Online reputation management refers to enhancing businesses, individuals, or organizations’ online presence. Most of the time, ORM should be a positive thing but not every ORM.
It can also increase the potential of really hurting your company or business if you don’t respond in a way that is appealing to the public. That’s negative ORM.
So, what does it take to effectively manage your online reputation? Fortunately, several tools exist.
Utilize Social Listening Tools
You absolutely cannot manage your online reputation if you don’t know when people post about your business or brand.
One way to accomplish this goal is to utilize a social listening tool. This alerts you when your company is being talked about on any online platform, whether it is social media, an online review site, or even in a forum.
This is critical since social media posts can quickly go viral. Therefore, if you are notified that something has been posted that is potentially damaging, you have a greater chance to stop it before it spins out of control.
New Business Social Reputation Building Tool
Every new business struggles on social media in the beginning. Social media marketing (SMM) can be a very good solution for this. SMM panels can provide instant social media followers, links, and comments, which will increase your business’s online reputation and trust among your target customers. To find the best SMM panel in the market, you can do a Google search and check for customer reviews for various cheap SMM panel services.
Consider Purchasing Knowledge Sharing Tools
While it’s not uncommon for your employees to know all of the wonderful things your company does, this type of information doesn’t always extend outside your business walls. That is unless you use a knowledge-sharing tool.
A knowledge-sharing tool is an online program that enables your employees to share positive internal news quickly and easily with their own social media followers, taking that news and spreading it in the outside world.
No more wondering if others will ever know the good your company does because your employees essentially become your brand ambassadors, expanding your online reach.
Boost Your SEO
When managing how your company appears in SERP results, the key is to utilize SEO (search engine optimization) on all your internet-based sites. This includes your website, social media profiles, and any other place your business exists online.
You can hire companies to do this for you or you can do it yourself with the help of an SEO tool. Selecting the best tool possible involves picking one that monitors rankings, conducts a competitor analysis, has integration options, and, if possible, provides data about your individual web pages.
Mind Your Online Security
Security is a huge issue for consumers. If they don’t feel that you’re safeguarding their private information, they won’t want to do business with you out of fear that someone will steal their data and hurt them financially.
With this in mind, a website security scanner can help you determine just how secure your site is.
Putting It All Together
In the end, your company’s online reputation can impact customer acquisition and retention, while also affecting your bottom line. Thus, it’s important to know what others are saying about your business all across the web. That said, though it’s generally a good idea to follow ORM best practices, sometimes you have to be willing to step outside the box.
For instance, in September of 2018, Nike debuted a new campaign featuring NFL quarterback, Colin Kaepernick. Kaepernick was one of the most controversial players at the time due to taking a knee during the national anthem.
Typically, it is recommended that companies avoid controversial subjects such as this. However, this move may actually increase the company’s online sales by 31 percent.
This just goes to show that, if your brand does decide to take a stand on a topic that has everyone up in arms and you do it right, your reputation may just improve because of it.
