No matter how much you’ve invested into building a solid brand for your business, the fact is that what you say about yourself is only part of the branding equation. What others say about your brand is actually more important than what you say about yourself.
Social media, testimonials and reviews, and 3rd party industry site rankings are a few of the major public perception influencers of your brand.
For example, let’s say you’re in the business of selling and servicing vacuum cleaners. Part of your brand differentiation – what you say to the public — is that you have exceptional customer service. (Side note: please, please don’t use that as your actual Unique Selling Proposition!)
Regardless of what you say about your customer service (or any other brand differentiation), potential new customers are not just going to take your word for it. They’ll be looking for testimonials on referral sites such as Yelp or Angie’s List. They’ll likely see your star rating and reviews on your listing in Google searches, including Google+, and they’ll probably check out your other social media sites too.
Now imagine you say that you offer great customer service, and yet your reviews are riddled with negative feedback about how long it took to get the repair done, or that people had to return more than once to get their vacuums re-repaired. Or they see that you only have a 2-star rating on Yelp, but another nearby business (also selling and servicing vacuum cleaners) has a 5-star rating and is recommended when your business shows on Yelp.
Yep, that’s right, what others say about your business will carry much more weight with potential customers than anything you’ve said about your business yourself.
Moral of the story: Stay on top of your customer reviews and comments on social media. Make sure part of your marketing plan includes brand management and moderating your social media/listing/referral sites. If the majority of what others are saying about you isn’t what you’re saying about your own brand, then you may need more than just marketing support. Your brand might likely have an internal business issue that needs to be addressed in order to bring public perception back in line with the brand image you’d like to portray to the potential customers.
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