Brand reputation management is all about shaping and maintaining how people perceive your business online. It involves managing two key areas: what your company communicates to the public and what customers are saying about you on platforms like Google, Yelp, and social media.
For local and multi-location businesses, this means:
- Staying on top of online reviews and mentions across different platforms.
- Engaging with your customers to promote positive experiences and responding quickly to any negative feedback.
- Maintaining consistent messaging across all your channels to reinforce your brand identity and build a positive brand image.
- Managing public relations proactively to ensure your brand stays in good standing with customers and the community.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to define and build your brand online so that you increase sales, create a loyal customer base, and turn potential challenges into opportunities to improve your business.
What Influences Your Brand’s Image Online?
A brand is not a single, concrete thing. It does not live somewhere on the web, nor is it universally understood the same way by each of your customers.
Instead, your brand’s image is the feeling a consumer gets when they think about your business and the products or services you offer. Even the simplest interaction can affect that reputation in the mind of a single consumer, from a good experience with your product to a bad review left on Google.
For this reason, it’s important to recognize that anything anyone (including you) puts out on the web influences your brand’s reputation online.
This includes:
- Online reviews
- Social media posts and comments
- Articles and blog posts that can be found on search engines
- Public relations posts on your website or LinkedIn
By keeping an eye on these factors and responding appropriately, you can ensure your brand is seen in the best possible light.
Why is Brand Reputation Management Important?
In a world where a million copycat products are just a click away, your brand’s reputation is one of your most valuable assets. Consumers can buy from any number of companies, but they‘ve chosen you, and often, that’s because they trust your brand more than your competitors.
However, a better brand doesn’t just equate to a better chance of making a sale. It also:
- Fosters customer loyalty, driving repeat business and positive word-of-mouth recommendations.
- Influences purchasing decisions — new customers are more likely to choose you when they see a history of positive feedback.
- Increases brand awareness and enhances your public image, making your business more recognizable and reliable.
How to Build a Brand Reputation Management Strategy for Your Business
When it comes to building an intentional brand online, it’s important to take a systematic approach. Follow these steps to create a brand reputation that will speak to your customers, boost sales, and ensure growth.
1. Define Your Brand’s Core Values and Messaging
Before you can craft your reputation, you first need to decide what you want it to be.
What does your business stand for? How does it communicate? When a customer thinks about your business, what core values would they associate with it?
It can be something simple — like a hardware store wanting to be associated with being sturdy and dependable.
It can also be something further afield, like Wendy’s, which uses jokes and sarcasm to identify its brand with fun and playfulness. This has helped endear it with younger audiences online, a key demographic for fast food chains.
Once you’ve defined your core values, use them to shape your brand messaging. Your messaging should reflect what your customers care about most and align with your values.
Here’s how to start:
- Identify your core values: Think about the key principles that drive your business. Are you focused on customer service, innovation, sustainability, or community? These values should be woven into all your communications to ensure consistency. Learn more about identifying your core values in this article from Firstup.
- Create a brand messaging framework: Create a messaging framework that includes your tone, language, and the themes you consistently highlight in your communications.
- Know your target audience: Tailor your messaging to speak directly to your target audience. What do they care about, and how does your business align with those concerns? Messaging that resonates with your audience builds trust and helps you stand out from the competition.
A clearly defined set of core values and a strong messaging strategy help create a brand that people connect with on a deeper level. By staying true to these, you’ll not only attract customers but also build long-lasting relationships that will support your brand’s growth over time.
2. Audit Your Current Online Presence
Unless you’re a brand-new business (if so, feel free to skip this step), you likely already have an online presence shaping your brand reputation. Conducting an audit helps you see where you’re excelling, where there’s room for improvement, and what areas might need immediate attention to create a more positive brand image.
Use a spreadsheet to track your audit findings. For each platform or category, assign Yes/No answers or rate critical aspects from 1-5 to easily spot patterns and identify priorities.
Here are the key areas to review:
Website
- Brand consistency: Ensure the site’s tone, design, and messaging align with your core values.
- User experience (UX): Check for smooth navigation and functionality and fix any slow load times or broken links.
- Mobile responsiveness: Make sure the site looks great and performs well on all devices.
- Calls to action (CTAs): Ensure CTAs are clear, relevant, and encourage visitor engagement.
Search Engines
- Ranking on key search terms: Where does your business rank for important keywords related to your industry, services, or products?
- Business listings: Are your business listings (Google Business Profile, Yelp, etc.) showing up on the first page of search results?
- Search results accuracy: When you search for your business name, does the correct and up-to-date information show up?
Review Sites
- Presence on major review sites: Is your business listed on the key review platforms for your industry, like Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor, or niche-specific platforms?
- Number of reviews: How many reviews do you have on each platform? This gives insight into your visibility and customer engagement on each site.
- Average rating: What’s your average rating on each review site? A high rating builds trust, while a low one signals the need for improvement.
- Review quality: Are the reviews detailed and helpful for potential customers, or are they vague and uninformative?
Social Media
- Platform presence: Are you active on all the relevant social media platforms for your industry (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn)?
- Frequency of posts: How often are you posting on each platform? Posting regularly keeps your followers engaged and your brand top of mind.
- Engagement rate: Are people actually engaging with your content (likes, shares, comments)? The more people interact with what you post, the more effective it is in sharing your messaging.
- Brand messaging consistency: Is your messaging consistent with your brand’s core values and tone across all social platforms?
Ideally, you’ll pass all of the above with flying colors. However, if not, no worries. You can start working on those issues in the next section.
3. Set SMART Goals for Reputation Management
With your audit complete, you now have a clear picture of where your brand is thriving and where it needs improvement. The next step is to take those findings and turn them into actionable steps. Do this by creating SMART goals — objectives that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
By turning the problem areas you’ve identified into SMART goals, you create a focused plan for improvement, ensuring your efforts are strategic and trackable. Here’s how to get started:
- Specific: Define clear, specific goals based on your audit results. For example, if your audit revealed inconsistent messaging on social media, a specific goal could be: “Ensure all social media posts reflect our brand values and tone across all platforms.”
- Measurable: Attach measurable outcomes to your goals so you can track your progress. If your website’s UX scored low during the audit, a measurable goal might be: “Reduce website bounce rate by 10% within the next three months.”
- Achievable: Make sure your goals are realistic based on your current resources and situation. If your business has a low number of reviews on a key platform, an achievable goal could be: “Increase the number of reviews on Google by 15% over the next quarter by actively requesting feedback from satisfied customers.”
- Relevant: Ensure that each goal directly addresses an area of improvement that will enhance your brand’s reputation. For example, if search engine ranking was a problem, a relevant goal could be: “Improve SEO for our top three service pages to rank on the first page of Google for key local search terms.”
- Time-bound: Set a deadline for each goal to keep your team accountable. For instance: “By the end of Q2, ensure that all business listings on review sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor are accurate and fully optimized.”
Example of a SMART Goal
Let’s say your audit highlighted that your business listings were missing on certain platforms. A SMART goal could be:
- Specific: Claim and optimize business listings on Google, Yelp, and TripAdvisor.
- Measurable: Listings should be complete and fully optimized with accurate NAP (name, address, phone number) and CTAs.
- Achievable: Assign a team member to handle the verification and optimization process.
- Relevant: Accurate and optimized listings improve local SEO and make it easier for customers to find and trust your business.
- Time-bound: Complete all listings by the end of this month.
Fixing all of the issues you found in your audit is going to take time. Continue to set and reach SMART goals so that you can steadily improve your online reputation.
4. Develop a Social Listening Strategy for Brand Mentions
Earlier steps in this guide primarily focused on addressing past mistakes and setting the groundwork for improving your brand reputation. Now, it’s time to turn your attention to the present. A social listening strategy ensures you’re not just reacting to what’s already happened but staying ahead of potential issues and uncovering new opportunities to shape your brand’s perception in real time.
Social listening allows you to track brand mentions across platforms, giving you insight into how customers feel about your business right now.
It helps you manage negative feedback swiftly and identify trends early — giving you a chance to guide the conversation toward a positive outcome.
Here’s how to develop an effective social listening strategy:
- Monitor key platforms and channels
Use deep listening tools to track social media platforms, review sites, and forums where your customers are most active. Focus on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, X, Yelp, and any industry-specific spaces. Make sure to regularly review mentions, comments, and reviews across all channels. - Set alerts for important keywords and phrases
Use tools like Google Alerts to create alerts for your business name, product names, relevant industry terms, and even competitor names. Don’t forget to include common misspellings of your business name to avoid missing crucial mentions. - Analyze brand sentiment and emerging trends
Use a tool like Chatmeter’s Pulse AI to go beyond individual comments and assess the overall sentiment of conversations about your brand. Are mentions positive, negative, or neutral? Look for patterns in what customers are saying — are there recurring topics that reveal unmet needs or opportunities for improvement? - Incorporate findings into strategy
Social listening provides valuable insights you can use to guide other parts of your business, like product development, marketing, or customer service. Pay attention to customer feedback about new product ideas or complaints about service gaps and adjust accordingly.
Ready to truly learn more about what customers are saying about you? Check out our complete guide to setting up a Voice of the Customer analytics program to uncover even more actionable insights.
5. Build a Response Plan for Customer Feedback
Customer reviews are important. You want to get lots of positive reviews, but you also want to ensure you’re responding to each and every one of them in a constructive way.
A strong response plan ensures you handle feedback consistently, promptly, and thoughtfully, transforming both praise and complaints into opportunities to strengthen relationships and build trust.
Here’s how to do exactly that:
1. Prioritize Different Types of Feedback
Not all feedback requires the same level of attention. Prioritize reviews by type — positive, negative, or suggestions — to ensure your team responds appropriately.
- Positive reviews: Publicly thank customers to reinforce the relationship and encourage future engagement.
- Negative reviews: Respond quickly, acknowledging the issue with empathy and offering a solution or next steps.
- Suggestions: Show appreciation for constructive feedback and let customers know their input is valued.
For more detailed advice, check out our guides on responding to positive reviews and negative reviews.
2. Set Clear Response Time Targets
Responding to reviews quickly shows that your business truly values what your customers have to say. Do your best to reply to reviews within 1-2 business days to improve local SEO and maintain customer trust.
3. Use Response Templates and Personalization
Templates are the perfect way to save you time while still giving you the opportunity to personalize your review responses.
Make sure to have a number of templates on hand to frequently mix things up. You don’t want customers to look at your Google page and see a bunch of copy-and-paste responses.
4. Escalate Sensitive Issues Offline
If a complaint requires more attention, take the conversation offline. Offering a direct contact method helps resolve issues privately and demonstrates a commitment to customer satisfaction.
Pro tip: Avoid getting defensive in public responses — acknowledge the issue and offer to follow up offline.
5. Track Feedback Trends and Adjust Strategy
Feedback reveals patterns that can guide future improvements. Regularly analyze reviews to identify recurring themes and adjust your business practices accordingly. This approach shows customers you are listening and evolving based on their input.
Action step: Include a section in your audit spreadsheet to track themes (e.g., common service complaints or product requests) and align your strategy with customer expectations.
6. Proactively Craft Your Public Relations Image
Public relations (PR) is about more than just damage control — it’s a strategic effort to shape how the public, media, and key stakeholders perceive your brand.
Here’s how to take a proactive approach to crafting your brand’s public relations image:
1. Engage in Community Involvement and Social Responsibility
Actively participating in local events, partnerships, or charitable initiatives helps establish a positive public image for your brand. Also, by being out in the community, you have a chance to spread the word about your business and directly engage with future customers.
Action step: Track opportunities for your business to sponsor or participate in events aligned with your values. Incorporate these efforts into your PR strategy to promote goodwill and visibility.
2. Develop Relationships With Media and Influencers
Establishing connections with journalists, bloggers, and industry influencers ensures you have allies to amplify your brand’s message. A positive relationship with the media allows you to proactively share your wins and respond quickly if any issues arise.
Action step: Create a media contact list and regularly pitch story ideas or press releases that align with your brand values and business goals.
3. Prepare Positive Stories and Press Releases Ahead of Time
Don’t wait for the perfect opportunity to tell your brand’s story — proactively create it. Craft press releases and stories about product launches, community initiatives, or customer successes in advance so you’re ready to share them when the time is right.
Action step: Maintain a content calendar of upcoming PR opportunities (like holidays, launches, or awards) and plan positive stories that align with those events.
4. Have a Plan for Crisis Management
A proactive PR strategy also involves planning for the unexpected. Having a crisis management framework ensures you can respond effectively if any negative issues arise.
Action step: Draft pre-approved responses for potential crises and train your team on how to communicate calmly and professionally under pressure.
Proactively managing your public relations image helps you stay in control of your narrative and fosters long-term trust with your audience. When your PR efforts align with your brand values and target audience, your business will be positioned as a credible, trustworthy leader in your industry — before challenges arise.
How to Build a Brand Locally for Multi-Location Businesses
All of the previous strategies apply to multi-location businesses, but managing multiple locations adds extra layers of complexity. Each location should be treated as an extension of the overall brand while also reflecting the unique local market it serves. Here are some key tips to follow:
1. Claim and Optimize Business Listings for Each Location
It’s essential to have accurate and complete business listings on platforms like Google Business Profile for every location. Incorrect information can confuse customers and harm your local SEO rankings.
Make sure each location’s listings reflect accurate NAP (name, address, phone number) details, hours of operation, and relevant categories.
Pro tip: Use listing management tools to keep business details consistent across platforms and update them efficiently when changes occur.
2. Monitor Reviews and Mentions by Location
Customers often rely on reviews to choose between competing businesses, especially on a local level. Monitoring reviews by location allows you to identify trends specific to each area and tailor your responses accordingly.
3. Maintain Consistent Branding on Social Media
Each location should reflect the broader brand identity while engaging authentically with its local audience. Inconsistent messaging can confuse customers and erode trust. However, giving some autonomy to local teams allows them to respond to local trends, fostering stronger connections with the community.
Action step: Develop brand guidelines to maintain consistency across platforms but empower each location to create localized content.
4. Bolster SEO With Local Pages
Optimizing your website for local SEO ensures each location ranks well on search engines. Dedicated local pages — each with unique content tailored to the area — help search engines understand the relevance of your business to specific locations.
Action step: Create individual pages for each location with location-specific keywords, addresses, and reviews. Ensure these pages are regularly updated with fresh content, such as promotions or community involvement efforts.
Pro tip: Include embedded maps, local testimonials, and event announcements to boost SEO and attract more local customers.
Get Help Building Your Brand With Chatmeter
Managing your brand’s online reputation across multiple platforms and locations can be challenging, but you don’t have to do it alone. Chatmeter’s all-in-one platform offers tools that help businesses — whether single-location or multi-location — monitor reviews, manage responses, and track brand mentions effortlessly.
With automated alerts for new reviews and feedback, Chatmeter ensures you never miss a chance to engage with your audience. Tools like Pulse AI provide deep insights into customer sentiment, while the platform’s review response templates and centralized dashboard make it easy to stay consistent and responsive.
By using Chatmeter, you can:
- Automate review monitoring across all major platforms like Google, Yelp, and Facebook.
- Manage responses in real time to build trust and strengthen relationships with customers.
- Use brand sentiment analysis to stay ahead of potential issues.
- Optimize your local SEO with location-specific tools and directory management.
Ready to see how Chatmeter can elevate your brand reputation? Book a free demo today and discover how easy it is to stay on top of your reputation and grow your business, one review at a time.