Ultimate Guide to Online Reputation Management

What is ORM (Online Reputation Management)?

It is about improving  your name or your brand’s name in the market by virtue of positive material found in the internet and defeating, countering the negative material present on the web improving the customer’s trust and reliability on you. It is about controlling the online conversations and feedback which affect the brand name or the organization reputation. It is about finding the right material or the positive material when the customers look up to you on the web.

Why ORM matters?

Company of any size, product or services will get benefited from ORM as this will create a brand value of your company. A bad press can cost you heavy in the form of loss of customer’s base once your reputation got down. Online reviews and discussions have become a part of people’s daily routine. Negative feedback or reviews make them lose trust on the brand name or the company. 

Given below are certain reasons why ORM is critical for a company to remain in demand:

•  Anyone can say anything about you, true or false: it can happen with anyone who has upset anyone like an Ex employee or an employee who got upset over an official matter. These kinds of people can defame you as well as your company by going online. This will not only hurt your reputation but will also prove to be critical for the fellow employees. There are no such strict laws against anyone who does anything like this or to protect the people from this kind of situations.
• Everything is now under preview and is recorded, so beware: Whatever you do in internet whether is searching on search engines or putting up your status on facebook or chatting on snapchat, everything gets recorded on the server. Once anything private or creepy stuff got public this can severely damage your position in the market. Outdated laws which are not synced with technology have helped the hackers to hack different communication media and hurt your online reputation. This will eventually hurt your business or image.
• Good online content: In this digital era, having good and relevant stuff online is very important for the company to succeed. People look up to the website which provides them the correct and relevant information which makes them feel comfortable to find the desired product or query at one place.

   Types of online content which can severely damage your online reputation:

1. Complaints on social media websites: These are such issues which once resolved can give positive impact to the customer. Unless the company has serious issue, it does not pose any problem to the company.
2. Long term threat for the business: Given below are certain threats which can damage your reputation and hurt your business-

• Negative reviews: negative reviews have severs impact on the image of a company. Negative impact affects your sales. Review sites e such platforms where reviews are posted and addressing the criticism does not prove to be enough at that time.
• Hate sites: People sometimes, in order to defame a company or a person or an online store, create ad hoc websites where they give negative feedbacks or post objectionable content about the people or public figure which cost that loss of audience or customer.

    Depending on the scope of the problem several steps can be taken to restore online reputation:

• Review removal: Legal action against any defamatory action can help in removing the false negative content from the website. Other than this speed of reaction too will help you in gaining back the reputation.
• Online investigation: Cyber crime or attacks are handled through online investigation. This is a definitive path to get to the root of the problem and get it fixed.
• Aggressive SEO: If on Google search your company holds rank on page 1 or 2, and if any wrong information or objectionable content has been shown, the first thing you should ask your Online Reputation Management Company to do is create a strategy to focus and increase the ranking of the positive content, owned by you or any third party with you. This step is too important and will help in restoring your image.

     Certain principles to follow which will really contribute in maintaining brand image:

• Earn respect: Trust is something which is hard to gain. For any brand or company gaining trust is the foremost thing. Make people trust you and your brand which will prove to be an asset.
• Quick reaction: Reply on the feedback given by the people in very simple and polite manner. Be prompt in replying and ask the problem in detailed manner so that the customer will get the satisfaction of being enquired properly.
• Address criticism: Don’t try to hide or tell fake stories if someone has criticized you. Face the criticism and try to tell that “there were many opinions on the issue and we are working on it”.
• Learn from mistakes: Do not feel negative after getting negative feedbacks. Try to learn from the feedbacks and resolve the issues. Make your services better for the future. Through this you will get to know more about your audience.

 So, holding a good market reputation is critical for any business to succeed. Keeping in mind the above illustration will really help you in maintaining good Online Reputation.