It is difficult to overstate how important online reputation management is to new business development for law firms. Here’s what it is, why it’s important, and how you can tackle it:
What is online reputation management?
Basically, online reputation management is observing and influencing feedback about your law firm on digital platforms — social networks, search engines, and review sites. It involves a number of tasks, including:
- Monitoring customer feedback on every key platform where your business is talked about/reviewed.
- Watching closely to ensure competitors and others are not disparaging your firm online.
- Addressing any issues or concerns raised by clients or others in online reviews.
- Finding ways to get clients who have had positive experiences with your firm to share their reviews online.
Why is managing my online reputation so important?
Over the past few years, ratings and reviews have become increasingly important to consumers, which means they should be important to you:
- 89% of consumers use online reviews/ratings to inform purchase decisions.
- 97% of consumers look at online reviews about local businesses.
- 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
Put simply, online reviews and ratings are sought out, read, and closely followed by consumers. That’s why attorneys cannot ignore them.
How should I tackle managing my online reputation?
The truth is, it isn’t easy. To do it right takes consistent attention and investment. These 5 steps are a good start:
- Find out which platforms consumers currently use to review your business and research which ones have the most influence over your target market.
- Have active accounts on each influential site and monitor them consistently.
- Scour all existing reviews, flag the ones that are spam, and respond to both negative and positive reviews.
- Develop a process for monitoring all online reviews and flagging spam.
- Develop a process for proactively seeking positive reviews from clients on the platforms that matter most to your firm.
And finally, invest an hour of your time and watch our free webinar on How to Manage Your Online Reputation. Here’s what you’ll learn during this free one-hour online training session:
- How to get feedback from 100% of your clients without risking a negative review online.
- How to address both positive and negative reviews online so that both of them bring you business.
- How to use online reviews to beat your competition, no matter what their marketing budget is.
- A proven process for requesting and collecting reviews that will outperform anything you’ve ever tried.
- A series of word-for-word scripts that you can use to build your reputation today.
- The top 5 ways to use your best reviews to boost your conversion rate and maximize your marketing ROI.
- How to put little-known best practices to work for you and gain from the experience of thousands of clients who went before you.
Register online now for the free online training on How to Protect, Build & Leverage Your Online Reputation. We’ll send you the link via email and you can share it with your staff and other attorneys in your practice.
Ready to get more on line reviews? More positive on line reviews mean more leads will be interested in your law firm.
We can help you…
Sounds like a lot to manage? Legal marketing can be complicated, especially if you don’t know what you are doing. If that’s the case, then talk with us about your biggest legal marketing challenges during your complimentary marketing strategy session with one of our Rainmaker marketing experts. Click below to get on our schedule for a legal marketing strategy session. It’s fast (30 minutes). It’s free. And it will help you wrap your head and hands around the best legal marketing strategies to deploy for your firm.
