Over the past couple of years, the way people communicate, buy, and consume things has changed significantly. Not only are people doing most of it online, but everything done online leaves an indelible digital footprint that can be used to judge a person’s character and determine whether or not we’re trustworthy. As a result, having an excellent reputation is extremely important if you want people to engage with your brand, endorse your services, or trust you. But how exactly can you achieve such a glowing online reputation? And what should you do if your reputation isn’t so sterling right now?
What Is Online Reputation Management?
Online Reputation Management (ORM) is a digital strategy that brands, professionals, and even individuals use to proactively influence people’s opinions online. Managing your reputation means creating an identity on various channels to ensure that you’re effectively seen as trustworthy or a partner with whom people want to do business. Online reputation management has especially become useful in this era when bad publicity spreads fast because of the virality of internet content.
An example of online reputation management would be a customer having a bad experience in your store, say, a verbal spat with an employee. In this case, online reputation management would involve you taking steps to ensure that content about that incident is removed from public view and the negative mentions played down. Instead of outright denying the incident, you seek to control what is said about it. Doing so can positively influence what people are saying about you online.
Online reputation management is slightly different from advertising. Whereas traditional marketing focuses on increasing awareness and recognition of your brand, online reputation management focuses on managing what’s already out there—positive or negative. It’s important to have a proactive approach rather than a reactive one.
While you can occasionally post on social media defending your brand, it’s better to hand over ORM to a brand reputation agency. They have more resources, including people, skills, and tools for more credible ORM efforts.
How Can I Improve My Online Reputation?
Even if you aren’t sure what your customers are saying about you, it’s important to be aware of potential risks that could affect your business. For example, a search for your company may turn up nothing—or worse yet, damaging information.
Some of the proven tactics you can use in ORM include:
1. Search engine optimization (SEO) – SEO is about ensuring that your business name or brand name is associated with positive keywords and phrases on search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.
2. Paid advertising – Advertising on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., to create content that will positively influence what people say about your brand.
3. Influencer marketing – Identify influential people with large followers on social media and reach out to them to create an organic buzz about your product or service.
4. Community management – Create communities of fans around your products or services.
5. Reputation monitoring – Monitor what’s being said about you online by setting up alerts for mentions using tools like Google Alerts, Mention, etc. An agency can help by guiding you through all these steps and more if needed to ensure that any negative news doesn’t spread beyond control and cause irreparable damage to your reputation.
How Do I Build My Online Reputation?
Luckily, building a positive online reputation isn’t just about search engine optimization or social media. It’s also about what you and your business put out into the world.
Using tools such as Google Alerts to monitor mentions of your name is a great way to assess how people feel about your brand. Google Alerts pulls mentions from blogs and news sites within reach of its index and lets you specify keywords more likely than others to generate positive results.
After seeing what is being said, you can deploy different tools and tactics. For example, you could write a guest post on a related website to add your voice to a topic or issue being discussed. Or you might reach out to those who have written about your brand and thank them for their attention, asking if there’s anything else they’d like to know about your company or product.
Why Is Online Reputation So Important?
In today’s world, a great online reputation is extremely important. This shouldn’t come as a surprise because most companies consider it essential for running any modern business. But what makes it so critical that you should actively work on improving your own public image?
For one, people conduct business online based on trust. They want to know that you’re a credible company with a great track record and a flawless image. A tarnished image will make it hard for you to attract new customers and make it difficult for existing ones to recommend your services to others—which is what you want them to do!
Online reputation is also important because most potential customers do an extremely quick vetting process before they decide whether or not they want to work with your company. They’re using search engines like Google and social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Yelp to find out about your business before contacting you directly. If their first impression isn’t positive, then there’s little chance of them contacting you in the future – no matter how good your services may be!
How Can I Improve My Business Reputation?
For the average business owner, doing meaningful online reputation management can be difficult. It is much better to hand over the task to a reputation management agency. In such an engagement, the terms of reference for the agency include the following:
- creating positive content about your brand and your products or services
- responding to negative content on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter
- monitoring what people are saying about you on review sites like Yelp and Google
- handling customer service issues on behalf of your company
- dealing with negative press that might appear in traditional media outlets.
Some of the benefits of using an agency include that a professional agency takes charge of your online reputation, which means you don’t have to worry about it. You can focus on your core business activities. An agency will also do a better job than you would because they are professionals who specialize in managing reputations and creating content. They know how to write compelling content and effectively use social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
Conclusion
Online reputation plays a key role in influencing your present and potential customers’ decisions. As such, every business owner must improve their online reputation. The best way to do so is by hiring an agency specializing in online reputation management. An agency will have access to tools and strategies you don’t have and experience with industry-specific best practices and regulations. If you’re looking for ways to improve your business’s online presence, contact us today! We’ll be happy to discuss our services with you further!
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