What You Need To Know About Brand Mentions in 2025

In this article, you’ll learn how to leverage brand mentions to build online awareness and improve brand sentiment.

When the average person hears the phrase “reputation management,” it sometimes puts a bad taste in their mouth. After all, if someone has a clean reputation, then they wouldn’t need to manage and monitor it, right? Wrong!

Online reputation management (ORM) can seem dubious at first. However, it’s actually a requirement for all brands, businesses and even individuals. It’s needed to prevent negative mentions and a poor brand image, not just repair one that’s already been damaged.

In other words, if a brand or person hires an ORM expert, it’s not necessarily because they have something to hide. It can simply be a preventative measure to keep harmful content at bay and get on top of brand monitoring from the start.

With this mentality in mind, we have suggestions for how any brand or individual can better manage their ORM and online presence.

We work with clients to help them build their online reputation and take control of their digital presence. Give us a call at 844-230-3803 to learn more.

3 Keys for Managing Your Brand’s Online Reputation

Whether or not ORM is part of your strategy at the moment, people tend to head online and leave comments or feedback for one reason: to complain.

Luckily, at other times, your current or potential customers will turn to the internet for a more positive reason: to learn about what you can offer them.

When either situation happens, ORM provides the structure for handling it. 

Today, online reputation management is more important than ever before. Get started with a free analysis here or explore our services offered through our parent company, NetReputation.

1. Leverage the power of search engines.

No matter what industry or business you are in, the majority of online searches and content starts on Google. And what appears at the top of the search results for your brand or name can quickly give a negative or positive first impression.

Consider this: The top organic search result on Google has an average CTR of 27.6%, and it’s 10x more likely to be clicked than the No. 10 result.

One of the best ways to make a good impression when someone searches for your business name online is to own the first page of the search results.

This can easily be accomplished by creating your own branded content. Post it on platforms you own, like your blog, website and social media profiles. Also, link all of these accounts together so people can easily find you — when you do this, your rankings will usually increase as well.

Remember, though: It’s not just about creating a single piece of content. You need to regularly provide your audience with value. Always make sure you’re creating content that your target audience will find useful. Stick to a consistent posting schedule, too.

2. Expertly handle negative brand mentions.

No one likes to hear negative feedback, harsh opinions, or unflattering brand mentions or social media posts. But it’s going to happen, and you need to be prepared for it.

Imagine you run a local restaurant or a well-known global brand. People are going to have complaints and post negative content and reviews online. It’s simply a numbers game at some point.

That’s not even a bad thing — customers expect to find some negative reviews, and they’ll be suspicious if there aren’t any. A brand that has 100% positive reviews will seem untrustworthy. Why? It’s practically impossible that every single reviewer had a great experience.

What matters most is how you respond to reviews. BrightLocal found that 88% of consumers would use a business that replies to all reviews, both positive and negative. Only 47% would use a business that doesn’t respond to its reviews.

Here’s how to make negative brand mentions work for you:

• Address the negative review publicly so that others can see that you proactively handle unsatisfied customers.
• Remain polite and professional, no matter how aggressive the reviewer becomes. Talking down to a customer can result in more negative brand mentions, causing a bigger online reputation problem.
• Always have the goal of providing some sort of solution for the customer, and discuss details about that solution privately instead of on a public review site.

Also, negative brand mentions and social media comments give you the chance to learn about your audience. Dig deeper into the feedback to determine if changes need to be made in order to elevate the overall customer experience.

Along with our parent company NetReputation, OnlineReputation.com provides information and services to help you protect your digital presence. Get started with a free online reputation analysis here.

3. Take action on your brand mentions.

The internet is loaded with juicy tools to help individuals and businesses monitor brand mentions whenever they appear on websites, media outlets, social media, and blogs.

Sure, you might already be using tools like Google Alerts and maybe even some other premium tracking services and media monitoring tools. You might also be using tools to monitor your online reputation. But is brand monitoring all you can do?

This is where many brands and marketers fail.

A lot of the time, the business owner will track brand mentions and get an alert when their business is mentioned online. They’ll assess whether or not the brand mentions are positive or negative. And that’s it. They won’t do anything past that point.

When you identify brand mentions, whether they’re positive or negative, take action. Thank the customer for their feedback, address a problem someone is experiencing, share their testimonial on your social media account — whatever you feel is appropriate for the situation.

Then, assess what you can do moving forward to either encourage more positive feedback or prevent negative mentions from appearing online.

Professional Online Reputation Management

Whether you’re managing your own online reputation and brand monitoring or you’ve hired a brand reputation manager or ORM agency, always keep these best practices in mind:

• Take control of search engine results. By consistently publishing your own positive content, you’ll prevent negative news articles and reviews from overpowering your Google presence.
• Instead of ignoring negative comments on review sites and social media, approach them proactively to solve the problem and impress your audience.
• Don’t just track brand mentions — take action on them, whether by addressing them directly, sharing them with your audience or learning from your mistakes.

At OnlineReputation.com, we provide must-know information to individuals and businesses who want to create, grow or repair their digital reputation. Whether you’re prioritizing your personal or professional online reputation, our advice and team of experts can help.

Through our parent company, NetReputation, we offer a range of online reputation management services, including ad management, search engine optimization, review monitoring, content removal and more. Our five-step ORM strategy ensures we cover every base to create a tailored program that’s right for you.

It’s possible to create a robust, positive online reputation even if you’re starting from zero or rebounding from a PR crisis. Call us at 844-230-3803 for more information.