Today, your platform is the digital world, and one nasty review can spread like wildfire in no time. This is why ORM-Online Reputation Management is the most crucial necessity today. It matters little whether you are a budding entrepreneur, a small business owner, or a leader of a multinational enterprise- you see, the stakes are on an altogether different scale. In your hands, it is, or at least it should be. You need to be conscious of how to grasp and manipulate it.
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I have written this article step by step on the basics of ORM, including how to establish a good reputation, how to protect it, and what to do when (or if) things go wrong.
What is Online Reputation Management?
Actually, online reputation management basically controls what people say about you online. So, it’s actually the strategic act of creating, tracking, and maintaining a positive public image throughout all the digital platforms: search engines, social media, review sites, and blogs. So think of it as PR for the digital age- it’s not who you know but what Google says about you.
And trust me, people will Google you.
Why ORM Makes All the Difference in Today’s Digital World
Online reputation can easily make or break businesses. According to BrightLocal, 93% of all consumers check out an online review before making a purchase and an astonishing 88% trust online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations. What does that mean for you? If you are managing your personal brand or corporate brand, your online presence is what creates success.
Here are a few reasons why online reputation management has to be that leading light in your business strategy:
- First Impressions Matter: The first thing people do when they hear something about your business is try to look you up online. Whether it’s on Google, Yelp, or social media, they are looking for the good, the bad, and the ugly.
- Trust and Credibility: A good online reputation would act as a base for building trust and credibility. One single bad review or poor article can bring down the otherwise great reputation of an amazing company, especially when the industry involved is hugely competitive in nature.
- Crisis Management: Bad things are bound to happen—because they do—and having a good ORM strategy makes all the difference between disaster and merely a blip. Damage control with an idea in mind means that a minor issue cannot blow into a full-blown crisis.
Building Your Online Reputation
Manage your reputation, if possible, before a problem occurs. ORM is not fire extinguishing; it is creating a solid, positive presence—and that is almost bulletproof.
Take Control of Your Search Results
Step 1—Reputation Management: Take Over the First Results in Search Engines. Own the first page of Google and assimilate today with good content aligned with the brand you are interested in. In other words, you must be creating premium optimized content representing your brand as you push down anything not favorable or irrelevant.
Here is what you can do
- Blog: Create a blog on your website where you will post valuable information related to your niche. That way, not only does it help rank your website better within the SEO, but you also manage to give yourself an edge over other people and corporate brands in your niche.
- Guest post: You should go as a guest poster to any high authority blog related to your niche. This will help you build up your personal or corporate brand while backlinks from high authoritative sites improve your search engine ranking.
- Use Social Networks: Most probably, your social media sites are ranking well in the search engine. So, keep these sites active and professional, and branding must be consistent across all the social networks.
Pro tip: Make sure you include branded keywords in the body of your content so that when your potential customers are searching for you online, what they come up with are articles, blog posts, and social media profiles consistent with the image you want to convey.
Step 2—Positive Reviews
In the world of the web, word of mouth takes the place of real-world word of mouth in the form of reviews. Not to mention, these can only be positive reviews. Encourage your pleased customers to give their reviews on websites like Google, Yelp, and Trustpilot. The more reviews you receive, the better.
The catch here is that you have to make it easy for people to leave reviews. You have to send follow-up emails or, put links to reviews in your receipts or even offer a small incentive to leave feedback.
Step 3—Engage With Your Audience
You can’t just throw up stuff and sit back and wait. You have to engage your audience. When they comment on your blog, you’ve got to engage them. Respond to reviews—good or bad. This activity from your end shows that you care about your audience and will do whatever it takes to make their experience a little better.
Protecting Your Reputation
You have built an excellent online reputation thus far; how do you maintain it? Well, just like any other valuable asset, your reputation needs constant care and maintenance.
- Keep an Eye on Your Brand: Monitor Your Brand
You don’t know how to protect what you didn’t even see coming. Set up Google Alerts for your brand name, for competitors, and for any important terms in your industry. Tools like ‘Brand24 and Mention‘ let you track every mention of your name across blogs, articles, forums, and social media in real-time. When someone says something about you, you’ll know and act appropriately.
Watch out for
- Discussions Of Your Brand: Positive or negative, you must know when the public is discussing you.
- Competitors: Monitor your competitors’ moves so you will have something to benchmark from and eliminate market threats.
- Industry Trends: Keep track of what’s in demand and what’s changing in your industry, as this might affect your reputation.
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You should face the negative comments.
The fact of the matter is bad reviews happen. And when they do, there may be possibly the worst thing you can do, and that is sitting around hoping nobody notices them. Take negative feedback head-on. Make your responses to reviews professional, be willing to apologize for any mistakes you might have made, and offer to make them right.
ReviewTrackers have said that 53% of consumers expect a business to respond in one week to a bad review. Wait no more. Let it show that you do care about complaints from customers and are willing to make the best out of it.
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Protect Your Digital Properties
Your website, social media accounts, or other virtual presence are assets that need to be protected. Ensure you have SSL certificates safeguarding your website and your social media accounts are protected using strong passwords. Don’t wake up one fine morning and find your hackers hijacking your online presence.
Restoring a Ruined Reputation
However, what if your reputation has already suffered some damage? Hold on. That takes time to rebuild, and it is absolutely possible. Here’s how to do just that.
Step 1: Bury Negative Content: Drive lousy press or reviews off the first page of search engines with new positive content. The more you create, the better to push negative results to page two of Google- no one really looks that far down, do they?
- Article Content Creation: Publish articles on good, professional sites. Each new article you produce is a new opportunity to one-up the bad press.
- Video Content Production: YouTube videos are indexed in Google. Valuable video content becomes another way to climb back up over lousy press.
Step 2: Seek Professional Expertise: Sometimes you go nuclear. If your reputation is badly broken—because of scandal, law trouble, or some viral backlash—you will probably want to hire a professional ORM agency. They specialize in helping repair online images through content creation, search engine optimization and, if necessary, even the courts.
Comparison Table: DIY ORM vs. Hiring a Professional Agency
| FACTOR | DIY ORM | HIRING A PROFESSIONAL AGENCY |
| Cost | Low | High |
| Time Commitment | High (pretty much watching and pretty content) | Low (agencies take care of everything) |
| Expertise | Varies (depending on the level of knowledge) | High (ORM agencies specialize in the area) |
| Control | You will have complete control over your strategy | Less control but professional input |
| Results | Slower (it takes time to be implemented) | Faster results with experts’ strategies |
Wrapping It Up: Your Reputation is in Your Hands.
Online Reputation Management as a choice is long over; it’s a must-do. It is something you are doing to save your business, personal brand, or product line. Getting a hang of what the online world is saying about you is an essential step in learning to master online reputation management: that is, develop that online reputation, protect it, and then know how to correct things when they go wrong.
Remember, your name is everything. How do you want to be remembered?