There are many important ways to grow and build your business online: having a professionally-designed website, using SEO, and managing social media marketing campaigns are some of the most important ways to do this. But what additional steps can you take to boost a growth spurt in your company?

Believe it or not, reputation management gives you a fantastic chance to grow your business. Every company gets bad reviews and complaints sometimes. Rather than allowing your brand to become a victim to online rumors, negative reviews, and angry complaints, you can take charge by shaping our own online image. Check out the following five online resources that can help you market your business and manage its reputation.

 Google Alerts

Wouldn’t you like to see what people online are saying about your brand? Sign up for Google Alerts. This free service has been around since 2003, and has only become more useful and innovative since then. It lets you enter search criteria and receive notifications via email when Google uncovers new content that includes your search terms. You can also add regional constraints and choose whether to see all results or “only the best results.” If your business name differs from your brand, create an additional alert for it. Also, you may want to create an alert for your name as well as for your employees.

 Womply

Womply was founded in 2011 by Toby Scammel, and has since become a favorite tool of over a hundred thousand businesses. Regardless of whether you need to intervene to mitigate negative sentiment or express appreciation for positive remarks, Womply can help you automate the job so you can stay focused on your work. This tool monitors a broad range of popular review websites and alerts you to any changes in real time. Womply also has features that encourage your most-satisfied customers to leave reviews, helping to boost overall online sentiment for your brand. Womply also has customer and business management modules that can improve your overall efficiency.

 HootSuite

Hootsuite was created by Ryan Holmes in 2010 as a means of growing businesses online through social media management. This tool gives you and your team the ability to manage all your social networks from the convenience of a single cloud-based interface. Use this tool to share content across multiple platforms monitor shares and brand mentions and respond to feedback. HootSuite can also integrate with many popular businesses apps and thereby improve the efficiency of your operation.

 Complaint Search Box

Complaint Search Box is a free service offered through Go Fish Digital that lets you easily search more than 40 “complaint” websites. Periodically use this tool to see if anyone out there have been trash-talking your brand. When you find a complaint, you can click the link to visit the site to try to resolve it. After all, answering complaints is an important customer service strategy. Who knows, you might be to turn the hearts of your biggest haters and repair the damage that has been done.

 Reputology

Reputology saw its debut in 2012 after it was founded by Jack Yu and Nori Yoshida. This platform analyzes social media and employee review sites, search engines and other online resources to assess the quality of customer service provided by your brand. After identifying problems, you can respond using the Reputology interface. The application also tracks how well each of your team members manages such responses.

Use one or all of the above tools to help you manage your reputation, customer service, and other customer-focused elements of your marketing strategy. By taking a proactive approach, you can boost your reputation and grow your business online.