Don’t you worry about your online reputation and how it is affecting your business, work, or employment? If not, then you should be. Almost everyone on the internet goes through the digital profiles, ratings, reviews, and testimonials of any individual or business before contacting them for any job role or business opportunity. Your digital or online reputation plays a very crucial role in how you or your business is going to perform in the real world.
When a customer posts a negative review about your business, it will be for the whole internet to see and influences other potential consumers against your business. Online reviews, ratings, and brand value impact the purchasing decision of your customers that directly affects your revenue. This is where online reputation management becomes very important that ensures your digital footprint doesn’t damage your online reputation and any future business or employment opportunities.
What is Online Reputation Management?
Online Reputation Management (ORM) refers to the taking control of a business’ or individual’s public image on the internet by addressing negative or false comments and improving the brand value online. It also involves actively monitoring your digital profiles, online mentions, and searches to make sure that people are talking positively about you and your business.
Typically, online reputation management is about cleaning up your digital profiles by monitoring and responding to negative words about your business using different ways and strategies. Unlike the Public relations (PR) that proactively works to strengthen your brand value through media promotions, ORM is most often a reactive strategy that responds to negative views, reviews, comments, and content by other people that are damaging your online reputation. There are a number of reputation management companies with their affordable ORM packages that can work for you to manage and increase your online reputation.
Is it worth it?
Online reputation management can be beneficial in many ways for any business or individual. ORM helps companies maintain a good reputation online to ensure that they will be treated better online. With the growth of your business, its online reputation also changes over time and it is totally worth to change it in a positive way for more success. A good online reputation can benefit your business in the following ways:
- A good online reputation leads to higher trust: People tend to trust a business with a good reputation. A business having positive reviews and testimonials from its customers receives more attention from other potential consumers. This works more effectively than any paid marketing promotion and builds trust around your services and offerings.
- A good online reputation improves your sales and revenue: Companies with good online reputation sell more than their competitors. A positive review of your product or service generates a positive sentiment about your offerings that influence other potential customers to buy or hire your products or services. As your good reputation attracts more business opportunities, your business generates more revenue.
- A good reputation translates into more profit: Companies with a good online reputation spend less on marketing promotions and advertisements to reach out to their targeted audience. This helps them increase their income and profit out of their investment. A positive buzz about their products and services automatically attracts potential customers through different digital platforms.
- Companies with a good online reputation attract better employees: Your good reputation not only attracts customers but also employees who are looking for jobs in your sector. Everyone wants to work in a company with good words and opinions from their customers and employees. There are many ways your employee can post workplace reviews about your company and the perks of working there. This helps you receive more job applications so that you can screen out better employees for your organization.
The above reasons are enough to say that online reputation management is worth the time and money to keep your business reputation in shape for growth and success. It takes care of people’s opinions about your business and makes sure that there would be no serious damage to its reputation.
The Basic Online Reputation Management Strategies
Online reputation management agencies use different ways and strategies to manage and control the brand value and online reputation of a business. Here’re some strategies that you can opt for addressing your concerns related to your online reputation:
Use Google
As more and more people go to Google to search and know about any business or services before making a move, a strong positive presence on Google’s first page can make a difference. Google is like your business card online that can influence people or businesses about doing business with a company. Your strategy must include highlighting the strengths of your business and makes sure it looks good on Google’s search page.
Adding to this, Google recently introduced the ‘People Card’ feature, also known as ‘Add Me to Search’, for individuals and businesses to create their own virtual visiting card on Google. You can read more about this here.
Not only this, but you can also set up Google alerts for your name or business by heading to the Google alert page. This will notify you whenever something is being posted or said about your business or name. This way, you can quickly respond to any negative opinion about your business.
Complete your social media profiles
People also tend to visit the social media pages of a business to take a look at how active and interactive it is with its audience and consumer base. If your business doesn’t exist on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram with a proper bio and motto, people don’t take a minute to make an impression that you are not serious about what you are doing or offering. Your social media pages are the best way to communicate with your customers directly.
Respond right away with empathy
Never ignore your customer’s direct message and negative feedbacks. Respond to them immediately with empathy to make sure that the customer gets a genuine reason or solution for the concerned issue. Customers who don’t get any response from the businesses, start posting negative reviews about them everywhere and this can hurt your online reputation.
Address negativity upfront
Ignoring negative reviews and comments won’t help your cause. People who read online reviews before making any purchasing decision, most of them also read the response of the business to any negative review. When you respond to your unhappy customers, it builds a sense of accountability and lets your potential customers know that you take of their concerns too.
Make your business looks good on the Internet
We all have heard of “your first impression is everything”, that’s why you need to ensure that your business looks good on the internet. The way you and your business appear online says a lot about how serious you are about your services. Make sure to represent your business with some professional-looking photos and positive content that can pay off in the long term.
Whether you are doing it yourself or hiring a professional online reputation management agency, it should be on your priority list. An online reputation management strategy well-placed in your to-do list can help you make the most out of your efforts. It helps you highlight strengths and positives about your business to make it look good on the internet. It is a crucial part of your business strategies to maintain a good reputation online alongside working hard to keep your customers happy.