Reputation Management is the monitoring and maintenance of an individual’s or business’s brand. When we think of brands, it’s most often those belonging to Coke, Nike, and McDonald’s that we believe need ongoing management. The truth, however, is that reputation management is something that should be top of mind for every business—including the business of property management.
Attracting the right tenants means projecting the right message in the marketplace. It also means ensuring the feedback and reviews received from existing customers are favorable and enforces the brand in a positive manner. Yet, studies show that apartments are one of the top two industries most heavily impacted by online reviews, making reputation management something that should be given far more attention than many property managers tend to give to it.
On-site.com put together the following infographic to demonstrate how reviews can impact a property’s success.
If you’re new to reputation management, here are some tips for ensuring the ongoing health of your brand:
- Set up an alert through Google. You can input a variety of keywords, including the exact name of the property as well as variations. When someone uses the name to create a post of any kind online, Google will notify you.
- Search regularly. Even if you have alerts on automation, you need to be aware of what’s on the web. Make a list of the common review sites, and then visit them at least on a monthly basis.
- Be effective and efficient in how you respond (and, yes, you need to respond). For tips on how to keep bad reviews from getting worse (and encourage more positive posts), read more in this article.
A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another. – Seth Godin