Reputation of your organisation can have a direct impact on the sales and revenue of your business. In the present times one negative review or unpleasant incident situated with your brand can have a major hit on your business .
Reputation is directly linked with how your customers perceive your brand. Whether you have a positive image amongst the consumers and whether they trust your brand enough to try out your products or services .
Big brands these days are investing heavily on the online reputation of the brand so that they have a better relationship with the consumers and a loyal customer base
WHY DO ONLINE REPUTATION MATTERS SO MUCH ?
It is not possible for a brand to satisfy each of its customers. In the online dominant times businesses tend to face minor blows like a negative review or a low rating perhaps. Wel these are not any major issues that would require a full fledged PR campaign as a remedial. But they are not so small to be neglected just like that .
Although one or two negative reviews over numerous positive ones does not make much of a difference but when left unchecked or added together can seriously hamper the business. These days with the widespread of social media and their huge user base have given rise to the viral culture or the trend culture where negative reviews or an unpleasant incident picks up pace within no time .
In cases like these where a full blown PR is not necessary, your online reputation can work as a shield for you.Even if things go out of hand and you need a PR campaign, then your good reputation can work as the backbone of your campaign .
ORM is not only required to eliminate negativity or false news associated with your brand but also helps you to maintain transparency which is again a crucial factor for maintaining good reputation .
Even the latest brand loyalty guidelines claims tall about the importance of online reputation management
How is ORM different from PR ?
Online reputation management (ORM) and Public relations (PR) both have the same objectives. Both these activities aim at representing the brand in a positive light at all given points of time. The only difference is their methodology of achieving that goal .
PR mainly comes into picture while promoting the brand and collaboration with media for the said purpose. Whereas the nature of ORM is reactive. It aims at minimising the negative and replacing them with high ratings and positive reviews .
PR is mostly used as a defence mechanism after the damage is done to the brand’s name. On the other hand ORM actively looks for online threats to the brand and eliminates or reduces them before they become damage worthy to the brand .
EFFECTIVE ONLINE REPUTATION STRATEGIES FOR THE BRANDS
With the wide scope of the internet, involving search engines, advertisement and social media, maintaining reputation online may seem like a complex task. Well nothing comes easy, but with the right guidance and approach there is nothing impossible .
Given below are some useful techniques for online reputation management .
- PROACTIVE RESPONSES
In order to build a reputation online you have to be active and prompt when dealing with reviews, feedbacks and queries. To say the least, sometimes the process of ORM begins even before a negative comment is actually posted about you. It starts with a query or question posed at your brand online .
As a brand aspiring to gain great reputation online, you need to reply to those reviews, comments or questions quickly and as soon as possible. In fact a Clutch survey said that 83% social media users expect to have a reply within a day’s time or even less .
The social media friendly generation is not appreciative of waiting long and can turn negative towards you for this very reason. Hence, always keep in mind to reply promptly and politely. Because obviously you can not come out rude and expect the customers to like your brand . - ALWAYS CATER TO THE NEGATIVE COMMENTS
One of the biggest mistakes that brands make is ignoring or neglecting the negative comments. Be upfront and answer the negative comments with empathy and politeness. When consumers find a reply they still like you as a brand despite having a not so good experience with your product or service earlier .
They might not like your product but would appreciate your customer support. Also, take responsibility for your actions and be true to your customers. There is no denying the fact that customers add value to your brand. So if they have a bad experience with you, own it and rectify it. Denying is of no good to you . - INVEST YOUR TIME IN SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
Search engine optimization is a popular digital marketing technique that is known to increase brand visibility online. But for the aspirants of online reputation SEO is a gem that is generally left unexplored. SEO can be an important tool for a brand to minimise their negative press comments and other negative material like reviews circulating on the internet having association with your brand .
Search engine optimization will not only help you with suppressing negative content and managing reviews. But will also help in ranking you higher on the search engine results page (SERP). It is estimated that first 10 search results on SERP gets more than 31% of all clicks
There are high chances of a high ranking company to establish itself as a reputed brand in the eyes of the customers . - INCORPORATE REPUTATION AUTOMATION WITH TECHNOLOGY
Online reputation management is not a one time thing but a continuous process. With the scaling of business or rise in the customer base it becomes a great amount hassle for the businesses to practice online reputation management manually .
Hence, it is best advised to incorporate review management softwares and save your time and energy. The first step of dealing with reviews is continuously monitoring them. And one the best tech solutions for review monitoring is Google Alerts. All you need to do is set up your account with your brand’s name to get notified every time you receive a new comment .
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