Online Reputation Management (ORM)- A Complete Guide

In today’s technologically enabled world, being listed on Google’s first page is considered a success. This is because users tend to interact with businesses that appear at the top of search results. The internet has evolved into more than just a source of information. Users believe that anything displayed on the internet is trustworthy. To stay connected with the user, it is vital to seem good on the internet. This is where the role of Online Reputation Management, or ORM, comes in.

What is Online Reputation Management?

Online reputation management is the technique of managing a brand’s online reputation by replacing deceptive content, posting trending content, and making it visible with the assistance of other online algorithms.

For a user, the brand must present or provide appropriate answers to their questions. If the questions are not answered, a user may lose trust in the brand for their needs, prompting the user to provide negative feedback on the company, which is then flagged by internet algorithms. This significantly impacts the brand’s reputation because it falls lower in the search results, allowing competitors to surge higher.

Online reputation management controls a brand by organizing its digital structure, uploading the correct information, linking the correct pages, correcting misleading material, and presenting the best image of the brand to the user. The internet is a global place that brings together friends and foes. This creates anxiety since strangers and competitors are always one step ahead of a brand’s reputation.

Why Does a Business Need Online Reputation Management?

According to a study by BrightLocal, 85 percent of shoppers trust online reviews more than personal recommendations. The barrier between the virtual and real worlds has blurred in recent years, with more and more individuals connecting and engaging through various social media platforms, which means that your online reputation affects your offline reputation as well. These figures show how many online reviews can affect your business:

57 percent of consumers reject products with less than four ratings outright (up from 48 percent in 2017)!

11 percent of customers will not accept anything less than a 5-star review.

In the previous two years, there has been a 35% spike in Google searches for restaurant reviews. In other industries, review searches have increased by 100 percent.

Given these figures, you can see how critical it is for your company to maintain a positive internet reputation.

Benefits of Online Reputation Management 

Online Reputation Management can help you in a number of ways.

•  Boost Sales

 Most people search online for information about a product or service before they decide to buy it. Before buying from a certain brand, they read online reviews to find out what other people think about the brand and the products and services it offers.

Businesses that get good online reviews tend to get more customers. Companies that are seen in a bad light or get a lot of bad reviews miss out on big profits and chances. Because of this, businesses should try to have the most positive reviews possible.

•  Make a Brand Name

When negative things are said about a brand on the internet, customers usually stop being loyal to that brand. So, in the end, this can be bad for business. The respect they’ve built up over the years they’ve been in business can be lost in an instant.

But a good plan for managing a business’s online reputation can help them build their brand’s reputation. Companies can build the image they want for their brand by keeping an eye on how people respond to them on all of their communication channels.

• Increases visibility

 Visibility on the internet is vital, which can be achieved through a well-designed and content-rich website or through company blogs. These internet channels are included in social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. All of these platforms are great marketing tools.

They do, however, require adequate management to handle daily user activity. The ideal approach for managing these regular user behaviors is online reputation management software.

•  Boosts trust and reputation

People can say what they think about anything on the internet, especially on social media sites. Most people buy from brands they know and trust. Every business needs people they can trust. This is why businesses need to find ways to make their customers trust them.

One of the best ways for them to do this is to stay away from bad reviews. No one wants to do business with a company that the public thinks negatively of. A good ORM company uses strategies that make sure that only content that helps your brand gets onto social sites and search engines.

• Leads to good business Insights

A good online digital reputation management strategy can give businesses smart ideas about how to raise brand awareness. Each review is important because, if it is focused on the right channel, it can be a great way to bring in new customers.

The reviews give businesses feedback, which can help them improve their business and even help them plan for the future, especially when they’re putting out a new product or service. Even if a review isn’t good, managers of a company’s reputation can deal with it by fixing the things that are wrong.

Once you start working on this, you’ll see how useful online reputation management is.

How to Manage Your Brand’s Online Reputation?

You must have a process in place for successful online reputation management. Of course, the process will differ based on your company’s size, industry, and resources. However, consider the eight guidelines outlined below as the important milestones for developing an effective ORM strategy. You can expand or contract it, but the core stages will remain the same.

• Perform an Audit of Your ORM

 Before implementing any ORM procedure, you must first undertake a thorough online reputation audit.

The objective of an online reputation management audit is to discover how people perceive you online and what challenges you face in contesting that perception. And in order to accomplish so, you must conduct some brand monitoring.

• Create a Strategy for Online Reputation Management

When you understand the online world surrounding your brand, it is time to develop an online reputation management strategy. However, before we get into the specifics, you must first establish your priorities. It can be hard to know where to start with online reputation management. So, setting priorities is the most important thing, since you can’t jump on every single mention. When your audit with reputation management tools is done, it should be easier for you to decide what to work on first.

• Track Mentions of Your Brand Efficiently

Keeping an eye on online conversations gives you a real-time look at your online presence and gives you a chance to respond quickly. But it’s not enough to just look at where reviews rank on Google. You can set up a campaign to watch the web for mentions of your brand, services, products, and people so you always know what people are saying about you. And you can jump right in and try to fix any bad things that are said or mentioned.

Encourage Online Reviews That Are Good.

Whether the reviews are good or bad, they will affect your business and sales. Dimensional Research found that 90 percent of shoppers are influenced by positive online reviews. And if your brand has negative reviews, 86 percent of users will reconsider purchasing it.And people have a lot of high hopes for your reputation. In fact, 49% of customers expect a business to have a four-star rating before they will even think about buying from them. 

Don’t be scared to request a review, but only after you’ve offered an exceptional experience. People share their favorite and least favorite experiences; no one discusses a mediocre experience. Find the points in your client’s journey where you know they are happy, and then ask them gently (for example, by adding a link to share your content on social media).

Dealing With Negative Online Reviews

Bad reviews have a direct influence on the bottom line of your business since they deter existing and future clients from using your services or products. Ignoring negative feedback is the worst policy you can devise. Responding to such reviews demonstrates that you, as a brand, genuinely care about each and every consumer and will go to great measures to remedy their problems. A RightNow survey found that 34% of customers will delete their negative reviews if the company responds to them.

Conclusion

Online reputation management services can assist you in creating a positive brand image or repairing a shattered one. This is not something you should attempt on your own for the first time unless you are really experienced.

Booking a consultation with one of the best online reputation management companies like Sailax Media will save you time and money while also positioning your company for success. Sailax Media takes a comprehensive approach to assist businesses and individuals in managing their online reputations. They make plans for each business that are unique to it and are experts in branding, general reputation management, and monitoring privacy.