ORM stands for Online Reputation Management. We all have heard about this word so many times. Today I am going to talk in depth about Online Reputation Management and let you know some interesting facts about this. We will learn what ORM is and how it can help in Digital Marketing. Also some benefits of ORM and tips to maintain better online reputation management. So let’s start the learning. First let’s understand what is ORM.
Online Reputation Management
As we could understand by its name, online reputation management is a practice of creating strategies to maintain online presence of a product, services, website, individual or any organization. It includes public interaction and services support. Within this practice, you can improve your internet presence and collect public opinions about your business or services which can help you to achieve more customer satisfaction. A positive customer interaction could lead a better word of mouth for your business and drive more engagement & sale.
However, there are many myths about Online reputation management between people. For some people it is considered as social media monitoring method, or another vertical of customer service, and for some people ORM platforms as just customer interaction platforms where one could get product or services support.
Reality of ORM
I remember the days when there was no social media available for people who wanted to talk about any product. It was hard for customers to take out their words on internet be it positive, negative or suggestive. But it is completely changed now. It doesn’t matter how big your business is, the online presence is always a useful method for every business owner. Online Reputation Management brings a transparency between customer and business owners. A good online reputation is not about interacting with people or sharing product/services information online. Sometimes brands need to react on issues. Most of the time reaction is important but sometimes you could skip to react if it is not necessary.
Pro tip: Always maintain the response time if you are willing to react on any customer feedback, suggestion or complaint. If you respond late, it will not help you in building positive brand image. Sometimes, it cost millions for big business. Proactive responses matters a lot during public dealing.
Importance of Online Reputation Management in Digital Marketing
Since the power of social media is increasing every day, ORM became an important part of Digital Marketing Strategies. It is important for to maintain online business presence for every business. Social media profiles are not just about sharing product or services updates, but it could a channel for your business to gain more customers and collect feedbacks.
ORM helps to generate word of mouth for business. So if you are good with your internet presence, you will get more direct visitors (Potential Customers) which you can convert into a business lead. It helps to enhance customer experience and helps in building better products. And the best part is, you get all the feedbacks and suggestions by end users for free.
Benefits of Online Reputation Management
A good online presence has multiple benefits for any business. There are four major benefits of having good online reputation for your brand.
Transparency between users and brand
A good online presence encourages product or services users to ask questions from brands publicly and get answers. While addressing these questions, brands maintain transparency and share right information which is a great sign of building trust between users. No company would share false or incorrect information on public platform.
Direct Interaction/Communication Channel
Business owners could use social media handles as direct communication platforms where they can establish one-to-one conversation with consumers. Business owners can add quality in customer service by answering customer complaints and turn an irate customer into a happy customer. Direct attention to complains, feedback or suggestions creates a positive impact on brand image.
Collect Feedback
For every product, the best feedback one could receive from actual product users. Social Media Channels are the platforms where every customer or potential customer could share product feedback. It helps to make changes in product or develop a better product for audience. It is one of the most important factors in business expansion. Genuine feedback could help a lot in product improvement.
Handling Criticism
Social Media platforms are very much useful while handling criticism. Do not run away or hide from Criticism. Consider the criticism as an opportunity to collect different user experiences and apply fixes in your product or services. Criticism of product is actually a genuine feedback for any product. Let’s take an example here.
Imagine you are running a restaurant chain and one of your customers is criticising served food. You would immediately check for the quality, services and many other factors to improve it. But what if the customer is complaining there is no proper lightening in your restaurant? This is not a direct complaint to your business but always matter in customer experience.
However, you should be positive while dealing with criticism. Getting defensive while handling criticism doesn’t work in internet world. Business owners are not supposed to show aggression or get defensive with customers.
So far we have learnt about benefits, importance and meaning of Online Reputation Management. Now let me tell you few disadvantages of not having online presence or Online Reputation.
Disadvantages of not having online presence
If you are not maintaining your brand’s online presence then you might encounter given below problems. You need to maintain a good online reputation management for your brand.
False Reviews
You have to deal with false reviews if social handles any other online platform of your brand is not available for users to interact. Most of the time, irate customers put false reviews about brands and take out their frustration. Every negative review affects your business reputation and sales. Asking users to visit website is not enough sometimes. Addressing all issues and maintaining transparency would be the biggest challenge in this situation.
Hate Websites
Hate websites directly leave a massive negative impact on your business. Some customers go beyond the boundaries and take out their frustration by creating hate pages. Most of the time these pages have information according to irate customer but it’s very hard to deal with this situation. Some examples of hate sites are
yourbrand-falsecompany .com
scamyourbrand .com
i-hate-yourbrand .com
If you don’t have any online presence and any of these pages got rank in SERP, you will need a lot of hard work to get this removed. You need a Digital Marketing Expert in this situation.
Tips to build better Online Reputation
In order to build better Online Reputation, you could follow few basic steps. Being a digital marketer, I have learnt a lot of things by experiencing different situations. I would like to share few tips with you all. Here it goes.
Strong SEO
Search Engine Optimization is one of the best methods to build your online presence. If your brand name or brand keywords give you ranks on first page of Google, then you did the right SEO. Now a day higher ranks in SERP is much more important than business cards.
Maintain Transparency & Share respect
Maintain transparency with users and always respect their opinions about your business. It is a tough task to make people respect your product or service and what you do. Equally gaining trust is not an easy task to achieve. You can only build trust between customers by maintaining transparency.
Maintain excellent response rate
Proactive response helps a lot while dealing with customers on social platforms. None likes to get a late response from brand. If the response rate is not good, you might struggle in retaining customers.
Monitor customer ratings and reviews
Always keep an eye on social media content about your brand. Monitor what people say about you and try to engage with positive feedback. Resolve all the negative complaints timely. It can bring more business opportunities for you. It is a common trend between people to ask questions via social media platforms such as twitter and Facebook.
Avoid Defensive Responses
While responding on social media platform, never get defensive or show aggression. There are millions of social media users who can see or react on your responses. So maintain the politeness and handle every issue carefully.
FAQs – Online Reputation Management
Online reputation management is a practice of creating strategies to maintain online presence of a product, services, website, individual or any organization. It includes public interaction and services support. Online reputation management strategies are must for a better online presence.
Online Reputation Management is a method of creating better online presence of a brand on different internet platforms. Big brands often use service providers to manage their online presence. Under online reputation management service, providers help brands to built a positive image for their brand name.
ORM helps to generate word of mouth for business. So if you are good with your internet presence, you will get more direct visitors (Potential Customers) which you can convert into a business lead. It helps to enhance customer experience and helps in building better products.
There are several ways by which you could improve your social media reputation. Given below are few basic steps.
- Be responsive to your social media users. Always respond on both positive and negative mentions.
- Work on building a brand image on social media platforms. Keep the brand image in your mind instead of sales while posting on social media platforms.
- Cover your brand story: Talk to social media audience and share your brand story with them.
- React on Reviews: Encourage social media audience to review your services or product. Collect reviews and react immediately when you get a review.
- Develop Engagement Activities: Encourage people to engage with your social media page/handle. Organize quiz, games and polls to encourage your social media audience and let them engage with your page/handle.
This was the small Online Reputation Management guide. Hope it would help you to understand the concepts of ORM (Online Reputation Management) better.
However, if you have any suggestions or feedback for this information then do comment below. And Keep Exploring TheSEOGuy for more Latest SEO Tips
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