What is a Reputation Management Service?
Need a Service to Manage Your Online Reputation?
There are a lot of available services online. Reputation management is not new but was before for larger companies. For today you may want to read on to see if this service is for you!
[1]Your online reputation serves as a trust signal that determines if prospects will do business with you. According to a study by the University of Technology Sydney, most consumers are willing to pay more for a product or service from a company with a stellar reputation online. What does your brand reputation look like?
Whether you own or manage a small business, Fortune 500 company or multi-location firm, you need to maintain a positive online reputation to establish your thought-leadership brand and gain better online recognition. Online reputation management allows you to do just that.
Reputation management is the practice of safeguarding the online reputation of an individual, company or organization to shape public perception. Internet reputation management ensures online users and search engines find suitable materials when searching for your brand online.
Online reputation management involves:
- Review generation
- Survey campaign management
- Reputation monitoring
- Social media follower growth service
- Review marketing
- Search engine optimization (SEO) reputation management
- Online reputation repair
Ignore your reputation online, and you risk falling victim to rumours and misinformation. On the other hand, gain reputation control, and you create a wealth of positive, quality materials that reflect your brand.
[2]How Reputation Management Works
A good reputation management strategy must be tailored to the individual situation. Each company faces different challenges based on the nature of their businesses and the current state of their reputation. A comprehensive strategy might include:
The creation of new websites and pages highlighting the positive aspects of your business or personal identity.
Targeted SEO (search engine optimization) to improve the rankings of web pages that portray you or your business in a positive light.
Content creation for websites, press releases, and news agencies, highlighting your greatest assets.
Effective branding and social media management, which helps you to build strong relationships with customers and maintain a favourable identity.
Our reputation management services company has represented many client campaigns, including reputation management campaigns for Fortune 500 companies, their executives, and their boards of directors.
[3]How Is Reputation Management Different From PR?
Public relations (PR) and online reputation management have the same goal: to portray the company in the best possible light. The main difference between the two is how they achieve that goal.
PR firms work externally, such as through advertising and coordinated media promotional efforts. It’s mostly a proactive effort to strengthen brands instead of minimizing attacks on companies (though PR firms do sometimes handle damage control).
Online reputation management, on the other hand, is most often reactive. It involves looking for and responding to potentially damaging content from other people or companies.
Most of the work that goes into ORM is handled internally by brands rather than by an external firm.
Why You Need to Manage Your Online Reputation.
The hits a brand takes online can be numerous, but they’re often small attacks—a negative comment here, a low star rating there.
None of these blows is worth a full-scale PR campaign, but they add up quickly.
You need online reputation management to take care of each of these little fires before they amount to severe damage.
ORM is also important for maintaining transparency—a vital ingredient of brand loyalty in 2020.
While there is undoubtedly still a place for orchestrated PR campaigns, consumers today are also looking for organic interactions with companies. They want to hear directly from businesses in personalized conversations, such as a direct message or an Instagram comment.
With online reputation management, your business combats adverse claims by addressing them directly and openly.
5 Online Reputation Management Strategies You Can Use
Given the sheer number of social media and other sites where your brand might be mentioned, online reputation management can seem daunting.
But don’t worry—we’re here to help! We’ve put together five sound strategies that will help you get started managing your brand’s online reputation.
1. Answer Promptly and With Empathy.
Sometimes the best ORM happens before a negative comment or review is posted when customers ask questions, whether by messaging you directly or posting on social media, you should respond right away.
A Clutch survey found that 83% of people expect responses to social media comments in a day or less, so don’t wait too long. Prompt responses prevent frustrated users from posting negative feedback and show the customer you place a high value on helping them.
2. Address Negativity Up Front.
It can be tempting to discount negative comments and reviews from customers. After all, why would you want to draw attention to them by responding? But the truth is that you’re doing your company a disservice by ignoring unhappy customers. Of the 82% of consumers who read online reviews, 97% also read the business’s responses. Addressing negative thoughts is a way to show customers that even if they have an issue with your company, you will be there to take care of it.
So when customers leave negative comments and reviews, always respond. Address their issue with patience and determination. Peloton, an exercise equipment company, follows this mindset by consistently responding to negative reviews posted on its website.
3. Own Up To Your Mistakes.
If your company faces scrutiny for an actual or perceived scandal, it always helps to apologize.
Showing remorse diffuses tense customer situations and strengthens relationships with consumers. It also shows shoppers that your company is honest and transparent.
Craft your apology with a genuine intention to own up to and resolve the issue. Directly address the main concerns raised by consumers and the media, and describe what you will do to resolve the situation.
Consider the medium for your apology as well. If the bulk of negative feedback is through a social media platform, for example, then that channel would be the appropriate space to post your statement. For instance, Starbucks released a public apology on Twitter after two African American men were arrested in a Philadelphia store.
4. Stay on Top of Your Search Results.
Most marketers think of SEO as a way to keep their brand visible. But it’s also an essential tool for minimizing the visibility of negative press and content associated with your brand.
Ideally, you want your company’s page to appear first when your company’s name is searched. After all, the number one result on SERPs gets more than 31% of all clicks, and customers are ten times more likely to click on the first search result than on a page 10 spots down.
Use an incognito window to monitor your brand’s search results, so you see what customers see. Competitors can bid on your branded keywords to make their information appear first, so you may have to bid on your keywords to retain the top spot.
For example, when you Google Taskade, the top results are all directly related to the company, including their business page, main page, social media, and positive reviews.
5. Automate Online Reputation Management.
Instead of manually combing through websites and social media on your own, save time by using software that automates ORM tasks.
One of the most straightforward monitoring tools is Google Alerts. Enter your brand name in the tool, and receive notifications of media and news stories that talk about your company. That way, you will know right away when your company is being talked about, and you can quickly respond if necessary.
The tool Brand24 goes one step further. Instead of just crawling news stories, it also monitors social media for mentions of your brand. It can even perform a “sentiment analysis,” looking at key emotion words in reviews to let you know how people feel about your brand.
Conclusion:
If you are struggling with your online reputation, maybe you should consider an online reputation service.
Article Compiled by hughesagency.ca
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