Is reputation really important? In psychology, some believe that reputation is worthless if it gets in the way of one’s happiness. But when it comes to branding, marketing, and overall business processes, reputation cannot be as easily put aside.
When it comes to brands, reputation isn’t just a matter of perception. Ultimately, it’s what determines whether a brand will be successful or unsuccessful, remain successful or not, and make history or be forever forgotten.
If you want your brand to be on the right side of history, you should consider the best online reputation management tools. These apps, websites, and programs can be the difference-maker you’ve been looking for, driving your sales and revenues further by helping you stay in control of your brand’s rep.
What is Online Reputation Management?
Online reputation management is the activity of analyzing and intervening in discussions, articles, and reviews published on the web that relate to one’s brand in any way. In simpler terms, it’s the techniques and strategies required to fully preside over a brand’s digital reputation.
To become an online reputation manager, one must be able to do at least two things:
- Analyzing the overall reputation of a brand by accessing web sources in which the brand’s reputation is at stake (Reddit threads, YouTube comments, Google Search, Yelp, and so forth);
- Developing strategies for intervening in such sources, thus making a positive difference—reputation-wise—whenever necessary.
A good online reputation manager should not only identify the public’s general feelings toward a brand but also take action to improve those same feelings. In today’s digital-centric world, it’s kind of the equivalent of being a hypervigilant Public Relations specialist.
To take control of your brand’s image, online reputation management tools are your most powerful allies. Below, check out the 8 most useful right now:
Top 8 Online Reputation Management Tools of 2024
- KeyMentions: Best for Reddit
- Hootsuite: Best for other social media websites
- Mention: Best for brand analysis
- Broadly: Best for customer retention
- Birdeye: Best for specific industries
- Grade: Best for online reviews
- Podium: Best for AI reputation tools
- Reputation: Best for localized marketing
1. KeyMentions: Best For Reddit
When it comes to a brand’s reputation, Reddit is the website. Reddit communities are so influential that they can break Wall Street, so just imagine what they can do for your brand! Millions of people use “the front page of the Internet” to make better-informed decisions about what they buy, so you should probably work on your brand’s Reddit rep.
Online reputation management can get messy in a place as chaotic as Reddit, but you don’t have to do it alone. KeyMentions is the #1 tool for Reddit monitoring due to its unique feature for identifying active, relevant discussions quicker than its competitors.
With KeyMentions, you can choose a keyword (such as your brand name, for example) and set instant email alerts that let you know every single time that keyword is being used on Reddit. To make sure you won’t get spammed by “ghost” posts, you can also set a minimum number of upvotes/comments for every keyword.
Why is KeyMentions so important for your brand’s reputation?
- Because it lets you intervene in Reddit discussions while they’re still happening, hence influencing your brand’s Reddit reputation in real time.
2. Hootsuite: Best For Social Media
Hootsuite is far from being as good as KeyMentions for Reddit reputation management, but it works like a charm for every other social media platform out there. As a complete social listening tool, Hootsuite is the one app you need to keep an eye on your Facebook, Instagram, and X/Twitter reputation.
Hootsuite Listening Basics is an affordable package for all your social listening needs, allowing you to get a pretty clear idea of what people are saying about your brand online—all in one single page.
The biggest argument in favor of Hootsuite, however, is that their social listening methods have shown real results. According to their website, they have helped brands grow up to 500% on social channels and generate up to +250% sourced revenue.
Why is Hootsuite so important for your brand’s reputation?
- Because it’s a complete social listening tool for social media platforms, and that is crucial to evaluating the overall reputation of your brand.
3. Mention: Best For Brand Analysis
Mention is a complete tool for reputation management with monitoring and engagement features. However, I believe their analysis product to be the real standout of the platform. If knowing how your brand is perceived is your goal, then Mention is bound to become your best friend.
Knowing your brand’s reputation isn’t the same as managing it, but it’s the crucial first step for making sure your efforts count. Mention analyzes the entire web to let you know when your brand is being discussed, covering various social media websites.
Moreover, Mention makes brand analysis easy by creating user-friendly brand sentiment and brand influence charts summarizing all collected data. As one Forbes CEO has put it, “Data is king—but you have to know how to use it.”
Why is Mention so important for your brand’s reputation?
- Because it’s perhaps the quickest online tool for making a complete diagnosis of your brand’s current reputation.
4. Broadly: Best For Customer Retention
Customer retention refers to “the ability of a company or product to retain its customers over some specified period,” and that’s a massive driver of a brand’s reputation. You don’t want to be known simply as a brand that’s known; most importantly, you want to have the reputation of a brand that sells!
With a refreshing take on online reputation management, Broadly’s features include an AI employee trained to turn potential customers into buying ones. Broadly is more than just an automated solution for interacting with customers: it’s also an automated sales generator!
For a review to appear online and increase your brand’s reputation, someone needs to buy your products/services first! That’s precisely the time when Broadly can make a difference. Without sales, brands simply won’t get as many mentions.
Why is Broadly so important for your brand’s reputation?
- Because it helps your brand get more sales, and that is a necessary condition of online reviews, social media posts, and other stuff that drives a brand’s reputation.
5. Birdeye: Best For Specific Industries
As the name implies, Birdeye is an online reputation management tool for seeing the big picture. Their AI-powered features include social media monitoring, data listings, and even referral tools, but the ex-libris is their industry-to-industry approach.
Even though Birdeye can serve any kind of business, its package-ready solutions for specific industries (including real estate, home services, auto, and more) make it especially appealing for medium to large companies.
In other words, Birdeye can take care of the needs of your brand regardless of its size while also taking into consideration the distinctive challenges of your niche.
Why is Birdeye so important for your brand’s reputation?
- Because it offers customized solutions for specific industries, hence allowing you to increase your brand’s reputation within its niche.
6. Grade: Best For Online Reviews
Online reviews aren’t the sole determinant of a brand’s reputation. But in some businesses, they are crucial. Did you know, for example, that over 90% of consumers believe TripAdvisor reviews are “very/fairly important” for influencing dining decisions?
So, if you’re in the kind of business where a bad review can put you out of work, you should try Grade’s terrific review management services. This simple but effective tool is all you need to ensure that nobody is ruining your brand’s hard-earned reputation on product-review websites.
But there’s more: Grade also enhances your marketing processes with revenue-generating features and automation opportunities for obtaining and sharing reviews.
Why is Grade so important for your brand’s reputation?
- Because it takes on a simple but powerful approach to online review management, a crucial aspect of a brand’s online reputation.
7. Podium: Best For AI Reputation Tools
Business and AI are intrinsically connected, so it’s no surprise online reputation management tools are also jumping in on the action. Podium is among the very first, and it’s described as an “AI-powered leads conversion platform.”
Overall, Podium is a great management tool for businesses. But how exactly does it help a brand’s reputation? There are at least two features that can make a difference:
- AI Instant Answers: For answering all direct customer interactions in one single place;
- AI Review Response: For identifying and replying to all online customer reviews and discussions.
With these AI-powered features, you can increase a brand’s reputation by (1) increasing the efficiency of your customer services, and (2) being the first person to reply anytime someone reviews your products/services.
Why is Podium so important for your brand’s reputation?
- Because it leverages AI to improve the efficiency of your customer service and facilitate replies to customer reviews.
8. Reputation: Best For Localized Marketing
The whole world is on the Internet, but that doesn’t mean online localization doesn’t matter. If a man from Tampa, Florida is searching the web for new gutter guards, he is most likely looking for an active gutter guard company in Tampa, Florida.
Aware of this, most online reputation managers strive to increase their brand’s reputation in a given area by analyzing customer data (such as GPS data and relevant Google searches) and creating content that hits the ground running (such as a nice article about gutter guards in Tampa, Florida).
If localization gives you headaches, then Reputation.com is the online reputation management tool you need. In addition to stellar localization services, they are also great at delivering comprehensive customer feedback reports and driving social media demand.
Why is Reputation.com so important for your brand’s reputation?
- Because it’s arguably the best online tool for guiding visitors to location-specific web pages, hence increasing the reputation of your brand in a given area.
Verdict
Managing a brand’s reputation is never easy, so you should enlist all the help you can find. The 8 best online reputation management tools listed above can be worthy allies for getting your brand’s name out there and making sure nobody’s dragging it down the mud.
Please keep in mind that this is a subjective list and that reputation management truly depends on the specific nuances of each brand and business sector. Naturally, other quality alternatives could have made it into the article.
For further insights on how to manage your brand’s reputation on Reddit, please check out our guides on creating a Reddit community and selling on Reddit.
Online Reputation Management Tools (FAQ)
Online reputation management is the activity of analyzing and intervening in web sources that can impact a brand’s reputation in any way.
KeyMentions, Hootsuite, Mention, Broadly, and Birdeye are some of the best online reputation management tools right now.
Quality costs money and, while the best online reputation management tools tend to include free trials, they are seldom free.
The three essential steps of online brand reputation management are: (1) analyzing your brand’s rep, (2) identifying relevant channels, and (3) intervening in such channels to create a positive difference.
It depends on your products/services, but Reddit is a great place for online reputation management because it’s well-trusted, highly monitored, and has tons of traffic. You can manage your Reddit reputation using KeyMentions.
