In today’s digital lifestyle of Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, blogs, and the fact that everyone now is seen as a citizen journalist, online reputation management (ORM) is becoming vital for businesses small and large. Businesses are spending their money and time creating their brand and image, but did you know that one negative comment or review can destroy your reputation in 140 characters or less, and destroy everything you have built up?
Proactive online reputation management consists of various digital marketing methods and analysis across various digital mediums. With a proper ORM strategy in place, the impact of negative content and feedback can be reduced online. If you manage your online reputation proactively, a company’s positive content can be established online and this can outweigh one negative comment or one customer’s complaint. You can also use these methods to reach offline clients via word of mouth marketing by developing positive vibes among your customers and this can create brand loyalty.
Monitoring your reputation proactively is part of customer service, digital marketing, and online PR.
Customer service
Creating a personal connection and being responsive online makes customers feel comfortable and at home. This will make them less likely to publicaly dismiss your company in a negative way online. A customer that has received good customer service in real life and online is going to weigh their own positive experiences against the bad recommendations, and they can even become “brand ambassadors” if the loyalty has been made strong enough.
Your customers online can tell others about bad and good customer experiences and might follow, retweet or like your company on their favourite social media channel if they feel that they are emotionally connected to your company.
Digital marketing
Establishing your image and brand are the most basic tenants of your company’s digital marketing efforts. Using imaging and branding to create an identity online can help you develop a good reputation. This will also help negativity from spreading that can affect the search results for your business or brand name. Building up your online reputation starts with imaging and branding on social media channels and can move into blogging and search engine optimization (SEO) to consistently get good and positive rankings on the search engines.
Online PR
A proactive online PR strategy that can help you get in front of possible negative feedback that can damage your online reputation is important in your everyday communications policy. Effective monitoring your reputation online encompassing the monitoring of reputation by tracking relevant keywords, consumer surveys, and mentions on the social web will give you insight into developing a proactive and consistent online PR campaign.
Online reputation management can help you with strategic online messaging and also help you with branding your business online.
Very well said. Online PR and reputation management plays hand in hand and can greatly enhance your online profile.
Thanks Jack. If you think about it, everything works together – social media, SEO, digital PR, ORM, etc.