Company Reputation: Strategy and Tips [Guide for 2024]

What company has the worst reputation? Among them is Spirit Airlines, one of the worst airlines. Currently has a Reputation Score of -21. This score is not an absolute disaster, but this company’s reputation worsens daily due to regular mishaps (e.g., emergency landing, mechanical issues, flight cancelations). Read this article and learn how important reputation is and how to check it!

Company reputation refers to the perceptions and opinions of customers, employees, and the general public about a company. A strong reputation helps attract the right people. Regardless of size and industry, every company needs a reputation marketing strategy.

One of the recent situations that have damaged Spirit’s reputation was this:

The passenger did not receive her checked luggage. Spirit assured her it would go to her house. She traced her luggage, thanks to an Apple device that was there. It turned out that an airport employee had stolen the luggage and was at his home.

Let’s dive deeper, so that your company’s reputation is always strong!

Table of contents:

• What is company reputation? Definition
• How can you quickly check your company’s reputation?
• Why is company reputation important?
• Company reputation strategy:
  • Step 1: Examine your current reputation
  • Step 2: Build a positive company reputation
  • Step 3: Monitor your reputation 
  • Step 4: Constantly improve reputation
• Conclusion

What is company reputation? Definition

Company reputation tells you how people perceive your company. This public opinion is shaped by various factors, including:

• Quality of your products and services
• How your company operates, for example, whether it is socially responsible
• The way you treat your customers, but also employees

How can you quickly check your company’s reputation?

Hmmm… the fastest way?

Check your company’s Reputation Score. This metric describes how people feel about your company online.

According to Reputation, companies with the highest Reputation Scores record an average of 15% faster sales growth than companies with the lowest Reputation Scores.

Where can you check the Reputation Score?

In Brand24, an AI media monitoring tool:

This metric’s scale ranges from -100 (terrible reputation) to 100 (extremely excellent reputation).

Brand24 detects all online mentions of your company (online reviews, social media mentions, etc.) and assesses them as negative or positive. Based on this, it calculates your Reputation Score.

As you can see, Spirit Airlines got the most negative mentions on June 12. One of the untagged mentions of Spirit detected by Brand24 is:

“It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation and only one bad one to lose it.”
Benjamin Franklin

A strong reputation IS NOT something PERMANENT. Reputation Score can change dramatically even in a single day.

As a business owner, you should be able to check your businesses’ reputations in seconds… as it is possible with Brand24!

Why is company reputation important?

Reputation is the foundation of any business.

A strong reputation attracts potential customers.

According to Reputation X, 3 out of 4 consumers trust a company more if it has positive reviews.

People are likelier to trust companies with a good reputation, use their services, or buy their products.

Would you be more likely to use a company whose reputation is bad?

Well, probably not.

Also, in terms of employer branding. A company with a solid positive reputation attracts better people!

Do you care about getting as many customers as possible and having the best employees? You need to take care of your company’s reputation!

There are many advantages of tracking a company’s reputation; it allows you to:

• Quickly identify potential problems before they become serious.
• Respond fast to negative comments about your company, thus minimizing their negative impact on your company’s image.
• Notice your customers’ needs and improve your business and the services or products you offer.

Company reputation strategy

Step 1: Examine your current reputation

How to start managing your reputation if you don’t know where you are?

Well, you can’t!

First, you need to find out about your current business reputation. This will give you a point of reference to see if your actions support your online reputation and future growth.

AI tools are the best to use! They will give an overview of your company’s brand image.

One such tool is Brand24, which tracks important metrics in managing corporate reputations. I present them below:

Check your Reputation Score

It’s the most important metric! The higher the Reputation Score, the better.

Let’s look again at the Reputation Score of Spirit Airlines:

Spirit’s Reputation Score is -21 as of July 17, 2024.

The decreasing trend in Reputation Score is due to the daily dominance of negative mentions.

If this trend continues, it will be even more challenging for the company to recover and attract new customers.

Thanks to Reputation Score, you:

• See the overall state of your corporate reputation
• Quickly identify what is causing the poor state of your reputation
• Observe the impact of your actions (or lack of them) over time

Conduct the sentiment analysis of your company

The Reputation Score shows the number of positive and negative mentions, but the sentiment analysis precisely indicates them and their emotional tone.

You know the source of the mention, and you can go straight to the source:

Brand24 tracks mentions of your company across:

• Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X (Twitter), LinkedIn
• Blogs
• Forums and review sites
• News and other sites
• Newsletters
• Podcasts
• And many other sources!

You can see a summary of your sentiment analysis in the Metrics Analysis tab. You can, among other things, quickly find out which source generates the most negative feedback about your company:

As it turns out, in the case of Spirit Airlines, people most often spill their negative emotions on X (Twitter).

What does this mean?

Spirit people should focus on this source and start saving their ass right there.

It often happens that it’s quiet about a company for a while, and then suddenly BOOM, everyone on the Internet is talking about that company.

With the AI Anomaly Detector, you’ll immediately know what made people talk about you online:

Brand24 recorded an increase in mentions for Spirit Airlines on June 6. What caused this?

I told you about it at the beginning of this article: the passenger did not receive her luggage (she was assured that it would be delivered to her) and tracked it down herself at the home of an airport employee.

What are the advantages of monitoring sentiment?

• It improves the detection of problems before they escalate.
• You have an in-depth view of customer feedback, both positive and negative.
• You can identify specific areas of your company that need improvement.
• You can react instantly to negative feedback.
• You can use positive mentions as social proof to increase sales.
• You can strengthen relationships with those who are optimistic about you by responding to positive mentions.

Discover emotions around your company

The emotions surrounding your company are something more than sentiment. Sentiment only informs you whether the opinion is negative, positive, or neutral.

Emotion analysis shows the emotions of the people behind their opinions!

Thanks to AI, you see disgust is the most common emotion towards Spirit Airlines.

Of course, this emotion is most expressed on X (Twitter).

Check emojis included in discussions about your company

Emoji says more than a thousand words.

People often prefer adding a pissed-off emoji to a short text instead of dwelling on dissatisfaction in negative reviews.

Or when they are satisfied, they give a heart emoji.

It is, therefore, very important to analyze not only the text but also the emoji.

Emoji Analysis in Brand24 collects all emoji used in discussions into one place and reports how many times a particular emoji has been used:

In the mentions of Spirit Airlines, the aircraft was the most frequently used.

Are you surprised?

I’m not.

Discover whether influencers talk about your brand in a positive or negative way

Not every post about your company has the same impact. Accounts with many followers and big reach have a greater impact on your reputation.

You need to pay particular attention to influencers. With a single post, they can damage your reputation.

In the Influencer Analysis tab, you will find an identification of key influencers by how they talk about you:

Take a look at the sentiment of the topics

If a company is mentioned, it is obviously in the context of specific topics.

As it is known, Spirit is an airline. Let’s check in the context of which topics this company is mentioned:

Brand24 not only detects the most popular topics but also provides valuable insights into metrics such as:

• The volume of mentions and reach
• Share of Voice
• Sentiment share
• And others are available by clicking on “Show more”

Step 2: Build a positive company reputation

Checking your current reputation is already behind you. Now, it’s time to build a positive reputation.

But how do you do it?

Some actions are always worth doing and should be included in your reputation management strategy:

• Keep the quality of your services and products as high as possible. This is the basis for building a good reputation. Without it, nothing can be done. It’s impossible to have a good reputation if what you’re offering sucks.
• Provide excellent customer service. Your company’s reputation is heavily influenced by how the customer is served. Try to ensure that the people in your company who deal with the customer are very professional and always try to resolve the problem.
• Build a solid online presence. Nowadays, every company needs to have an online presence, whether the business is online or not. This will increase your brand visibility and credibility, allowing potential customers to find you easily and trust you! Social media presence is extremely important, so focus your attention especially there.
• Treat your employees well; employee satisfaction matters. Internal culture is significant. Run your business so that not only your customers but also your employees are happy. Companies where employees are not respected always have a bad reputation.
• Integrate social and environmental concerns into your business operations. Corporate Social Responsibility greatly promotes a positive brand image.

Step 3: Monitor your reputation 

Building a positive corporate reputation without monitoring it would be pointless!

I recommend you compare your reputation results to past ones, especially sentiment.

You can compare this week’s sentiment against last week or this month against last month. Whatever you want!

By doing this kind of comparison, you will quickly see whether your efforts to build a positive reputation are working.

You can find this feature in the Comparison tab in Brand24.

Step 4: Constantly improve reputation

This is the final step in your reputation strategy!

Never do the bare minimum. You must constantly improve your reputation!

How to do it?

• Regularly take all steps to protect your image.
• Periodically review the effectiveness of your efforts.
• Use in-depth analysis to make informed decisions confidently in building your positive reputation.

Conclusion

The business world is ruthless.

With so much competition in the market, a poor reputation immediately puts a company out of the game.

All business leaders know why a business’s reputation is essential.

Keeping your reputation under control is the key to long-term success.

Final thoughts:

• Use an AI tool that provides valuable insights to keep a pulse on what’s happening on social media, review sites, and other sites; it affects your reputation.
• Indifference to what your target audience says online about your company can involve not only reputational risk but also other significant losses.
• The fastest way to determine your reputation is to check your Reputation Score. Brand24 measures this metric!

Are you wondering what company has the worst reputation? Or do you want to know what reputation your company has?

Check it out with Brand24 – try it out for free now!