections to help guide new customers. Buyer feedback is extremely important: if a product has lots of negative reviews, fewer customers will be likely to buy it.

Let’s clarify all this to understand how to act on these elements. We’ll start with the most obvious one: your brand awareness.

Awareness

If I ask you to name cell phone brands, which ones can you tell me without thinking? Apple or Samsung, surely! These are brands with a high spontaneous awareness.

Now, if I list the brands LG, Huawei, Alcatel, and Sony, you recognize some of them, right? This is prompted awareness. So you recognize these brands in a list but not necessarily to name them spontaneously.

Finally, if I mention Archos or Crosscall, I bet they won’t mean anything to you (they are phones made in France 🇫🇷).

Online, your awareness corresponds to your level of visibility, whether in specific communities (social networks, specialized forums, etc.), on search engines, or on sites and blogs related to your field of expertise.

So how do you go from no awareness (or almost none) to more? To put it simply, by advertising and communicating! Well, not in any old way, which is where your  brand image comes in. 

Image

The image of a product, brand, or company is how consumers perceive it. This perception may be based on: 

• Objective criteria: For example, a high-end product must be expensive to conform to the classic image of a luxury product.

• Subjective criteria: For example, a product may be perceived as old-fashioned or outdated without clearly defined criteria because it doesn’t fit the generation’s codes.

Brand image answers the following questions: “Who represents my company?”, “What is its history?”, “What are its values?” etc.

Since everyone has a different perception of brands, they understand the same story in various ways. That’s why we define three levels of image.

1. The Real Image

The real image is a reflection of your brand identity. It is the accurate representation of your values, principles, corporate culture, and weaknesses (as you know them)!

2. The Desired Image

From this real image, you will build a desired one. This ideal image is what you would like to project to your customers. So, you’ll work on your brand identity to correspond to what you want to convey.

3. The Perceived Image

The perceived image is how your customers see you. It is based on the various visible characteristics, such as: 

• Your name.

• Your visual identity (your logo or graphics colors).

• Your brand signature.

• The packaging of your products/services.

• The way your employees communicate.

• Experiences with your brand.

• Etc.

Each person will have their own perception of these different elements based on their personal experience, cultural references, and background.

A brand’s goal is to reduce the gap between the desired and perceived images.

You know your desired image because you define it. However, the perceived image is another matter.

Moreover, don’t equate perceived image with corporate reputation.

A reputation is built on objective criteria (the brand’s actions) and subjective criteria (consumer perception).

A person’s opinion of a brand is multiplied by their awareness of it. Therefore, the more a company is known, the more it risks negative opinions.

Are you still following this?

Here’s a diagram to summarize what you just learned:

The company defines its brand image and activates various levers through marketing and communications to address its target audience.

Consumers receive the information and form an opinion. They create a reputation when they share and distribute an opinion.

Depending on the impression, awareness can grow or not.

After measuring its awareness and evaluating its reputation, the company can rework its brand image to match its desired image. 

The circle is complete!

The Differences Between Reputation and Online Reputation

Reputation monitoring is a major task for a brand. It allows the company to ensure the desired image matches the customers’ perception while increasing awareness.

This is easier said than done. There has been a whole new playground since the birth of the internet. The company now also has to manage its online reputation.

Online reputation is the social evaluation of an individual, a brand, or an organization by internet users based on the information distributed about it on the web, messages left by stakeholders (customers, employees), or traces left involuntarily.

A reputation encompasses an online reputation. However, an online reputation has some specific characteristics, which you can see in this chart:

Over to You!

Do you know what comes up online when you search your company’s name? Try it out!

• What are the first 10 links that appear? 

• Do you have control over the content being delivered? 

• Browse the various tabs on Google: images, videos, news, and shopping. Then read the reviews left by users. 

• Now consider a potential consumer who doesn't know you but wants information about you. What will their opinion be about you?

See the Benefit of Carrying out Your Online Reputation Audit

So, what did you find during this first search?

Remember that these initial search elements are the first impression you convey to people looking for you. And there are a lot of them!

In addition to reassuring and securing customer loyalty, a good online reputation will allow you to attract new prospects. 

Your online reputation doesn’t only matter to your prospects and customers. Also, think about:

• Your investors: Reputation significantly impacts the value of an investment. According to the Havas agency, 35% of a brand’s market value depends directly on its reputation.

• Your partners and service providers: They are aware of societal concerns, and they know that the bad reputation of one of their partners can harm them too. 

• Your future candidates and employees: A recent study (from Glassdoor) has shown that 84% of candidates are likely to research company reviews and ratings before applying for a job. A company with a bad reputation will mean 55% of people avoid applying. Although, 62% of job seekers said that their perception of a company improved upon seeing their response to online reviews. To recruit talent, you need to work on your employer image. 

Online reputation is the “trust capital” of your company. If it is affected, the company can have real consequences: losing customers, being overtaken by competitors, or even generating a PR crisis. 

To mitigate these risks - or at least prevent them - an online reputation audit is essential.

Let’s Recap!

• Awareness is the fact of being known (or not) by consumers. 

• Brand image is the perception these same consumers have of your brand due to various levers (packaging, advertising campaigns, visual identity, etc.).

• Reputation is the favorable or unfavorable opinion of your audience as a whole. 

• Online reputation is the trace left online by various players (customers, partners, opinion leaders, prescribers, consumers, employees, etc.). 

• An online reputation audit enables you to list and analyze all this data. 

Convinced? In the next chapter, we will look at the elements to include in your online reputation audit. And above all, where to start!