What is Online Reputation Management?
Whether a Business runs online or offline, they can be subject to appreciation, criticism or feedback in the form of a review, complaint or a social media post, which all happens in the cloud. These can be critical for a company, depending on the nature of the content which can either harm or help the company.
So Online Reputation Management is the process of improving or restoring the company’s reputation in the eyes of the general public which are online. The process also involves strategies that help businesses improve and respond to customer’s online reviews about their business on popular review sites like Yelp, review center, google reviews, Trustpilot etc.
Here are a few Reasons on why you should have an Online Reputation Management System
1) Online Reputation Affects Google Rankings: If your business offers poor customer service, then your website is de-ranked to the bottom of the food chain since Google uses an algorithm which is designed to de-rank those websites which do not offer good customer service.
2) Allows to Monitor your Online Reputation: By monitoring you can know what people love about your product, get feedback about what to change in the product or anything missing from the product according to the consumers, this information provide valuable insight to what the average consumer needs and act upon accordingly.
3) Prevent and Mitigate Negative news from Spreading: Using an ORM you can monitor your reputation and allows you a window to act promptly and save your business from severe damage to your reputation online.
4) Recruitment: As we all know having a professional workforce is the foundation for every successful company and top individuals in every industry are headhunting. These individuals will most likely do research about your company and look at all the facts concerning your business before accepting an offer from your company.
5) Boost Sales: When an average consumer is trying to make a purchase with your company, he/she would always do research about your products, services and about your brand before making a decision. When you have a good online reputation and presence, the consumer finds your brand to be trustworthy and choose to go with your brand. If not, you are missing out on these increased sales conversion and a satisfied client base.
Steps to follow for Better Online Reputation Management
1) Gain Respect and Be Respected
We all know that trust is a perishable asset and once lost it’s harder to gain back the lost trust. So it is vital to make people respect you and your work and is the most important step to follow.
2) Listen to what they say about You
Always have open ears (meaning active monitoring) to what the consumer has to say about you on a social media platform, be it Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. These days, people tend to ask questions on these social media platforms. Responding positively and in time increases the chance of those users purchasing your product/service.
3) Respond Positively and In Time
If you get a customer complaints on Twitter, instead of late response with more information, respond quickly that goes something like this “Thank You for Reaching Out to Us, we have taken note of the problem. We are working out a fix for it and will get back to you as soon as possible.”
4) First Impression on Google Page 1
As we all know that “The first impression is the Best Impression”, so when a potential customer googles your business and to find out searches with words like “scam”, ”worst”, “terrible” or “stay away” are associated with your business, then it will drive away your potential customers to the next competitor who has a better Online Reputation Management.
5) Do not get into online Arguments
When dealing with an aggressor online be sure that you don’t get into online arguments, as it’s very easy to get sucked into this. Even if you are correct in every sense and by going head-on with the aggressor can result in decreased overall appeal and can come across to the online community as harsh, narrow-minded and unprofessional. The best approach is to reach out and diffuse the situation offline while being professional online than you think you need to be. Being professional you also might be able to win more customers.
6) Tackle your Illicit Attackers
Sometimes the reviews that people post can be illegal due to a variety of reasons like abusive language; reports false information about your company or it is used aimed at damaging the business’s reputation. You can tackle these attackers by taking down those reviews or you can sue the attacker on legal grounds.
7) Learn from mistakes of yours and others
Have a keen eye to what other businesses are doing wrong in terms of Online Reputation Management and see how it is affecting the company. If you had an experience of similar context in the past, take up preventive measures to tackle those issues.
8) Get a Blog
By owning and maintaining a blog you can prevent bad reputation webpages from ranking and it won’t end up in the eyes of the potential customer who is researching about your business before proceeding with you.
9) Use an ORM Tool
With the help of an ORM tool you can monitor what people are saying about your brand across social media and the web, spot trends, monitor online reviews, search for negative reviews and can do it in real time as well. Some of the top tools are as follows Awario, Reputology, GoFish, and Grade.us.
10) Consult with an ORM Specialist
Suppose the damage has already been done and you have tried all the steps mentioned above to fix your business’s reputation, it is best to consult and discuss with an ORM specialist who possesses the required skills and experience to fix up your reputation as a company.
Feel free to Contact us, if you still have any Query. We would love to hear from you.