Online Reputation Management: A Business Guide (2026)

Online reputation management is the practice of monitoring and influencing how the public perceives a business or individual. This includes the reviews, social comments, and search results customers see when looking for your brand online.

In a 2025 Shopify survey, 43% of store owners cited brand reputation as a competitive advantage—the second most common advantage named.* But public perception of your company isn’t set in stone. You can influence your brand’s outward-facing image.

This guide shares how brand reputation management works, with tips to improve your brand’s image online.

What is reputation management?

Online reputation management is how a business controls what people think of it. The goal is to encourage customers to think positively about your brand and trust what you have to say.

Six components work together to create a comprehensive brand management strategy:

• Monitoring your online presence across digital platforms
• Responding to customer feedback systematically
• Promoting positive content and achievements
• Addressing negative feedback promptly
• Building trust and credibility consistently
• Protecting against reputation damage proactively

Benefits of reputation management

Reputation management directly increases business performance and mitigates brand risk for any type of company. PwC’s 2025 Customer Experience Survey found 52% of consumers said they stopped using or buying from a brand because they had a bad experience with its products or services.

Here’s more data to prove why reputation management is important:

Attracting new customers and boosting revenue

Reputation marketing amplifies a positive reputation through reviews, word of mouth, and social proof. At a basic level, it’s one of the most common ways businesses grow: In a 2025 Shopify survey, 53% of store owners named word of mouth as their most common first-year growth strategy.*

Consumers are more likely to buy based on positive experiences shared by others. By managing your brand’s online reputation well, you can capitalize on the brand trust and goodwill you’ve built among your customer base and their networks.

Positive reviews also influence AI search as AI tools prioritize authoritative sources when generating answers. Shopify search data shows that in the first quarter of 2026, AI-referred sessions to Shopify stores grew 197% year over year. And BrightLocal’s 2026 study found that use of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools for local business recommendations jumped from 6% to 45% year over year.

Standing out in a crowded marketplace

Being proactive about reputation management can tell customers who you are and what you stand for—two things that separate you from competitors.

“Anyone who heard the brand story directly from me knew what made us unique,” says Claudia Snoh, founder of Kloo Coffee, in a Shopify Masters interview. “People who discovered us randomly online mostly thought that we were just another coffee concentrate brand with a cool bottle.”

Recruiting top-tier talent

Nearly half of all workers (44%) say they want their employer’s values to align with their own, according to a 2025 EY study, with the numbers climbing even higher for millennial and Gen Z respondents (47%).

Employers agree: 76% of surveyed brand leaders said employer reputation is important to their talent strategy, according to a 2026 BuiltIn study. Respondents cited culture and values, leadership credibility, and a strong company mission as the most influential drivers of employer reputation.

How to create a reputation management strategy

Here’s how to maintain your brand’s reputation online:

1. Survey your customers regularly

Customers provide important insights into your strengths and weaknesses across functions, for instance the quality of your customer service and the ease of your ecommerce checkout flow.

Engage them regularly through surveys, and ask questions like:

• How did our product’s quality compare to your expectations?
• What was the most frustrating part of your recent purchase experience on our website?
• If you’ve interacted with our customer support, what’s one thing we could do to improve it?

Marcus Milione, founder of Minted New York, invites customers to give feedback during development. “There are constructive comments and criticisms that come from [customers] that you can use to help improve your product,” he says in a Shopify Masters interview.

“Bringing your customer along on the journey helps them buy into the product even more, because they are part of that entire process.”

Don’t overlook customers who leave. Understanding why they churned helps you address pain points that others might experience—whether it’s slow shipping, product quality issues, or pricing concerns.

2. Encourage and interact with online reviews

BrightLocal’s 2026 study found that two in five customers always read reviews every time they look for a business online. This may span multiple review platforms, such as Google Business, Yelp, and Trustpilot.

The FTC requires all reviews to be legitimate and genuine. Use review management apps to source them and encourage customers to leave positive reviews.

For example, you could use Shopify Flow to send a post-purchase email for ecommerce purchases or include a review request card in the shopping bag at your brick-and-mortar store. Do this immediately after their experience: the same study found that US consumers are twice as likely to write a review about a positive experience (60%) as a negative one (29%).

Whether positive or negative, BrightLocal’s research found that 80% of consumers are more likely to use a business that responds to all its reviews. In comparison, 42% say they’re unlikely to use a business that never replies to customer feedback.

When responding to positive reviews, thank customers for the feedback and invite them back. For negative reviews, respond apologetically, commit to resolving the issue, and then follow through on that promise.

3. Use social listening tools

Social listening tools alert you to mentions of your brand across the web—for example, when someone posts about a customer service interaction on Instagram, writes about your product on Reddit, or reviews their experience with your brand on their personal blog. According to 2025 reporting from Meltwater, itself a social listening tool, roughly 75% of surveyed professionals currently use or plan to use social listening software.

Tools like Sprout Social and Brandwatch also have sentiment analysis capabilities, which let you:

• Amplify positive mentions and user-generated content
• Note and address negative feedback promptly
• Track changes in brand perception over time

4. Develop effective public relations for positive press coverage

The right press placement raises your brand image and builds confidence in your product.

Take Pluto Pillow, a personalized sleep pillow customized to individual body stats. Without a public relations (PR) agency or reputation management company, they secured placements in Business Insider, Fast Company, and The Wall Street Journal, eventually landing a spot on the Today show.

“Conversion rates are really high actually when it comes from when a customer comes from a press hit,” says Susana Saeliu, co-founder and CEO of Pluto Pillow, in a Shopify Masters interview. “Sometimes when the audience is really engaged with that publication, especially if it’s in a space that you operate in, you get a lot of great results.”

Susana’s three-step approach includes:

1. Identifying journalists who tend to cover your niche
2. Crafting a pitch to pique their interest, personalizing it to that journalist or outlet
3. Following up with journalists at least twice

While traditional press outlets are powerful, don’t overlook new media. Consider pitching to independent bloggers and online content creators to secure press coverage for your business.

5. Craft an SEO strategy for search visibility

Search engines are the leading way for customers to discover new brands, GWI’s 2026 data shows.

A search engine optimization (SEO) strategy aims to boost your business’s visibility and build your company’s reputation online. It can also suppress negative search results, like negative content on news sites or bad reviews.

That may mean:

• Optimizing your website content with relevant keywords
• Creating informative blog posts that address your audience’s questions
• Crafting unique, detailed product descriptions that include searchable terms
• Implementing technical SEO best practices like improving site speed and mobile responsiveness

“We spend next to nothing on advertising, like less than 1% of our revenue,” says Adam Wolfe, CEO and founder of Boost Auto. “Everything we do is native marketing. We’ve never hired an SEO agency. We use Shopify, read a couple articles, and we are the number one in search for most of what we want.”

6. Work with brand ambassadors and influencers

Brand ambassadors create content, share personal customer experiences, and engage with their followers about your product. They can be famous influencers with large follower counts or micro-influencers popular with your target audience.

Yasaman Bakhtiar, co-founder of Good Girl Snacks, worked with ambassadors before they even had a product to sell. “We always say our followers are our influencers,” Yasaman says in a Shopify Masters interview.

“We’ve sent them PR, and whenever we have a question about the business, we open it up to our community. We try to democratize the whole process, especially for product development and new flavors, because at the end of the day, they’re the ones we’re catering to.

7. Align your brand with positive causes

Customers are increasingly socially and environmentally conscious; many aim to support brands that reflect these values.

However, this can’t be just a gimmick. True cause alignment means making a long-term and genuine commitment, not a one-off effort for engagement. Clutch’s 2026 report found 48% of shoppers would stop buying from a brand if their marketing felt inauthentic.

Rare Beauty, a vegan and cruelty-free cosmetics brand founded by singer and actress Selena Gomez, has integrated philanthropy into their core mission. The company established the Rare Impact Fund, which is mobilizing $100 million in funds and promoting stigma-free community support.

Katie Welch, founding chief marketing officer of Rare Beauty, says that giving has been baked into the company from the start.

“Selena wanted to make a difference. She’s got this incredible platform. She knows she can do something for good, and she did just that,” Katie says in a Shopify Masters interview. “A percentage of sales from Rare Beauty products goes to the fund, which helps to raise money to grant mental health services to underserved communities.”

8. Have a game plan for crisis communication

Not everything will always go according to plan. While brand crises are undoubtedly difficult, having crisis management protocols in place can make recovery easier.

Reputation recovery timelines vary depending on the severity of the issue, but a handful of basic principles for bouncing back from a reputational hit:

• Apologize authentically—whether in writing or through a genuine, unscripted video
• Admit fault rather than deflect blame
• Promise to do better, outlining specific steps you’ll take to address the issue
• Follow through on your commitments and provide regular updates on your progress

Fly by Jing had to put this in action after their first shipments arrived damaged. “In a panic, I wrote an email to every single person,” Founder Jing Gao says in a Shopify Masters interview. “I was like, ‘This thing happened. Your jars may arrive broken. We will figure it out. We will reship you. We’ll figure it out.’

“I realized the importance of transparency and the trust that you can build through a crisis. That was something that we took with us moving forward and how we approach customer service to this day.”

Reputation management software

Online reputation management software has features like real-time monitoring, reputation analysis, and automated alerts to help you track brand mentions, gauge public perception, and respond promptly to potential issues that reference your company online.

Here are a few review management platforms to consider as you evaluate management software:

Reputon Customer Reviews

Reputon Customer Reviews is a review management system built for Shopify stores. It lets you track reviews across multiple sites and send follow-up emails when customers receive their orders, automating the process at scale.

Key features:

• Review management across Trustpilot, Google, Facebook, and Yelp
• Automated follow-up emails when customers receive their order
• AI-powered personalization in email templates, including localization

Pricing: Free plan for 50 emails per month. Paid plans that include more emails start at $9.99 per month.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a crawler-based online monitoring service that tracks mentions of specified keywords across the internet. Whether you’re following product launches or mentions of your name, the service delivers updates straight to your inbox.

Google Alerts is free, but it’s not a full-fledged online reputation management tool. It’s mostly limited to search results and lacks social media coverage.

Key features:

• Boolean search operators for refined keyword tracking
• Customizable alert frequency (as-it-happens, daily, or weekly)
• Multi-language and regional support for global brand monitoring

Pricing: Free.

Brand24

Brand24 is an AI social media monitoring tool that uses natural language processing (NLP) to track and analyze brand mentions across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TripAdvisor. Brand24 also has sentiment analysis capabilities to help you understand your brand reputation online.

Key features:

• Real-time monitoring of more than 25 million online sources, including social media, news, blogs, videos, forums, podcasts, and reviews
• AI-powered sentiment analysis to categorize mentions as positive, negative, or neutral across 108 supported languages
• Customizable reporting and metrics to measure brand awareness, reach, and engagement

Pricing: Plans start at $199 per month for individuals, billed annually. A 14-day free trial is available.

Reputation

Reputation is a reputation management platform that integrates multiple data sources for comprehensive brand monitoring. It uses AI algorithms to analyze reviews and interpret customer feedback.

Key features:

• A centralized platform for monitoring and responding to customer feedback across multiple review sites
• A unified dashboard for managing and engaging with social media posts and messages across various social media channels
• Tools for analyzing competitors’ online performance

Pricing: Plans start at $80 per location, per month for reviews management. More expensive plans include advanced reputation insights and start at $115 per location per month.

Brandwatch

Brandwatch is an advanced consumer intelligence platform that uses big data processing and AI-driven analytics. It has deep social listening capabilities and predictive trend analysis.

Key features:

• Access to 1.7 trillion historical social media conversations dating back to 2010, with 501 million new conversations added daily
• AI functionality with Iris AI, which includes a native assistant, content generator, and AI-powered search functionality
• A customizable user interface with more than 50 live visualizations, the ability to blend in custom data, and various export options

Pricing: Contact sales to request a demo and pricing.

*Disclaimer: Based on a 2025 survey of 500 Shopify merchants conducted in English across Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United States. Respondents were established merchants with two or more years on the platform. Results reflect the experiences of this specific sample and may not be representative of all merchants.